The War in our Minds and the Power of Community...

  The other day I saw this comic... it wasn't meant to be funny or anything but rather to explain what it is like to have social anxiety.  In the comic there was a girl sitting at her desk in the middle of the classroom surrounded by all these other students, and above her was this thought bubble that read, "Gosh, I really need to use the bathroom but I can't because if I get up everyone will look at me" (or something along those lines).  Now to some people who would read that comic their reaction would be, "who cares if people look at you?  You're human.  Everyone has to use to bathroom.  Just get up and go, nobody really cares. So just stop being silly, get up, and go"... and they would be right in what they are saying.  

  But as someone who as struggled with moments of anxiety like this, I can also see that it's not that simple.  The truth is our minds are powerful things, and they can convince of of false truths that can hold us back from life and truly living.  And while looking at it from the outside it may be so easy to say, "get over it, here's the truth"... when you're stuck in the middle... lost in your own head... you just can't seem to see it.  I think this is why God designed us to live in community and to need other people....We need people in our lives who will stand with us and speak the truth to us when our minds have convinced us otherwise.  We need people in our lives who will love us in our struggles, but will also allow us to stand with them in theirs and go to bat for them when the devil takes his best shot at them.  And more importantly, we need God to enable us to be and to do this....because let's be honest... on our own we make a mess of everything! 

  But maybe that's just me... the truth is, I have never been very good at being open and vulnerable and letting people in.  Take for example my last three months in Ecuador and my first year and a half home.  I was struggling hardcore.  I was depressed, I was shutting down, and my relationship with God was almost at its breaking point.... but very few people really knew what was going on... and even those who had some clue, had no idea the depths of darkness into which my mind would take me.  I remember at the time I had a small core group of friends who it had taken me years to build trust with, and as I walked through this season I just watched those relationships crumble because I didn't know how to share what I was going through with them. And I remember at one point making the conscious decision that I wouldn't share anything about what was going on with me, but would instead only focus on them... believing that this would set things right.  But you know what?  It didn't.  Community isn't a one way street...and people aren't going to share themselves with someone who clearly isn't going to do the same.  That makes sense to me now... but in the moment my mind had me convinced that it was others who were wrong for not letting me in and that they were the reason things were falling apart.

  The thing is, in those moments I wanted nothing more than a friend to stand by me and tell me everything was going to be okay... yet my mind had me so convinced that nobody would understand or care and that I was being weak and stupid and everyone would see how much of a loser I was if I ever said anything, that I refused to open my mouth.  I wish I could say that I have grown out of this, that I have gotten over the whole vulnerability thing and I have learned to allow people to see the darkness so that they can speak truth to it... but the truth is, I am just starting out on that journey.  In fact, at the beginning of this year I decided that I would force myself to join a community group at my church so that i could be surrounded by other Christians... people who would speak the truth to me and to whom I also could speak truth to.  In the first group I joined, I saw God begin to transform my heart and take me from a place of wanting to be closed off to the world, for fear of getting hurt, to seeing my need for others... but that's only the first step into the journey.

  So when that group ended, I had a choice to make, and I decided to keep forcing myself out of my comfort zone and more importantly out of my head...and thus, I joined another community group.  I wish I could say...and now things are awesome, but the reality is..."this is hard yo!".  After years of cutting myself off from others and becoming more and more afraid of people, each week I am literally forcing myself into a group of people who seem so open and vulnerable and caring for one another... and as much as I want to be there with them... I feel awkward, and the voice in my head keeps telling me that I'll never fit in, that I don't belong, that these people are so much better than me.  But you know what...I'm not going to listen to that voice in my head... and I am not going to let my social awkwardness keep me back from God's best for me.  I believe community is important... I believe it's God's design and his gift to us... and I believe that eventually, the more I go to this group, the more I listen to these people share the truth of God in their lives and the more I begin to open up myself, that more that voice inside my head will begin to change and begin to speak the real truth.  I don't have it all together, I am not there yet, but I am pressing in...and I hope that is encouraging to you and convinces you to do the same.  It's not easy... but we have to believe it's worth it... after all, it's not like God doesn't know what He is doing!

Surely Not I...

  So after reading the book of John, I have spent the better part of the last two months working through a lot of the same stories now told in the book of Matthew... and it always amazes me the things that don't stick out to me in one viewing of a Gospel, that do in another.  For instance, the last supper....that whole night in general is pretty epic.... but the last time I read through it (when I was seeing things through the eyes of John), all I kept looking at was Peter and how he was all like, "Not me Jesus, I will never deny you", then he turns around and denies Jesus in Jesus greatest time of need.  And there was so much in his story (Peter's) that I negated to see anyone else  and what they went through that night.  This time around however I got caught up in Judas (bet you didn't see that coming....or maybe you did)!

  If you read the story of the last supper as told by Matthew in chapter 26, you see Jesus basically telling all his disciples during this meal that he will be betrayed, turned over the the religious authorities and put to death... something He has told them multiple times before, but it's different this time because this time he tells them his betrayer is actually one of them!  Now of course they all are in an uproar, claiming like Peter did, that of course they would never turn their back on Jesus!  But Jesus knows the truth of who it will be.  

  Now we know from other gospel accounts that Jesus actually tells John that the one who will betray him is the one whom he hands a specific piece of bread to.  And I can only imagine this happens just before Judas exclaims himself (in Matthew) "Surely you don't mean me Lord?!".  And as I read those words of Judas and considered how Judas must have felt in that moment and how he so desperately was trying to save face with his words... I realized just how often in my own life I have been just like him.

  You see the Bible doesn't give us much more detail beyond that.  There's no explanation as to how John responded to seeing Jesus hand the bread to Judas... nor is there really a continuation of the conversation after Jesus declares "You said it!" to Judas, when he asks if he is the betrayer... but I can imagine Judas feeling called out and wanting to cover up...to pretend like Jesus didn't know what he was talking about and that God couldn't see into his heart like He did.  And the truth is...that is exactly how I act towards Jesus sometimes.

  There are so many times I am living my life and I know what I am doing or what I am about to do is wrong...maybe not in the "you can go to jail for this" kind of way or even the "someone else is gonna know what you did" kind of way... but wrong nonetheless.  And in my heart of hearts, in those moments I can feel God pulling on my heart strings... trying to grab my attention and beacon me to a new way.  Jesus will literally be calling me out... just like he was doing to Judas at the last supper... and I'll be like, "Dude, I don't know what your talking about... I'm fine... this is fine"!  And just like Judas I try so hard  to save face and cover up the very sin that God wants to free me from.  Why do I do this?!?!

  I think that ultimately, there's a little bit of Judas in all of us... this part of us that for the "right price", whether that's love/acceptance, money, success, etc... we will betray Jesus.  And I think in those moments when we give in to temptation and we take the bribe, and we turn our backs on God... we ultimately arrive at the same place Judas did...death.  Maybe not physical death (although in some cases that could be true), but a spiritual death...a separation from God and ourselves that we regret having a hand in.  But thank God that there is a thing called forgiveness and that there is mercy and grace for our souls when turn back to God in repentance.  I may at times act like Judas, but unlike Judas's story in the bible...my story will not end in death, but rather in Life, because of Christ!  Thank you Jesus... for I am so grateful!  Amen.

Our Hope...even in the darkest places

  So the other day I woke up to a text message from a friend who has been really struggling in her relationship with God.  Now this isn't such an unusual thing for me, as I often have deep and complex conversations about faith with many of my friends via text message, but there was definitely something different about this conversation in particular.  For one, every time I responded to her I did so with such easy... not really having to think about what I was writing because it flowed out of me so easily....which isn't normal for me in any way as I usually stress over how to word things or how things might be taken.  The other difference was, I wasn't just giving sage advice, I was giving her a piece of my heart and I realized I was only able to do that because I have been where she is and I am finally coming out of that valley.

  You see, a lot of our conversation was about feeling like God was no longer there...like he was silent or indifferent...and I get that.  For the past few years I have been living in that place...feeling like God had abandoned me and given up on me and like I had been rejected by the only person whose opinion really matters.  I remember how it felt to cry out to God with every ounce of my being and feel like the only response I got was silence.  I know the pain of thinking like I don't matter to God and that while I am saved and loved as one of the millions of people Christ died for,  He really doesn't care for me as an individual.  I can't even begin to tell you how that feeling messes with both your head and your heart...but believe me it gets real messy, really fast.

  I think things began to change for me however when I made the decision that I was still going to seek after God and live for Him, even if I never felt like He cared for me again.  Looking at that sentence now, I know it was only by God's grace that I was even able to come to that sort of determination, because let's be honest... whose going to continue seeking something for the rest of their lives when that very thing seems to reject them over and over again.  The funny thing is....that's exactly what God does for us.  We, as humans, so often think we don't need God.  We act as if we are the master's of our own destiny without even acknowledging the fact that it's only by God's grace we are able to breathe and move and have a normal life.  So we go about our lives, day in and day out, living for ourselves...doing what we want...and not even really acknowledging God.  Yet, at the very same time... day after day, year after year... God pursues us with His love, giving us blessings we don't deserve, showering His grace and mercy upon us, and trying to connect with us in some way.  We constantly reject Him... even as Christians (come on, let's be honest...how many times do you put off time with God to sleep in or to go out...how many times do you say  a quick prayer and get on with your day or even forget to pray at all until something goes wrong).  Yet God continually chooses to seek us an love us despite how we may respond.

  Maybe that's why when I made the decision to seek God anyway... things started to change and I found myself finally connecting back to him.  And the thing is, the more time I have spent with God, trying to work through my feelings and issues over everything that has happened in the past several years, the more I realize that he has never once abandoned me or rejected me.  He has always been right there by my side.... even when I was too blind to see and too caught up in my feelings to believe it... His love never failed.  And I am so grateful for that!

  I am also grateful that when my friend reached out to me looking for answers and a little hope, I was able to respond to her not with some trite religious answer, but from a heart that has been there...that has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and come out the other side.  I've been to the depths...and I am sure some day I will pass through them again... but what I know now is, even there...even in the depths... God is with us and He will never stop loving us.  Thank you Jesus! 

The Power of a Stupidly Small Goal...

   So I tend to go through phases of what I will listen to in my car while driving.  I usually fluctuate between either a podcast, a sermon or a book on tape... but every once in a while I just need some good old fashion music and will flip on Klove radio (for those who are local that's 106.9fm).  Anyway, several months ago now I happened to turn on Klove at the exact moment that this clip was shared of Levi Lusko preaching.   Now considering sermons are pretty much right up my alley, I immediately went home and looked up this guy to see what else I could find by him and ended up downloading his sermons onto my castbox app.  Over the past several weeks I have listened to many of his sermon series and have gained so much from what he has shared (not surprising considering I felt the same way from reading 2 of his books in the past month).

  Anyway, in the most recent series I have been listening to ("You in five years"), in one of the sermons ("Too Small to Fail") he talks about making stupidly small goals for yourself....like for example just making a goal to do 1 pushup... in order to help you actually get started and keep going on your goals.  Honestly, as I listened to what he was saying I was laughing along with the audience...and thinking how ridiculous it would be to actually do...but then as I ruminated on it, I realized that what he was saying actually made a lot of sense.  In fact, it made so much sense that I decided to apply it to one of the most needy areas of my life right now....exercise (Not the point of the sermon, but helpful none the less).

  I don't know about you, but I have such a love/hate relationship with exercise.  When I am into it, I am really into it....but when I fall of track, it's not just like one wheel has come off.  Instead, when I fall off the exercise bandwagon,  it's like I've jumped the track, sped down a step hill and crashed into a ocean of water where I have immediately sunk to the bottom...and it doesn't seem like there is a way back.  This has been my life for the past several months.

  I started this year with such grand hopes.  I not only wanted to exercise, but eat healthier and reach some of my health goals.  But, then life happened... I left one job to take another, got caught up in school, and began eating chips like I was training for a man vs. food competition, and before I knew it not only had I started eating crap again, but I couldn't even bring myself to workout at my house, never mind head to the gym.  Night after night, day after day I've gotten lazier and lazier and in many ways I have felt hopeless about it.

  Yet, when I heard Levi's sermon and began to consider the implications of making such small goals that it would be impossible to fail, I realized that I didn't have to change everything about this journey over night.  I know that sounds like a "Duh!" comment, but if you know me, you know I tend to be an all or nothing kind of person... so when it came to figuring out how to get back on track with my health goals I felt all this pressure to change everything all at once...and to do it perfectly.  But, in my mind I already knew that while wanting to hit the gym 6 days a week for an hour or more and eat nothing but clean food sounded good, it wasn't really going to happen.... and so I expected to fail every time I tried.  And since I expected to fail, I pretty much half-assed every bit of effort I have put in these past few month...and ultimately have gotten nowhere.  I have failed.

  Yet this week was different.  On Saturday, I decided to take Lusko's advice and make one stupidly small health goal to strive for during the coming week...I simply decided to do some sort of exercise for at least 10 minutes every day (I didn't even name a specific type of exercise because I wanted to make it easy on myself by making any concerted effort count).  And guess what....for the last 4 days I have worked out anywhere from 20-45 minutes (well actually Saturday I walked 12 miles at the Relay for life, which took all day, but for the most part I have been in this time range)!  I know that seems so small/little....but in reality I have exceeded my goal and honestly I am proud of myself because this is most consistently I have exercised since probably January!  What's even more exciting is that I actually find myself not dreading having to get my workout in (all because I know I can reach... and most likely will exceed... my goal)!  Now for the first time in a while I actually feel like maybe my "train" is coming out of the water and I could possibly get back on track!  Plus the whole process has make me wonder what other areas of my life I can make stupidly small goals for!  So even though this may not have been the direction you wanted you sermon to go, thanks Levi Lusko for giving me some much needed encouragement!

Perfection, Pain, and The Process of Freedom...

    I grew up in the Church, but it wasn't until sometime around middle school (probably about the time I made a decision to live for Christ) that I made the switch from playing games or falling asleep in service, to actually paying attention.  And I don't know if this was actually something that was consistently preached from the pulpit about that time, or just one little thing that was once mentioned in a sermon and I clung unto it... but I specifically remember my pastor at the time telling the congregation that, as Matthew 5:48 says, we as Christians were suppose to "be prefect just as (our) Father in Heaven is perfect".  Now I am sure that the intention of making such a statement came from a good place and a desire for us all to honor God.  But for me... as a young kid just starting out in my own faith journey, through those words the very idea of perfection took up deep residence in my heart and is just now starting to leave.

  Now there is a part of me that is grateful for this.  As a teenager, the idea that I needed to be perfect to please God or else, kept me from doing a lot of stupid things and getting myself in the kind of trouble that I wouldn't be able to handle.  In high school when many of the people I knew were drinking, smoking weed, and partying on the weekends.  I stayed mostly to myself, reading my bible (yes, I was that kid) and spending my weekends with my church friends.  I never felt like I was really missing out on anything, but I also was under the belief that I was somehow better than others because I had refrained from such activities.  Looking back now,  I can totally see how the Pharisaical heart I have worked so hard to get rid of, started developing in me even back then.

  Anyway, the downside of this perfection ideology actually didn't really hit until I hit the real world.  It was then that I realized, "Holy Crap, I am not perfect!  In fact, I am so far from it... I should be ashamed".  And ashamed I was.  I was still a Christian, but instead of becoming more solidly founded in the love of my Savior, I began to become more and more fearful of what God and others would think if they only knew the real me (As if God didn't already know).  Soon I was hiding parts of myself away, not sharing my struggles, and putting on this Christian front so that nobody would be able to find me out.  This continued on for years, although I certainly never admitted it.  

   I actually remember that when I was applying to go on the missions field full time, I was so scared that it would be found out I was a "sinner", that I didn't dare share my fears or worries about what I was about to do with anyone.  I just kept casting my happy little vision of what it would be like, and pretending like I didn't feel like a fraud who had somehow duped people into thinking she was somehow ready to go "save the world".  Thinking back now, I often wonder how different things would have turned out if I knew then what I am learning now.... that I don't have to be afraid of my weaknesses and imperfection...and that in fact the same Bible that speaks of being perfect, also tells us reassuringly that "it's in (our) weakness, (God) is made perfectly strong" (2 Cor. 12:9).  Of course, I wouldn't be who I am today without having gone through all I have, so it's probably better this way... And I am sure God knows that.

  Anyway, it wasn't until my dream of being a missionary came crashing down and I felt completely exposed and unbelievably vulnerable, that I was able to begin to see that God not only could, but does, love me... even though I am not perfect.  Not that has been was a easy process though.  In fact, it probably wasn't until close to two years removed from the missions field that I was even willing to look up from the pile of ashes I had been sitting in and to see God smiling at me.  For so long after my time I on the field, I felt like I had failed God and in turn He had failed me, but the truth of the matter was I hadn't failed God...He wasn't surprised by how things turned out and He certainly didn't turn His back on me... in fact, God was there in the midst of all that pain, patiently waiting for me, longing for me to just look to Him and realize just how much He loves me.  

  I am just starting to truly get it now, but I can just imagine God watching me go through the application process to get on the missions field and trying so hard to remain in control and "be perfect" on the field...and Him just knowing what was coming and all the pain I would walk through, but also Him sitting there planning exactly how He would use it to bring me to freedom.  In fact, I think God allowed me to be stripped of everything and feel like I was completely breaking down during that time, in order that He could build me back up in the knowledge that my perfection is found in Him...it's His holiness, His righteousness, His goodness that I stand in....and it's his grace that covers me and keeps me from having to fear being real with my struggles and imperfection.  I'm starting to get it God.... Finally! It's definitely a process, but thank you for opening my eyes (even though I had to walk through the pain to get there).  Amen