Take two

So I've been learning a lot lately about how things don't always go as I had planned them. Someone told me once that every time you make a 5-year plan God throws you a curve ball. I am learning more and more how true this is. I'm learning that walking by faith means trusting that God has so much more for me than a 5-year plan. That He has a future for me where I live a life of fullness. Living each day trying to control or manipulate or figure out my own life is pointless, frustrating, detrimental even. But looking moment by moment to Him and living in His plans will bring me freedom from being responsible for my own tomorrows, and confident that my life will be all He designed it to be.

But this lesson isn't easy. I have made many plans for my life through the years. I've lived with expectations, with goals, with dreams of what I thought life should look like. And times have come and gone where I felt like I've failed in some goal, or fallen short in my accomplishments, or missed out on something I expected to come. Often this makes me try harder, fight tougher, manipulate and control things to try to stuff my current situation into the framework of my own flawed ideas for how things should be. You see, I read recently that God is most powerfully present even when he seems most apparently absent. So instead perhaps I should have been accepting this deviation from my own plan as God's message that it is not my plans, but His that will guide my life. He told me that He has plans to prosper me, to give me hope and a future. So why should I try to force my life to fit some picture my small, earthly brain envisioned?

But it can be heartbreaking to let go of a dream, frustrating to fall short of a goal, disappointing to experience an unmet expectation. Sometimes our ideas of life seem so good, so happy, so perfect, that we want to believe they came straight from Him. We want to see them come to fruition, to let them play out the way we imagine them to. And when we get the message, no matter how clear, that this isn't exactly how God planned it, we can have trouble letting go of what we believed was our destiny. We can let our circumstances cause us to question God... "why CAN'T I have it this way God?" "Can't you see that this would make me happy?" "What else could be better than this, just let me do it my way!" One response is to blame God, to pull away, to pull into ourselves and avoid hearing His message. But I learned recently that we have the opportunity to chose intimacy with God over our circumstances in every situation. Only in letting go of our own ideas and turning to God, truly trusting Him, drawing into Him, and letting Him lead the way, can we be free from our own disappointment.

Our other problem is that we want to hide. We don't want anyone to see that we failed. We don't want to admit that we had misguided dreams or unrealistic expectations. We want to put the happy face on for the world, and pretend like we have it all together. We want everyone around us to think we are already walking in the peace and confidence that we can only dream of. So we hide, we cover up, we bear our burdens alone. We don't talk about our dreams, especially when they are shattered. We don't share our hurts or or hopes, we don't admit our weaknesses or our wounds. We fight vulnerability and we pretend to need noone. But we can't ever expect to build authentic community with other believers without opening up our hearts, tearing down the walls, and living openly. Once we admit that we've had broken dreams, it frees everyone around us to admit that they have too. It opens up a pathway of communicaton that can only draw us closer together. And God wants community here on earth. He wants us to help one another, to draw from each other's strengths, to support and encourage each other. He said a cord of three strands is not easily broken. In breaking down the walls and entwining our hearts with other believers we can become stronger in our faith.

He loves me outrageously

So another year of MOPs comes to a close today. We had our final MOPs meeting this morning in the form of a fantastic waffle brunch with some amazing time of fellowship and sharing. As we bid farewell to this year, we also bid farewell to our precious mentor mom, Beth. Beth has been an amazing source of genuine, authentic, God-inspired love and support to every one of us this year. She has blessed us over and over again with her wisdom and her messages (that have often spoken straight into the depths of my heart), and beyond that with her true love and concern for each of us. She will be missed tremendously... but she didn't leave without blowing our minds (and speaking to my soul) one last time. And this time she didn't even use her own words. She shared two videos with us, but the one that really shook me up was one with words by Graham Cooke from "Inheritance." In this powerful message I was reminded that God loves me 100%. He loves me exactly as I am, right now. Not the way I want to be, not the way I see myself. But just as I am. He won't love me any more or any less if I change the way that I am, or look, or act. He loves me 100%. Not because of anything I've done. There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more, and nothing I can do that will make Him love me less. Isn't that amazing? He loves me 100%... because He loves me, because He loves me, because He loves me. Because it is His nature to love. He loves me with a radical love that I can not even understand, He loves me outrageously, and He wants me to overflow with that outrageous love and love Him back. But, and this is the part that really struck me, I can only love Him as much as I love myself. Wow.... what terrible limits to set on the outrageous love I could otherwise give back to Him. How can I let my own insecurities and negative self images stand between me and loving my God, who loves me 100%, outrageously, because He just DOES. But the good news is that He wants to set me free from myself. Graham reminds me that God wants to free me from how I see myself, from the smallness of my thinking about myself, from shame, and low self esteem, and despair... He wants to break down every barrier and in His love, to make me feel good about myself.

How amazing is that message? That my God- who has plenty to keep Him busy, wants to take the time to delight in me. He makes Himself available to me, completely, any day, all the time, in every way. He wants to hold me close, to shake up my world, to chase away the things that hold me back. He wants me to call on Him, so that He can shower me with his 100%, unconditional, always in abundance love. Because He just loves me. And in the self loathing, in the despair, in the sorrow that I allow myself to wallow in, I am only cheating Him by limiting the love I can return to Him. I am hurting Him by not appreciating and rejoicing in His love and His delight in me. And if only I will allow Him in, He'll chase away all of the fear, dobut, insecurity, and pain. He'll fill me up as only He can, and He'll show me how to receive His outrageous love. He'll widen my ability to acecpt it, and He'll expand my area to share it. And His outrageous, life-changing love will flow freely through me, in a way I have yet to even imagine. Wow.

Dreams

So I've been thinking lately about dreaming. About how wonderful it is to imagine the things God has in store, to anticipate and eagerly await the wonders that He has planned for us. Not to forget about the joys of today, but to rest in the promises that tomorrow will come anew and that His love for us and his joy for us will grow with each day. But there is an inherent problem here for me. You see, too often in this world my dreams turn quickly into hopes. I start to imagine how I would see my future- what I would choose for my tomorrow, and my dream turns into a hope for that specific thing or situation. Any sign that this hope may be fulfilled excites me, encourages me, fuels my desire. And soon my hopes turn to expectations. Expectations that my plan for the next step will come to fruition, that my desires will be met in the way I think they should be, that my agenda will be followed as I set it. Then the tide turns, my expectations go unmet, my hopes unfulfilled, and my dreams that once brought me joy and anticipation now bring me nothing more than disappointment and despair. My heart breaks, my hopes are shattered, I question my worth, my abilities, even my security in God's promises. And I'm left pondering if it was ever worth dreaming to begin with...

But the problem is not in the dreaming. You see, I believe that God wants us to dream. He wouldn't have promised us hope, a future, joy, life to the fullest if He didn't want us to believe that it would come, look forward to it with anticipation and excitement. But for me I think the problems start when I begin to replace my dreams of God's plans with hopes in my own ideas. When I start thinking I can see past the next minute, when I start pretending I have any control over what tomorrow will bring, when I start setting up my own guidelines for how that joy should look or how that fullness should feel. Once I have put my hopes in my own ideas, then I am walking outside of His promises. I am expecting something that He never told me He'd give. And worse, this often involves putting my hopes and expectations into something or someone here on this earth. And I've learned too many times that we are all human. We WILL all fail. I will fail, and so will everyone I come into contact with. Only God is God, and when I start putting hope in things or people instead of fully in Him I WILL be let down. I will fall, because the things of this earth were not meant to hold me up. People will come and go. They will surprise, and encourage, and love, and lift up. But they will also fail. Because only God can hold the gigantic expanse of my insecurities. Only God can fill the enormous void in my heart. Only God can heal the depths of my wounded soul.

So I'm praying hard right now. My initial response is to just give up, stop dreaming. To settle for the mundane, never hoping for "fullness." For if we never dream we can never be disappointed. It is safe to just accept things as they are, to just "get by" and never take the risk for something more. It has worked before, for me and for many others in this life. But no matter how many times I try to ignore the dreams, they still stir in my heart. God brings them back to the surface, whispers gently to me, nudges me to delight in them. I'm praying that I would learn to dream without allowing my own hopes and expectations to take over. To dream only of what God reveals to me, to continually gaze into His eyes as he slowly tells me the story of my life, to hold tight to His hand as He walks (and sometimes dances) me through it. For only in letting go of the responsibility of making my own agenda can I relax and enjoy the one He has already made for me. And I'm quite sure that His is much more fun anyway.

Right?

So what defines right anyway? I mean, in most situations that we face in this life there are many different approaches we could take, many various decisions we could make, and several potential outcomes that could be realized. And sure, there are some societal expectations for what is acceptable or good, or conversely unacceptable or frowned upon. But when you really think about it, who defines what is the "right" answer in any situation? Who gets to choose which road is the best one, which outcome is the correct one. And is there really a "correct" answer to most of what we face in life? I'm starting to realize as I get deeper into this life God gave me, that we don't get to decide for anyone but ourselves. I mean, really: who knows the intricate details of any given situation as well as the person(s) involved? Who knows the past influences that each party is affected by, who knows the current challenges that each one faces, who knows the future hopes, dreams, fears that rest on a decision except the one(s) making it. So we can look from the outside of someone else's choice, and we can label it "wrong" or "bad" or any other adjective (including "right" or "smart") all we want. But do we have the authority to judge anyone else? You see, I am learning more personally that the right to judge really doesn't exist here on this earth. God is the one who is in control. He is the only one who knows the plans He has for us, and how they will come to be. He is the one who gave us the free will to make choices, and He is the only one who sits on His throne with the authority to judge our actions.

So I pray now that as I see decisions people have made or are making, that I would be slow to judge, quick to accept, and persistent in loving no matter what the outcome or affect on my life. But moreso, I pray that as I face decisions, choices, changes, that God would hold me close to His heart. That I would look only to Him for guidance in my actions, that I would seek affirmation only in His love, approval only in His law, and that I would yield only to His judgement as each decision passes. For only He knows the deepest desires of my heart, only He can see the darkest corners of my soul, only He knows where He is leading me and the joyful, glorious future He has planned for me. And only He can decide how I will get there. I pray that He brings me through, protected and strong, to the joy and peace that He has waiting for me on the other side of this life.

Fly a kite...

Life is sailing along, like a kite soaring in the breeze. Sometimes I feel like I'm flying higher than I ever dreamed, caught up in a glorious gust, looking out over the beautiful world, the wind rushing by me and the sun on my back. Then, in an instant the wind shifts, the swell slows, and the kite starts to dive. Sometimes just a little dip, perhaps a fun little spin or two, and then back up to soaring height. Other times a full nose dive ensues... my kite plummeting dangerously towards the sandy beach below, holding tight to the string that both keeps it grounded and helps it soar. But my God is faithful, and just as a crashing impact with the hard ground seems inevitable, the wind shifts again, He blows life into the folds of the kite, and the nose turns upward to soar once again. His grace appears fresh and new, the wind lifts and spreads the fabric, and my kite sails upwards into the breezes of hope, joy, and faith.

Sometimes my faith feels as fragile as that tiny kite string seems, holding the kite as it flies higher and higher. It provides the stability against the wind that keeps the kite high in the air. It provides the tether, the anchor that keeps me from floating aimlessly into the clouds. Yet it is so much smaller than it seems it should be. I would rather hold on to a thick, tough rope, something that would reassure me that it would not break, something that would seem substantial and secure. But a thick heavy rope would weigh the kite down and keep it from flying. It would hinder, yay even prevent what it is designed to help accomplish. But don't we often want more reassurance than what a tiny strand seems to offer? But as we start to trust, allow our kite to fly, we see that this tiny, seemingly fragile strand can, and does, hold us firmly. That it does not snap under the strength of the wind and the twists, turns, and flips life takes us through. It is enough to hold us, if we trust that it will.

Sometimes it is so easy, so glorious to get caught up in the soaring that we want to let go of the strand. To soar up higher, and higher, reaching for the next gust of wind, aiming for the next level of height. But without that tether our kite couldn't stay afloat. Without the anchor God provides, we wouldn't be able to soar. Sure, we'd get blown around by the wind for a time, perhaps even climbing a bit higher. But soon enough the kite would get tossed about by the wind, collapsing onto itself, dropping dangerously from the sky, completely at the whim of the worldly forces. And with no counter resistance to pull it back afloat, our kite would crash into the rocky earth below and shatter into a broken heap. Without holding on to the promises of His word we risk floating off dangerously on our own. You see the thread that seems to sometimes hold us back, really keeps us alive.

So I pray that God helps me soar. That I trust enough to let out lots of kite string and fly higher and higher, reach the peaks of joy while trusting in Him to keep me soaring. But that I would never let go of Him as my anchor, that I would stay tethered in His will. That I can truly enjoy the exhiliration of flying so high that my heart races, while remaining secure in my faith that He is holding me safely in His hands.