Change is in the air

Change is always happening; no two days are alike and each one presents a whole new adventure waiting to happen. You are different than you were yesterday and tomorrow you will be different than you are today. We are shaped by our experiences, each of which influences us in some way.

Sometimes change is slow and sometimes it happens like a light switch.

Right now I'm experiencing the latter.

I'm taking a break from cleaning and organizing my room at home. I've unpacked all my boxes from college and am figuring out how to make everything I have acquired from countless adventures and journeys fit into this room.

In the midst of tossing out a whole lot of junk and a whole lot of things I don't use anymore, I'm also trying to figure out how to settle into this new chapter God is writing in the book of my life. Transition and change is tough, I'm going to miss living in Murray and being so close to the people who have become my best friends. I'm going to miss walking across campus every day and seeing handfuls of people I know every time I walk out my door. I'm going to miss my desk and office at The Murray State News and being less than a five minute walk to the stadium and CFSB Center. I'm going to miss Campus Outreach and classrooms and making new friends every day. I'm going to miss lunch dates and coffee dates and driving around Murray with the windows down and music blaring and ending up at Hucks to get a fountain drink with the six floor girls. I'm going to miss D-Group and Bible Studies and being within walking distance of more than 100 people I love like my own family. 

But in the midst of the sadness, excitement is bubbling within my heart.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt God wants me in Paducah and I am more than pumped to begin serving Him and joining the work He is doing in my hometown and in my home church. It never ceases to amaze me that God allows us to join Him in His redemptive plan of wrapping His arms around the nations and extending the very love and grace He has shown us to everyone around us. What a fantastic privilege. 

One of my best friends reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Elisabeth Elliot this week as I tearfully processed saying goodbye to the body of believers in Murray. In this quote Elisabeth is talking about singleness but it can be applied to every situation in life.

"Single life may be only a stage of life's journey, but even a stage is a gift. God may replace it with another gift, but the receiver accepts His gifts with thanksgiving. This gift for this day. The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it is to be lived - not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is for today we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow." - Elisabeth Elliot, Let me be a Woman

Despite the changes happening all around me, I know this: God isn't changing. He is still the same. He is the unwavering, unshakable, unmoving Rock that will never alter even if our circumstances do. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and knows all the plans that are ahead of us, plans to shape us into His Son's image and ultimately bring Himself glory (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28).

The joy that is breaking through the sadness of leaving Murray is something only found at the cross and I am so thankful God continues to lead His children there time and time again so that we may obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need. The cross never loses its power and God never tires of reminding us of that. What a sweet Father we have.

I'm ridiculously blessed. There is no way I could "count every blessing" as the song says to do, there are too many. His blessings are too great. But I will say that God has allowed this finals week, this final week living in Murray to be savored and enjoyed and one of the greatest weeks of my college experience.

Things I will always remember from this week:

Midnight breakfasts at Mary's Kitchen, listening to Cody and Kathy play piano, studying with Anna. Dinners with the six floor girls, all the power outages that happened while I was showering, late nights and early mornings spent making memories with the family. Sleepovers with Mitch, movie nights in my room and more laughter than I could ever dream up.

God is so good to give us these added benefits and pleasures even after giving us Himself. I am so humbled and thankful for these moments and the way He has worked in my heart and life through my time at Murray State. Because God promises to bring all of His children to completion, I know He is going to continue His work on me and I cannot wait to see what is going to happen as He continues to write my story.

God, You really are the best Author. Thank You for giving us Your Son and Your Word and for having a specific and unique story for each of us. May we trust you with the pen as you write this chapter and more to our stories. May we cultivate our hearts to fear You and grow our faith that it may be said of us as it was of Abraham, "No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised (Romans 4:20-21)." Use us, Lord, to make Your name famous. Consume us with a fiery passion for You that infiltrates every part of our lives. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory. Here is my pen, God. May I fall in love with You more and more in this chapter of life and in all the ones to come. Amen.

Ian and Larissa Murphy's Marriage Story

This may be one of the most beautiful pictures of marriage I've ever seen. The couple used John Piper's This Momentary Marriage as a tool in pre-marital counseling and I highly recommend that book to anyone, married or single. I read it a couple years ago and it helped foster a right view of marriage and reminded me it is not about us, but like everything else in life, it's all about Him. Watch this short video and be blessed.  

A life of worship through trials, obstacles and fire

The Christian life is a battlefield and the war is real. We have a real enemy out to kill us and we have real trials and battles. If you are a true follower of Christ you have experienced this because He promised we would:

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” -John 16:33

I’m so thankful for that last half. We can take heart, we can have comfort despite trials, persecution and affliction because Christ has overcome the enemy and through Him we also share in the victory and are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).

So, if we are to have a life of worship beyond the song service at church on Sundays how can we maintain that worship through trials, obstacles and fire?

1. Never take your eyes off God.

Satan will do everything he can to put your eyes on you. Don’t let it happen. You will always lead you astray so kill the sin of pride before it kills you and focus on the prize, the Author and Finisher of your faith who endured the cross for you. Whether or not your feelings tell you so, God is with you in the midst of the battle, His Word says so.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” –Isaiah 43:1-3

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” –Deuteronomy 31:8

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” –Matthew 28:19-20

2. Hold Him to His promises.

He has given us a book filled with His exceedingly great and precious promises and we need to hold Him to them, not for His sake but for our own selves. David did this numerous times throughout the Psalms as he beseeched God to “Remember Your word to Your servant, upon which You have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your promise gives me life” (Psalm 119:49-50). David wasn’t reminding God of this because He forgot, but because it helped his own heart remember that God and His promises were his only hope through affliction and they are the same for us.

Some promises to hold Him to:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Romans 8:35-39

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” -1 Peter 5:10

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” -2 Corinthians 4:8

“Blessed be the God of and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” -2 Corinthians 1:3-5

“I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” –Philippians 1:6

Reasons to trust Him for those promises:

The reason can be summed up in three words: He is faithful.

“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” –Hebrews 10:23

“If we are faithless, He remains faithful – for He cannot deny Himself.” -2 Timothy 2:13

“No distrust made (Abraham) waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave lorry to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.” –Romans 4:20-21

3. Follow His example.

Find comfort in the fact that Jesus suffered the same as we have and can identify with every area of our Christian walk including our trials.

I suggest writing down some of the ways Jesus was persecuted, tried and tempted as well as the way He handled each of those situations, then pray for strength and discipline to handle each of your battles in the same manner. I guarantee you nothing you are facing is new to God or out of His jurisdiction to help you with. And whatever we’re going through we need to remember Jesus had it worse and didn’t sin one time throughout each battle, but remained faithful to His name and continued to serve the Lord with gladness.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” –Hebrews 4:15-16

“He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamp that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” –Isaiah 53:7

4. Remember suffering is a tool for your sanctification.

Trials are not without purpose and are not placed in our life for God to get a good laugh out of our struggle. God is using them, as He does everything else in our life, to grow us into the image of His Son. We are being shaped, molded, stretched and honed to be a more distinct reflection of Jesus with every affliction and battle we face. Hold fast through the hard times - they are being used for your good and His glory.

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” –Hebrews 12:11

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” -1 Peter 1:6-7

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.” –James 1:2-4

5. Praise the Lord.

Just because things are rough doesn't mean God deserves our praise any less. A life of worship is just that, a life full of worship in the good times and in the bad. Sometimes it won't be easy, sometimes we won't feel like it and sometimes Satan will lie to us and say we can't worship or praise God because we aren't sincere. He's lying to you. God deserves our praise whether we feel like giving it or not.

"Rejoice always,  pray without ceasing,  give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." -1 Thessalonians 5:16-17

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.” -Revelation 4:11

I encourage you to watch David Platt’s Secret Church videos on The Cross and Suffering as well as search the Bible for your own verses to hold on to during times of trial as these listed are just a tiny fraction of the plethora of goodness awaiting you within the pages of His Word.

May we be like Paul during his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 4:17 and have an eternal perspective saying, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us and eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

Change is possible

My sport psychology teacher told our class a couple weeks ago, “people may change their behavior for a time, but in the end they’ll always go back to who they really are. Real change isn’t possible.”

What a depressing thought. If that were true then there is no hope or reason for living. Thieves couldn’t stop stealing, drug addicts could never break the habit and prostitutes wouldn’t stop answering to their pimp. They might stop for a time but then they’d fall right back into the addiction, habits and patterns eventually no matter how badly they want to.

The thing is, there is hope. Lives can be altered not just for a brief moment but also for eternity. Change, real life-change is possible.

It’s where the change comes from that makes the difference. My teacher was right about one thing: we might make behavior modifications and change the way we live our lives, you know, clean things up. We promise God we’ll do better, we’ll stop partying, stop cussing, stop sleeping around, stop doing whatever it is we feel guilty about, but in the end, if left to our own, we’ll go right back to the way we’ve always done things.

We might look clean for a little while, we read our Bible more, go to church, try the whole talking-to-God thing, but it’s never enough.

God has to make the change. And the good news is that He specializes in life changes.

When we get frustrated enough with our lives and the depressing cycle of sin and the emptiness it always brings all we have to do is turn to God. Repent and believe is the Lord’s cry for each of us. All we have to do is look at the bloody and beautiful cross to see His Son’s agonizing death and realize the extent of His plea for our souls. He wants our hearts. He wants to make them new.

“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.” –Ezekiel 36:26-27

When we repent of our sins and believe what God said He takes our hearts of stone that were hardened from birth to His truths, His love and His presence, and replaces it with a living, breathing heart of flesh. He makes what is dead to Him and softens it where we can now experience His life and relentless love and when that happens everything changes.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” -2 Corinthians 5:17

So, I respectfully disagree with my teacher. Change is possible. Lives can be forever transformed and hope is always present. All we have to do is repent and believe; God does the changing.

  “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” –Psalm 130:7-8

Oh, how He loves us

"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows..." -Isaiah 53:4

Not to sound redundant, but He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows!

That's good news. He has carried them so we don't have to - the pain we're feeling He's already taken upon Himself so we don't have to buckle under the pressure of trying to bear it ourselves. What a sweet and loving Father!

So I’ll [stand]

How often things don’t go the way I planned in my head. I mean, there I am with this perfectly realistic scenario in my head and all too soon I'm looking to God with questions of why my scenario didn’t play out the way I intended.

My life has been full of this cycle – from dreaming about shooting in the Olympics to training for the Olympics to the painful realization that my shoulder was messed up and I couldn’t shoot without pain and my competitive rifle career was over, to looking to God for answers – I mean, I thought the Olympics was His plan for me all along. After all, didn’t He realize how many lives I could reach with the Gospel if I made it to the world’s stage?

It sounds corny and dumb, but I believed all of that.

Even last weekend my plans and God’s plans had another head-on collision, but only one stood in the end.

I was in Louisville with the Murray State basketball team for the NCAA Tournament. The Racers had won their first game against Colorado State and the day before they were going to play Marquette, two huge upsets hit the world of college basketball: Mizzou and Duke both lost. Mizzou was in our bracket and, had everything gone the way most people envisioned, would have been the next “big” opponent for Murray State had both teams won.

Confidence pulsated through me when Mizzou fell. I just knew that was the Lord going before the Racers and making smooth their path, in my opinion, He had already placed them in the best possible bracket so I knew Murray State was going to best Marquette and we would be on our way to Phoenix in a few short days.

Once we arrived in Phoenix we would play Missouri then either Louisville or Michigan State in the Elite Eight, and of course beat them, then move on to the Final Four. I could see it all happening in my head.

I firmly believed this (at least the part where we beat Marquette) up until the last three minutes of the game Saturday when Marquette pulled away from the Racers and God, again, showed me His plans were not my plans and His ways were not my ways.

That lesson never gets any easier.

However, when things don’t go the way we planned, wanted or imagined we can take great hope in knowing it didn’t take God by surprise.

“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” –Isaiah 46:8-10

He is sovereign over our lives and we can take great comfort in knowing that He doesn’t have a plan B.

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” –Proverbs 19:21

“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.” –Psalm 33:10-11

He frustrates our plans because He wants our heart, our dependence and the glory He deserves. If everything went as we planned we would have no need for God and we would get the glory for our lives staying as right as rain. But we do need Him and He loves us too much not to show us that need.

The great news is that because He and His glorious plans (that work everything to the good of those who trust in Him, even if it doesn’t feel like it) stand, so can we.

“Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.” –Jude 24-25

I want a love like...

There are lots of things I love.

Warm patches of sunshine

Coffee and conversation

Journaling

Murray State Basketball

Cooking

Blue ink pens

Africa

Finding shapes in the clouds

Baseball

The Olympics

Lists

Little black babies

… and adventures, just to name a few.

But what is real love?

The culture I’m surrounded by tells me love is when a guy finds you attractive enough to get in bed with you or if he makes a girl’s heart flutter and her stomach swirl with anticipation and longing then that must be love.

The movies tell us love is when a guy rescues the damsel in distress or pushes through her stubbornness to rescue her from herself and the fear she is holding on to. Take this quote for instance, “All a girl needs is one guy to prove to her they’re not all the same.”

There are other movies that tell you a guy loves you if he won’t suck your blood even if he is desperately drawn to it.

Wow.

Then there are the sappy songs (that I catch myself humming along with) talking about someone taking your breath away, making you feel like you were living a teenage dream and making you want to say OMG.

There is also the sweet song about wanting a love like Johnny and June, but that’s not the kind of love I want.

I want a love like Christ and the church.

After Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden they were separated from God and, as a consequence, so was every man and woman after them. (That means us.) But God, in His brilliant planning, sent His perfect Son to absorb His wrath so we could have freedom from the chains of sin, insecurity and fear.

His love sent Him to the cross. His love, when we repent and believe in Him and His atoning blood, cancels our sin. His love redeems us from Adam’s fall and our sin-filled nature. His love gives us a friendship with the Creator of the Universe. His love makes dead people live. His love lights up the sky and lights up our hearts.

His love is my motivation for life.

“And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.” –Colossians 1:21-22

It’s not some cheap love that can be thrown away or something that fades when the infatuation and emotions die down, it’s a genuine, living, breathing, eternal love. It's beautiful, relentless and furious, stretching to the highest mountain and reaching into the furthest depths of the sea. It's a love that will never let you down.