You shall have no other gods before me...

The main religion of India is Hinduism, followed by Islam, Sikhism, and Jainism. All of these religions are different in how they were founded and what they believe, but one thing they all have in common is idol worship. In preparation for our trip, our team was told to not be surprised at the vast number of temples to various gods that we will encounter in New Delhi. Idolatry is rampant in this country as these people's hearts are being held captive by false gods. The temptation for us as we go into this context is to look at these people in judgement, wondering how they could put their hopes and dreams and life's goals into a pile of gold. However, if we were to truly examine our own lives, we would find that we do the same thing as these Indians, only our idols are not golden or tangible.

About a month and a half ago, the Lord gave me this strong desire to start reading Ezekiel. Now, I know it had to be the Lord giving me that desire because I've tried reading Ezekiel before and let's just say I was not very successful. But this time, the Lord has opened my eyes to the true meaning of this book. See, Israel, God's chosen people, they struggled in staying committed to God. They worshiped all kinds of things and engaged in all kinds of sinful practices. So, God sent Ezekiel to prophesy to them so that their eyes would be opened to their sinfulness, AND to the unconditional faithfulness of God. (That part's extremely important)

In his book Counterfeit Gods (I highly recommend this), Timothy Keller defines an idol as "anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give." In essence, an idol is anything that we stake our hopes, dreams, ambitions on or spend our lives working towards. I know for me these include marriage, a family, and success in my career to name a few. And none of these are bad things in and of themselves. But, when I start spending my life working towards a successful career, or spend every day dreaming of my wedding, that's when these good things turn bad. They are now capturing my full focus, they are drawing me towards a sense of self-sufficiency and control, and are slowly edging God out of the picture.

I've struggled with how to rid myself of these idols. I know that there are a few of them with which I have struggled for years, and it's frustrating that they still persist. But, the Lord in His grace has shown me recently that there's nothing WE can do in our own strength to tear down these idols. Only He, in His perfect unconditional love, can do that. He draws us near to Him, fills us with His love, reveals His beauty and power in such a way that He is the only thing we are able to focus on. And when we finally allow Him to love us this way, idolatry is no longer even close to being a temptation because we are filled with the only love that can satisfy. And He doesn't just put a little bit of His love in us, He fills us up so full that we don't have room in our hearts for worshiping anything else. HE becomes our life's goal, our ambitions and dreams are staked in seeing His face one day, and our hearts are enraptured by the one true God of the universe. Pray for love like this. Pray for God to capture our hearts again so that the idols we have built for ourselves are no longer able to stand.

Please be praying for me, that the Lord will continue to open my eyes to His truths about this and that He will fill me and tear down my idols before we leave June 3 (which is now on the weather.com 10-day forecast. Oh boy.) Pray for our team, that we will leave fully loving God so that He can work in us over there. Pray that God will speak to these people clearly so that they understand that He is the one true God, and that they will encounter God's love in such a way that all their idols will be cast down in the presence of the Almighty.

Resonance

So...I'm going to India this summer! In 15 days to be exact. I can NOT believe the trip is this close. Seems like just yesterday that I was starting my first year of PT school, looking forward to this blessed 10 weeks off that was still an entire year away, and praying for guidance on where to go on a mission trip during that break. Time sure does fly.

I am so thankful that the Lord has brought me as well as the rest of our team of 14 to this trip. Some of you may be wondering, why India? Trust me, I asked God the same thing, multiple times. Had you asked me this time last year where I would go, I probably would've told you somewhere like Peru or Kenya, somewhere that has beautiful landscapes and aren't so excessively populated. But, God in His sovereignty has brought me to this trip and I cannot begin to explain the change in my heart towards this country and her people.

It is so humbling to see God's power in leading me to this trip. I had been praying for about a year about where to go, and just figured I would know something as soon as I got the list of short-term trips. But when I started scanning the list, I didn't feel led to any one trip. I was a little discouraged, but thankfully got some wise advice from one of the women in my small group at the time. She told me to start praying through the trip options using my Operation World book so that I would have more information on the locations. I did that for a couple of days and still, nothing. I began questioning if going through my church was even what the Lord wanted, but then I got to India. As soon as I opened the pages to India, there was that feeling I had been expecting. Now, this is not to say that God isn't speaking if you don't get a certain feeling. But this time, it was undeniable. It was like putting 2 tuning forks side by side--India just resonated with me. And that's when I knew the Lord was taking me to this place halfway around the world that I had never even thought twice about.

This process of God leading me to this trip has taught me so much. I have truly come to see that His timing is always perfect. He could've told me where He wanted me to go when I first prayed about it, or even before that, because He is all powerful and all knowing. But He waited. He kept me from knowing because that made me seek Him out even more. This made me look back at all the times He's answered me with "wait" and see how, in my frustration, I completely missed the point. I want answers immediately, but the "wait" could very well be intended to make me (and you, all of us) draw closer to the heart of the one true God. I've also seen God's grace in even allowing us, His children, to go on trips like this to share His Gospel with the lost. God doesn't need us. 1 Corinthians 1:25-31 tells us that. We are foolish, weak, low, and despised, yet God desires to include us in His plan. So we go. We go where He leads us and we allow Him to use us to accomplish His purposes. And we know that He is faithful to complete them.

Please be praying for our team, as well as me individually. We will be gone June 3-12. Pray that the One true God will make His name known and His glory great among these people who worship thousands of gods daily. Pray their eyes will be opened to the Truth and that they will experience God's love through us. And pray that we will be humble servants, taking the Gospel boldly to these people through the power of the Holy Spirit within us. I'll be writing a few more times before we go, as well as while we're there (hopefully), so follow along if you want to hear what all God is doing through us in India!

Culture of Distraction

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to lose your focus on things? Maybe its just me, but I have not been able to focus on anything lately, especially school (which is quite unfortunate). There are always so many other things to do that are more entertaining and appealing than learning about the sympathetic nervous system or the pathology of inflammation. I know, it sounds difficult to find something more fun than that. Trust me, it's possible. So, this got me thinking, how many times do I try to find something more entertaining and appealing than following God?

In the book Crazy Love, Francis Chan explores how much our God loves us yet how hard we run away from it most of the time. I absolutely love this book, you should read it. In the first chapter, he says "In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him." When I first read that, my defenses went up immediately. 'I don't have to remind myself of God, He's always on my mind.' Then I started thinking about it and realized that that is unfortunately very far from the truth. I consistently, daily let numerous things distract my attention from the Lord including school, friends, and family. I look back and see how grossly distracted I was when I had a boyfriend, and praise God that He rescued me from that. I had made that relationship my god, completely disregarding the fact that our God will not be ignored or made second best.

"But I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Saviour except me. I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me." Hosea 13:4-6

When times are hard, it's easy to turn to the Lord because we know He'll come get us out of the mess we've made for ourselves. However, it's when times are easy, when nothing is really challenging the lives we've made for ourselves, that seems to be when it's also easiest to get distracted. We begin to fill ourselves with all the pleasures of this world, nonchalantly turning our backs on the Lord who has brought us out of our own Egypts. It isn't a conscious choice, more of a decision to follow passively instead of actively. If we were to use the "swim upstream" analogy, most of the American church is floating downstream. We want to swim against the current, but that is really difficult and exhausting, so we become content to just float along, allowing the river to take us wherever it goes. . Sadly, most of the time that river takes us further and further away from the passionate pursuit of our God. All credit for this thought goes to Francis Chan, page 95 of Crazy Love

But, no matter how far we float away from Him, God will not let us go. He always comes back from us, rescuing us from the currents of idolatry and greed and everything else we let overtake our minds. Like Paul wrote in Romans "[nothing] else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God will not let us go Thanks Matt Redman no matter how hard we run from him or pursue other things. There is nothing worth saving in us, yet God looks past our dirt, seeing only His righteousness covering us, and steps in to save the day. Meaning us. From ourselves. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty glad I serve a God who passionately pursues us despite our worthlessness and filth. I'm so grateful that He wants to overwhelm us with His crazy love.

"The wildest part is that Jesus doesn't have to love us. His being is utterly complete and perfect, apart from humanity. He doesn't need me or you. Yet He wants us, chooses us, even considers us His inheritance (Ephesians 1:18). The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time." Francis Chan, Crazy Love

It's the little things

In all the craziness that is life these days, it's really easy to focus on all the huge things happening and miss the small blessings that God brings, like a best friend. I've been acutely reminded of the importance of such a relationship the past couple of days. Who else can you completely be yourself with other than a best friend? She won't care if you eat raspberry sherbet straight out of the carton or still can't figure out how to cook rice right. She doesn't judge you when you need to watch Monsters, Inc. after a scary movie before you can sleep, or when you always have to have dessert after dinner. She has a crazy way of getting you to do a lot less homework, but still become better for it. She lets you watch college football all day long on Saturdays in the fall, and even digs out an old radio so you can listen to the Alabama game when Charter's on the blink again (even though she's an avid Auburn fan). She does crazy things like put on all the accessories she can grab in your room including a swim cap, or walk out on the porch in a towel wrap to check the weather. No matter the gravity of a situation, she can always find the joy in it, and has an uncanny ability to always make you laugh. She is so strong and independent, yet gracious in accepting help when she finally realizes she needs it and that you're not going to leave her alone until she takes it. She thinks tanning oil works as well as sunscreen and can't work an ironing board or a phonebook despite being a genius. She can work a map like a champ though, which will save your butt when you travel in Europe with her. She says all these off-the-wall sayings expecting you to know exactly what she's talking about ("know what I mean, Vern?") when I'm pretty sure she and her grandma are the only people in the world who know what they mean. Even though you know she's strong, she surprises you daily with the grace and elegance with which she accepts every trial that is thrown her way. You're both so much alike that it almost doesn't make sense that you could be best friends, yet you can't imagine being closer with anyone else. All you can do is sit back and praise the Lord that He shows us His love through best friends, and that He was gracious enough to give this one to you. You've already encountered and conquered many many adventures together, especially over the past 6 months, but apparently another 6 months are coming and thankfully, you get to face them together. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Firehose

A lot about life right now seems a tad overwhelming. On our first day of PT school in January, one of the second years warned us that this whole first year we'll feel like we are standing in front of a fire hose turned all the way up when all we wanted was a sip of water. They were definitely right. At the time, I didn't realize that the Lord intended for my fire hose to blast across every aspect of my life, shaking up the world I had haphazardly built for myself. (Praise the Lord that He saves us from ourselves!) In the midst of the inundating blast that has been the past few weeks, He refreshed me this morning with a "nice walk" through the 23rd Psalm (a "walk" according to Dr. Platt. I was still scribbling furiously trying to write down all the amazing truths presented). It's probably my favorite sermon ever, mainly because I could see the Lord looking directly at me, reminding me that He is greater than anything I could ever fear. You should listen to it.

After his family, crops, animals, and property have all been taken from him, Job says, "The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised" (1:21). Now come to Psalm 23:1 "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Dr. Platt said that most of the time, our struggles are a result of lack, but God our Father promises here that He will provide for us always. "I shall not want." Ever. Though He does take away, God never stops giving. He just gives to us in different ways, ways that He knows are best but that we don't always recognize. In the midst of great pain, He gives peace. In the midst of sadness, He gives joy. In the midst of hurt He gives comfort. Out of His great goodness, He never stops giving to us, but in my selfishness I look for the wrong gifts. I have to stop staring in shock at the gap left by what He's taken away, fearing that it may never be filled. Instead, I focus on Him, allowing Him to come and fill that hole as only He has the power to do.

Our God comes to us when we are in the depths of our valleys, longing to draw us into Himself and raise us up in our weakness. In His great mercy, He keeps giving to us, leaving us nothing to fear. And He doesn't just give to us, He leaves us completely satisfied yet longing still for more of Him. Eventually, we will be restored and strengthened (told you I love I Peter 5:10), but until He says its time for that, we rejoice in the valley for He is with us, surrounding us with His loving arms where we are safe and fulfilled. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow.

For I will be with thee, thy trouble to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."

Never thought I'd be a blogger...

What do you do when the world you know, love, and are extremely comfortable in suddenly starts crumbling? Well, after crying out to the Lord, apparently you start a blog? I have been considering starting a blog for some time now, initially to chronicle my struggle with trusting the Lord to wait to get engaged to my boyfriend of 3 years. How quickly things change! Now that that relationship is behind a closed (slammed, locked, and barred) door, I'm beginning to see all the wonderful things the Lord has been wanting to teach me that I've been ignoring the past 2 years because I was too wrapped up in a boy's love to notice the God of the universe chasing after me. To try and write all the lessons the Lord has shown me over the last 4-5 weeks would take too much time and would be so long that no one would want to read it, so I'll try to keep it short and sweet.

Basically God has shown me that He is far stronger than what I tend to believe. To be able to go through every day feeling His comforting arms around me is indescribable. To open His Word and feel His peace surrounding me or to listen to a song and hear His promises is humbling. For my first reaction to a broken heart to be to cry out in thanksgiving to God makes me realize the strength He bestows on us through His Holy Spirit. He longs to draw us to Himself while we're in the depth of our weakness. How can our God, the Creator of the universe and King of all Kings want to love me, teach me, draw me closer to Himself? There is absolutely nothing in me worth redeeming, especially after the way I've ignored Him, run away from Him, and put so many other things before Him. Yet He still redeems me. He picks me up out of the dirt I've been living in, cleans me off, clothes me in His whitest clothes, and wipes every tear from my eye, promising His ways are better than mine and that He is more than worthy of all my trust.

Hosea 13:4-6 says "But I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me." When I read this verse, I knew that I was Israel. The Lord has provided for me in countless ways in the past, but when I am satisfied and things are going well, I forget Him. How can He even want to bring me back to Him at this point? Praise His name, His love is unconditional and eternal. He is a jealous God who will not be ignored or pushed aside to worship another. He will get the glory and worship He deserves, and will turn your life upside down in order to do so. If you had told me 2 months ago that I would be single again, thankful for it, and able to list 20 reasons why the relationship was wrong for me, I would have definitely laughed at you. That seemed impossible. Yet the Lord in His unwavering goodness and grace has brought me to that point. It is definitely a daily struggle not to succumb to the devil's attempts to make me believe I am not worth it or good enough to ever be loved again, but when the Lord is on your side, you know the stupid devil has already been defeated. I am looking forward to the weeks and months ahead. Though I know many tears and dark days are in store, I also see the light that only the Lord can provide, bringing me hope and excitement and pure joy. It shines far brighter than any of the darkness satan can throw at me. Praise the Lord, He has already won and we fight from a place of victory, knowing our God reigns.

There is so much more to say and praise Him for, but I guess I'll save it for another time. Please remember that this blog has been started as way for me to chronicle the lessons the Lord brings to me through this time. These thoughts are personal, and I risk making myself very vulnerable, so please respect that. I pray that the Lord will use His word and His lessons that are being revealed to me to help others going through similar struggles.

I Peter 5:10 "And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast."