What Is In Your Backpack of Plans?

Apr 23, 2011

Working in Web, I have the privilege to watch so many ideas form and get put into play through developmental meetings and such. Plans to improve the way we do things now to better suit what we are trying to get across to people. In my mind I find myself thinking, “Wow! This will be awesome! Maybe this has to happen first before Jesus comes back….” but then I realized…that’s a very common thought that I have. It takes many forms, like maybe I’ll get married before He comes back, or maybe I have to live on my own before He comes back, or maybe I’ll grow old before He comes back, etc.

But no…He could come back ANY SECOND! No one knows the time or season. Which makes me wonder…

Am I okay with leaving behind those plans, those ideas? Am I holding these ideas above my joy of Jesus’ return? Feels kinda like parable of the servant that’s waiting for the masters return and the servant that’s too busy to care. I keep thinking, I’ll get this done before He returns, but I never know WHEN He will return, so why do I fuss about making plans and then looking forward to those plans when I should be looking forward to Christ’s return?

I think that’s just one of the many lies of the enemy that I was fooled into thinking and believing. But I am learning to rebuke the enemy when I think thoughts like that to get my focus more on Christ and His return than my “plans for the future and make things better ideas”

Jesus is coming back. Soon! I need to get my focus off of myself, and look more towards what God is doing. Look at the growth of the church in Asia, in Africa… God is moving so miraculously, and I’m more focused on what the future holds for me than what God wants me to do right now for His glory. Time is short. We don’t have much longer. We need to get our act together and share the Gospel at any opportunity.

Praying for you all! I hope this encouraged you to step out like it has for me.

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When Pigs Have it Better Than You

Apr 11, 2011

Francis Chan, author of Crazy Love, recently came to share at our Gospel For Asia office in Dallas. I have been so blessed in the last year by his books and messages!

He drew a thought from the story of the prodigal son with which I could really identify. When the son was hungry and tired of where his foolishness had gotten him, he decided to go back to his father as a servant. Even the pigs he was taking care of had it better than him! He knew that he had blown it as a son, there was no question about that. But just maybe his father would allow him to work for some food. What a surprise he had when his father interrupted his apology to welcome him back as a beloved son!

Just so with our Father. “Wherefore you are no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:7) Like the prodigal son, we sometimes think “I messed up this son/daughter thing, maybe if I’m offer myself as a slave, He’ll take me back.” We try to prove something to God, trying to be holy for a couple of weeks before being intimate with Him. But I’m not a slave. I’m His girl! I don’t need to beg! He’s just waiting to lavish his love on me! What a Father!

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Cast Out Your Line and Reel In An Answer To Prayer!

Apr 8, 2011

A few weekends ago, I had the privilege to go camping with some other Gospel For Asia staff members. It was an awesome weekend and I learned a lot, and in some ways that I never expected to learn them. Here’s what I learned.

Some of us went fishing. The patience required is much like when you’re waiting on the Lord. You cast your line, in faith, and you wait. You don’t know what’s next, or what’s going on below the water. You just have to be prepared for what could happen next. God’s given us a whole book of instruction, and we even have the instructor living inside of us! We need to be ready and prepared to act when God says to go. Back to fishing… If you get a catch that’s like an answer to prayer, you need to then reel it in so it doesn’t get off the hook, Likewise, even if you don’t get a catch, that’s yet another answer to prayer, you then have to reel in your line and re-cast. God knows what you need, when you need it. So don’t be disappointed when you don’t get the “catch” you want, and when you want it…

I also learned a lot about trust. During the weekend, we went rock climbing and ended up stranded on top of a 35 foot rock formation in the dark. So I learned to trust people that I don’t know very well and it was scary at first, but after a while I learned that I am safe with the rope and harness and someone who knows what they’re doing up top. God’s provided us with all that we need for the tasks He gives to us. He doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle in His strength. That’s like our rope and harness, and God’s up top knowing exactly what He’s doing, all He needs us to do is sit back, and trust Him to get us to our destination safely.

God is good isn’t He? 🙂

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The Truth to Defeat a Lie!

Mar 22, 2011

Lately I’ve had this thought come racing through my mind at various occasions and I know for certain that it’s one of satan’s many lies that he throws at me. One thing I know about myself, is that I am a people pleaser. I try to make people laugh at any opportunity that I get. And I want to have their approval. And it hurts me when someone is upset or frustrated at me. I get the feeling that I’m not wanted, that no one cares, and that I should just stop trying to be a part of people’s lives because I end up ruining them in the long run. But that’s not true!

But often times I find it so hard to NOT think that way. I find it easy to say to myself “yeah, listen to what satan’s saying, you know it’s true, you’d be better off living alone and not hurt your friends worse than you already have” and that makes me want to cry. But then, in the back of my mind, I get little glimpses of truth. Praise the Lord, He’s been teaching me to recognize those little glimpses as His Holy Spirit, who lives inside my heart, trying to pull me back into His loving embrace. Thank you Lord!

Now when I have these thoughts I try to take that thought captive, give it to the Lord, and say “God, You are greater than this. I do NOT have to accept this feeling, because You led me here, to this exact moment, and You have a plan for me.” Romans 8:28. God uses ALL things for good. And that includes rotten feelings, depression, and the guilt we feel for letting someone down.

But then, there is also another way that satan will try to attack our minds. He will twist the truth ever so slightly to where you accept that as truth and simply move on. Like for example, suffering. Yes, I mean all kinds of suffering, anything from the loss of a loved one, to your own physical ailments. We are in a battle brothers and sisters, and through this battle we will have our crosses to bear, but we DO NOT have to accept those crosses as a forever cross to bear. Our God is greater than our suffering. If you pray to Him in faith and believe He can save you, then He will. Don’t just sit there in agony and say “well… this is my burden that I have to bear then, it hasn’t gotten better now, so I guess it never will…blah blah blah”

I used to believe that lie of the enemy. I have trouble sleeping, and I have some health issues as well. I used to count that as my suffering that I would just have to live with while serving the Lord. But while I was listening to a message the other day, God told me clear as a bell, that He is greater than that. I don’t have to just sit here accepting my lack of sleep and illness as something that’s going to stay with me for life. I fully believe God is capable of healing me. So I will pray and believe that He will. I’m not going to sit here letting satan tell me God can’t, when nothing, I repeat, NOTHING is impossible for God.

Brothers and sisters, let’s take up our crosses each day, yes, and pray that God will relieve us of our burdens in His own timing. It may not happen right away, but it will happen.

God is good, ALL the time.
as one of my leaders here says “Jesus loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

 

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The Sleeping Giant

Mar 18, 2011

I look around me today and I just can’t believe it. It seems the older I get and the more I understand about the world around the more I just can’t believe the things that human beings do to themselves and one another. Wicked, how deeply wicked are we that live in this current age where already the wheels are turning, and have been turning, to call good evil and evil good. We are so backward in all that we are and do and we are asleep, hypnotized, if you will, by the world around. Do we not care; do we not see where we are going? Could we even begin to turn the ship around even if we wanted too? All the more it seems that I see the signs for the end. I have no way of knowing when the Lord will return. A hundred years, ten years, a month, a week, a day, or a minute. I know that He is coming and I pray that He will come soon.

When will my soul awaken to God’s calling? When will Americans and the church at large awake out of their sleep? I want to wake up, but I so love my sleep, I want to dream and have my own life, but that is not God’s calling. I am to live for Him and His kingdom! When will you awake oh my soul within me? When will you give up your rights and serve God with a passion and zeal that would mirror that of the early church? When??? Why do you sleep? Awake and see the lost world around you and see the lost and hurting.

Oh that God would be my all, can I not lay down my rights for the One who created me.

 

 

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