easily distracted

so it is finals week…

I am in the process of studying for my Geography final, trying to memorize SO MUCH information about EVERY country but I am very easily distracted so I decided to google each country that I’m going to this summer. that’s kind of like studying geography

1st stop: Hong Kong

2nd stop: Delhi, India

3rd stop: Gulu, Uganda

4th stop: Nice, France

5th stop: San Pedro Sula, Honduras

hope these are all correct (you never know with google images) because they made me really excited!

now back to studying..wish me luck

What the heck am I doing with my life?

So I recently finished Radical by David Platt. Incredible. Challenging. Truth. Read it. So I have a lot of thoughts about the book but this is the main thing I was left thinking:

What the heck am I doing with my life?!

In the Great Commission from Matthew 28, Jesus tells us to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy spirit, and teaching them to obey everything [He has] commanded [us]“. This is not an option or a calling just for some; this is a command and obligation of all who call Jesus Christ Lord and Savior. A command that we should take seriously.

I feel like while in college, everyone tells you that this is the time for you to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. You pick a major to help you learn about a future career, you maybe meet your spouse, you make friends of a lifetime, and you make decisions that will forever alter the course of your life. We are constantly wondering “What is God’s will for my life? or How do I find God’s will for my life?” Well here’s the answer: “the will of God is for you and me to give our lives urgently and reckelssly to making the gospel and the glory of God known among all peoples, particularly those who have never even heard of Jesus. The question therefore, is not ‘Can we find God’s will?’ The question is ‘Will we obey God’s will?’” (Platt).

For most Americans, life is about their job, the amount of money they make and what they can buy with it, how they can improve their lives and the lives of their families. As much as I support providing for your family and giving them a comfortable life, that is not what we were called to. We are called to live lives that rely soley on God’s provision. We are called to spread the gospel to the world and sometimes that means that we will be anything but comfortable.

“If more than a billion people today are headed to a Christian eternity and have not even heard the gospel, then we don’t have time to waste our lives on an American dream” (Platt).

Knowing this doesn’t change the fact that I dream of going to culinary school and having a family, but it does change how I live my life while doing those things. I have struggled a lot with how my desire to work in the food industry mixes with spreading the gospel to all nations. And I have yet to figure out exactly what that will look like, but the awesomeness of God’s plan and the importance of faith is that I don’t have to know because He does. I simply have to trust that His plan for my life includes His use of me in spreading His name to the ends of the earth and I must do that in whatever way He presents. I will leave you with this quote from Radical:

“Consider what happens when all of us begin to look at our professions and areas of expertise not merely as means to an income or to career paths in our own context but as platforms for proclaiming the gospel in contexts around the world. Consider what happens when the church is not only sending traditional missionaries around the world but also businessmen and businesswomen, teachers and students, doctors and politicians, engineers and technicians who are living out the gospel in contexts where a traditional missionary could never go. (Platt).

What is the 4th Commandment?

So I don’t know about you but if someone asked me “what is the 4th commandment?” I wouldn’t have known the answer, until now. The 4th commandment is to “remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8). The command to remember the Sabbath day is before do not murder, do not steal, and do not commit adultery each of which we as a society seem to harbor on and judge people for, but how many people who claim Christ as their Savior can say that they “remember the Sabbath day” weekly? And how exactly do we have a Sabbath day?

A couple of weeks ago in my Bible study I was challened with this question, and I do not claim to have the answer or to be doing this myself either, but I do believe that it is an important queston to find the answer to.

I think that for Americans this is a very difficult concept to grasp, accept, and practice. In the US the pace is go go go, work, work, work, and when you’re not working do something for yourself. Well that is not biblical or Christ glorifying at all. We too often get too caught up in the next thing that we have to get done, and we rarely leave enough time for God. I know that I don’t, and that is something that I have been very challenged with this year. The creator of the universe, of us, and of our time deserves ALL of our time, ALL of our thoughts, and ALL of us. So why do we neatly put Him in a time slot on Sunday mornings and the 30 minutes we spend in a quiet time. We do this because we convince ourselves that we don’t have time for more and that is enough. Well it’s not. Wouldn’t it be incredible to have one day where you could sit and be with the Lord. To be with God, the lover of your soul, your Father? Wouldn’t it be even better to spend EVERY day with HIm?

The Sabbath according to Webster’s dictionary means “Sunday observed among Christians as a day of rest and worship”. Well yes, on Sunday I go to church and spend time in worship, but then what do I do with the rest of my day? For a lot of us it’s a day to watch football, catch up on homework or laundry, to prepare for the coming week. None of those seem like rest or worship. The sabbath is not meant to just be a “day off”, it is meant to be a day speant with the Lord. It’s definitely not a day meant for work. Exodus 20:10 says “you shall not do any work”. Exodus 20:11 says “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy”. Think of everything God did in 6 days, just 6 days, not 7. By following God’s commandment to remember the Sabbath, we are saying that we have faith that God can do more in 6 days than we can do in 7.

I challenge you do get into the word and figure out what the Sabbath day means. I challenge you to find out how to have your own Sabbath day with the Lord. I will be doing the same. It will not be easy for those of us who fill our plates with a million things, for those of us who are always saying that there aren’t enough hours in the day. Well why don’t we focus more of those hours on God, and then we’ll see how stressed we are about all the “stuff” we need to do.

Wake on up from your slumber and love God’s people

Sorry that it’s been a month since making a post. I guess I just haven’t known what I felt like sharing, and now I have multiple things that I’d like to share.

So here are the two things that have been ever present on my mind, especially today:

First, I have been reading Francis Chan’s Crazy Love (which is amazing and I HIGHLY encourage everyone to read it). If you have ever heard Chan speak, you know that he is very honest with what he thinks which is one of my favorite things about him. He also takes scripture very literally which we all should do. Whatever the Bible commands, is EXACTLY what we should be doing with our lives. One of my favorite quotes by Chan is this: “Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter unless it is about loving God and loving the people He has made?”. Well, duh right? The greatest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, but is that what we do? No, of course not.

Second, last night I had the incredible opportunity to see one of my favorite bands, Needtobreathe, in concert. They are amazing, and you should all start listening to them. My favorite song they sang last night is called Slumber. The lyrics that seem to apply to my life and future mission are:

“All these victims stand in line for crumbs that fall from the table just enough to get by all the while your invitation wake on up from your slumber, baby open up your eyes”

here’s a link to them singing the whole song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfNKE9aiKmQ

The song is a challenge, to wake up, open up our eyes to the world around us, to the hurt that is going on everywhere on a daily basis.

So it may seem that the Chan quote and Needtobreathe lyric don’t exactly go together, but they do. Together they are a calling to wake up everyday and look around at the people in our lives and around the world who are hurting and LOVE them. Because in the end, all that really matters is that we love God and share His love with the people that He loves. But instead we sit around comfortable with our life or worrying and complaining about our own issues and our own plans when there are people who are in desperate need of the loving and healing grace of Jesus Christ. People around the world are starving and dying, physically and spiritually, and we are doing nothing.

Well…wake on up from your slumber and love God’s people.

Hello world!

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28:19

For the past year or so, I have felt called to serve in international missions, and last November I was given the incredible opportunity to do just that. The Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to be a member of one of Global Journey’s Summer 2012 teams, and I couldn’t be more excited.

I have always had a passion for people, and for exploring the world, and through Global Journey I will be doing both, while doing what we are all called by God to do: share His great love and gospel with the lost and hurting world.

I had the pleasure of attending Passion Conference a couple of weeks ago, and it really brought to life the hurt that is going on in the world, but also the light that God and His followers can bring to it. God is the God of ALL nations, and He speaks ALL languages, and He loves ALL people. My favorite moment at passion was when Chris Tomlin was joined with musicians from around the world to sing “How Great is Our God”. It was absolutely incredible. Below is a link to a video of it:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDSemdyKG0

I am so excited to see how God is going to use me through this trip and how He is going to move mightily throughout the nations, HIS nations.