the body

We're taught it from an early age ...things like 'don't compare yourself to others', and 'God created us all different for a reason'. But what do we do as we grow up .... we compare! We want what someone else has or we start thinking less of ourselves if what they are doing appears better.

Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, "I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand," that does not make it any less a part of the body... If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear...?

But our bodies have may parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, "I don't need you." 

God is doing a lot through my life, yes, and I love it! But what I hate to see is others looking at what I am doing and comparing themselves. They look at my life and somehow feel less productive, less worthy. First of all, not only is that extremely not fair but what are we telling God when we allow those thoughts to plant in our hearts? I am speaking to myself just as much as I am to anyone else but I want everyone to to be doing a heart check when it comes to our gifts. Let's spend more time asking God if we're doing all that He's asked us to do and less time thinking our gifts aren't quite good enough. If we remembered how much God is able to do though us, we would work at it everyday, tirelessly... working together as a team for His forever kingdom.

I need your help, but not like that.

Again and again, this keeps coming up and it's still not sitting right with me. it's the same story ... you get to know someone with a deep need (education, acceptance, finances, love, employment, etc.). Your heart feels for them, you know that it can be better, you know there are ways to help them out of this bind. So you offer a hand, you offer advice, whatever you can do to be their support so that they can succeed in this. But after a week, or a couple months maybe, you come to find out something that alerts you. They start ignoring your suggestions and the offers you've given that aren't easy enough. You find out that they don't really want it unless it's free and they don't have to work for it. Then you become cynical. You become okay with saying, "I'll only help those who are willing to help themselves." And that makes sense in our minds, because I can't do everything for everyone I know who wants me to do life for them.

I believe that they truly want their situation to be different... but for them, it's climbing a jagged mountain that, for you, might only be a little hill. They have so much going against them; lack of education, ignorant support system, lack of self discipline from a young age, etc. But what should we do? I know I can't help them all, and even trying to help one might be so draining. But does that mean I completely let them go once they stop caring enough to change on their own?

"Sometimes you have to give up on people. Not because you don't care, but because they don't"

That's the quote that I've heard spoken by someone I really respect. I have a hard time accepting that as something Jesus would do but the funny thing is, that's almost exactly what happened to me with my foster daughter. She didn't care, I could do nothing for her. I had the hardest time allowing myself to be okay with "giving up on her". But I really believe God allowed the situation to happen the way it did because she just didn't care.

So is this something that we take to God on a case by case basis and see what He has to say? My first thought is that Jesus wouldn't say that line to anyone. But then I think of the rich, young ruler. He knew that he needed to love God but in order to do that, he needed to do something that was SOO hard for him, almost impossible-seeming. All Jesus did was tell the man what he already knew. Jesus didn't hold his hand and go to his house and help him organize a "sell pile" of all of his things. Jesus knew the man could physically do that himself, and that he actually had to be the one to make that call. Jesus couldn't do it for him. So that makes sense to me. But my heart still breaks for my neighbors who may have either some form of mental illness or lack of wise upbringing. They don't have all the tools to make these decisions. They may be so wounded and broken that they need additional assistance.

I'm still not settled on a clear response to this situation I see over and over again. But I do continue praying for wisdom from the Holy Spirit. I know He will guide and remind me of all the things that Jesus taught. I know I'll probably mess up in my efforts to help the needy ... but that's okay. I need to love them and never stop. Love will look different for each of my neighbors, but they still need it. They need Jesus and He's asked me to point them to Him so I pray that if nothing else, I will always be faithful in that.

Kingdom Playgrounds by Robert Lupton

I want to share a chapter from one of my absolute favorite books, Theirs is the Kingdom - Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America by Robert Lupton.

Kingdom Playgrounds

     There they sit, row after row of remarkably gifted grown-ups.Dressed in proper Sunday attire, they are waiting. Waiting for the minister to step to the microphone with words to ignite them. Hoping that this Sunday he will challenge them to more than a capital funds campaign for the new family life center. They wait, these talented ones, for words to stir them, to drive them from their comfort to challenges worthy of their best. Perhaps today they will hear the call to tasks of greater significance than their own personal success or the growth of their church.
     An architect, a CPA, a surgeon, and seven other professionals file down the center aisle. They bow for prayer, then dutifully fan out with the offering plates to collect a cut of the profits from the marketplace. With the exception of a CEO from an international trade organization who reads the morning scripture, ushering is the most noticeable role that lay leaders fill.
     Less visible are the real estate developers, insurance brokers, and educators who serve on church committees. But there they sit, a people with the nature and the gifts of the Divine, fully equipped with every skill and ability necessary to tackle the complex problems of the world. Although domesticated by their culture, they long for the courage to throw off the obligations of consumerism and spend themselves for the God who has called them.
     Outside the stained glass windows, beyond the parking lot, toward the skyline where most of the gifted ones make their living, there is a place that churns with the challenges of eternity. It is the burgeoning center into which the peoples and perplexities of our shrinking globe pour. A place filled with adventure and intrigue, it calls out for the full investment of every gift entrusted to God's chosen ones. It is the city.
     Amidst the chaos of its crowds and the ominous power of its structures, there exists a small, nearly invisible pockets of vigorous, healthy growth. In old storefronts and empty warehouses of decaying communities, gifted ones are finding each other. Called from different places by the same voice, they are joining hands and hearts to take on the overwhelming problems of the city. In the process they are creating kingdom playgrounds.
     Strange things happen in kingdom playgrounds. Adults become children and learn to play again. They bring their best tools and talents (the toys of the kingdom) and dream together. They invent ingenious methods to feed and clothe the poor, methods that enhance rather than destroy. They create new economies in destitute neighborhoods, and build homes and businesses and hope where despair has reigned.
     In these kingdom playgrounds, impossibilities become probabilities and visions become reality. Here children discover the secrets of how kingdom magic really works.
     In kingdom playgrounds God's children play with great intensity. At times they may grow weary, but they are never bored. They learn that their gifts, which they once thought were useful only for making money in the marketplace, are actually the exact abilities needed to work in God's kingdom. In these unlikely places, God's children discover that the serious work of eternity is simply the joyful employment of the talents they desire most to express.
     The gifted ones are standing up now. Doctrine has been masterfully restated, the large Bible on the pulpit has been closed, a proper benediction pronounced. The one-hundred-member choir sings an impeccably harmonious AMEN and all the responsible, gifted adults file out. They return once again to their adult obligations, not knowing that they were never created to be adults anyway: "Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 18:3).

Have You Lost Your Love?

Have You Lost Your Love? from Desiring God on Vimeo.

The pains and the hunger of this world don't stop so I can go to church once a week, spend a year in Bible school, or a few years going through seminary. The sinners don't change their path to the Lord's way while I'm fellowshipping with other believers. How can we, like the disciples, balance loving God and loving others?

first mother's day

yeah... that pretty much says it all.

at the beginning of the journey, we can not even fathom the rewards He has planned if only we will trust and obey.