God's Conditional Love

The title of this post will likely have most Christians either up in arms or shocked that someone would link those three words. And that's the point. I I have been thinking a lot recently about what i was raised to believe and contrasting it with what I am finding out is true. A lot of what I was told as a child is true, but some things I am finding were flat out wrong. Today as I was at work and was talking and listening to God, I came to a realization as I was reflecting on Scripture--salvation isn't free.

Woah! Another thing that goes against the grain of everything Christianity stands for? Yes. I have been praying and realized that there's a reason for many of the problems that exist in Christianity at large. And that reason is we're picking sides. We're picking one attribute of God to camp out with and ignoring the paired attribute which God holds perfectly in balance. We look at His gift of salvation but forget what it costs us.

Let me explain. So often we look to parts of the Bible to support our theology and miss the meaning that it carries with it. John 3:16 says-

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

We look at that and say the only thing required for salvation is belief. This is touted as the basis for the salvation prayer, you believe and ask God to come into your heart and you're saved! But that's not it. I have come face-to-face with how often that prayer is seen as what saves someone, those words are how to be saved, and that's wrong. If you were to nay-say that salvation is free, that it just takes believing, you would be very quickly drowned in a deluge of theological points showing how salvation is free, God extends it to us without cost, and all we do is accept that free gift. The analogy I've heard so often that salvation is a free gift God has for us, you have to reach out and take it, but it's freely offered. That's not true.

I prayed the prayer when I was younger, accepting Jesus into my heart and thinking I was Christian from then on. But as I grew up, I always was questioning my faith, always struggling because it didn't seen real. I was at a camp when I was sixteen before I was confronted with the fact I wasn't saved. There I realized I had never surrendered my life to Christ, and it was there I finally did. That's salvation. It's not a prayer admitting you're wrong, it's not simply believing the list of Jesus living, dying, and rising again for your sins, and it's not a free gift. It requires a payment. It requires giving away yourself.

Look anywhere else God talks about following Him, Take Matthew 16:25-

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

He doesn't meant the person who dies for God's sake will find life, but the person who gives up his life to Christ will find it. Or look at how Luke puts the verse directly before it, Luke 9:23-

If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.

Those aren't words of cost-less belief, those are weighty words that say you have to give everything to believe. Salvation isn't free. Jesus bluntly, and repeatedly states that to follow him, to gain salvation, you must give up yourself. That is the bottom line. The price of salvation is surrendering your life to God. Giving Him full access to have His way in your life. Salvation will be the most costly thing you ever buy, but that is because it is worth the more than anything you could ever buy. John 1:12 says-

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.

Belief is costly, God will accept nothing less than all of you. He requires you to surrender everything to Him that you might gain everything. And that's the truth. When you surrender yourself and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, that is true belief.

Now I'll take a moment to clarify something. Full surrender doesn't mean you have to be completely holy to believe. God does not require a list of aspects of your life that are in alignment with His will before you can be saved. You can DO nothing to be saved, no works, good deeds, or sacrifices will matter. He's not asking you to be perfect, but He is asking you to desire Him enough that you're willing to give Him everything. Now, don't be discouraged if surrendering everything is hard at times or always--it will be. Turning from rebellion against God to following after Him takes time and grace. You will not be perfect the moment you are saved, in fact the next day you might fall into an old pattern of sin. But the quality of someone who's life is surrendered to God and is truly saved is one who recognizes that sin and asks God to help them overcome it. And that takes one step, one day, and unlimited grace every day. But for those who are saved, "He gave the right to become children of God."

Now, back to God's conditional Love. Now that I've jumped into the cost of salvation I can talk about this. God's UNconditional Love is the talk of many, many churches right now. They proudly wave their banner of "God is Love" and say that He loves everyone and you just need to believe in Him(wait, we just talked about that...). Some go so far as to say that God just Loves us and even further to say God Loves us so much we will all be with Him in heaven. All of those are either wrong or sorely missing the paired attribute of God's Love, His hate. God hates sin. Plain and simple, the whole of the scriptures clearly shows that undeniable truth.

We like to look at God's Love and say that it's stronger than His hate, it pacifies His hate, or that His hate is only for the sin and the sin can be looked at apart from the sinner. None of those are true. You simply have to look at Jesus on the cross to realize how much God hates sin, and what that means as He turns His face away and forsakes His Son. But we like to ignore His hate and say He is a God of Love who just wants us to accept salvation and everything's good! Yet His Love is conditional, and salvation isn't free...

So, conditional Love. I haven't addressed it just yet, and I realize that. There's been a lot of setup to allow me to do so. So I will jump right in. I've brought up God's hate of sin, of rebellion against Him. So often we say He Loves us unconditionally and even when we sin He still Loves us. That is true, He does still Love us, but His Love isn't unconditional. The condition is that Christ had to take our sin. He Loved so much that He sent His Son to die for us! That's a lot of Love, but it wasn't unconditional. Unconditional means it free, for everybody, and I already said, salvation isn't free. Look at Matthew 7:23-

I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.

God will say to those who aren't saved that He never knew them, even if they did good in His name. Those who haven't surrendered themselves and received Christ as their savior will still be in their sins and God does not separate a sin from the sinner, with one exception, when Christ saves you and takes that sin on Himself. The notion that God Loves us and hates our sin implies that you can separate us into two parts, "the good human" and "the evil sin." But we are sinners by nature. Yes Christ can save us, but until He does Ephesians 2:1&3 says-

You were dead in your trespasses and sins...and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

God doesn't separate us from our sins. He looks at us and sees a sinner, and He hates sin. But when Christ takes that sin God sees a blood washed child and yes, His Love for His Children is unconditional. So God's Love has a condition, and while He will extend His mercy and grace to any who ask for it and surrender themselves to it, His Love is conditional. But the amazing thing is that all of us, everyone, is able to approach His grace and lay down their life and receive Christ's sacrifice and be saved! The truth is that most won't. Giving up their right to their life, surrendering themselves, isn't what they want from a relationship with God. They want to be able to carry on life as normal and go to church on Sundays and maybe even read the Bible! But His salvation is laying down your life. His Love requires being washed by the blood of Christ.

This may seem weird and feel wrong. Maybe you don't see what I'm saying as right, but this is what God is showing me, that we have skewed a great many things He's taught to mean what we want and fit into our evangelism pattern. But breaking free from that and taking hold of His truth is where we find life! I haven't doubted my faith as I did before surrendering my life to Christ, and I have never felt Love like when He lets me know that though I fall it's all right. He is an amazing God worth surrendering everything to, will you choose to?


Standing for the Truth,
Joshua

This Crazy Little Thing Called Life

Recently I've been faced with a lot of life defining decisions that I realize I will have to make in the next couple months. On top of that I have some projects in school that have the capacity to alter the next few years as well. Topping off the mix is the fact I won't be able to talk to my best friend for the next month as she reaches out to a village in PNG (Papua New Guinea). This month is shaping up to be daunting.

Just saying all that doesn't sound too bad; it's just life right? It is. I guess that's the rub. I feel woefully inadequate to handle life. I see people around me with charming personalities, incredible leadership and organizational skills, a rapport with life I marvel at, and what appears to be a rough but sure road ahead of them. I sit here and look to my future and wonder what it holds. I have always trusted God with my future and lived out what He called me to as He guided me, whether it be to get up and do something that moment or to plan it out for later. And now faced with decisions that will not only affect me I feel small.

I have lived so much of my life alone that as I step outside of that and into community I am finding that I keep wanting to go back to where my decisions were my own and they wouldn't hurt anyone else. As I look back at where I've come from I am beginning to realize how ill-equipped I am for making my way in this world. I keep coming back to a point where I wonder if I just took a wrong turn and am terribly lost; did everyone else catch the right bus and I just wasn't at the stop when it left? It feels like it sometimes.

But sitting here and writing this I am listening to God as I ask Him these very things. As I open up to Him and wait for His answer I am reminded of a time that feels so long ago--camp. My first year of counseling was three summers ago. I signed up to work at camp at the request and suggestion of two of my new-found friends. Camp always could use more guy counselors, if you've worked at a summer camp you likely know exactly how that goes! So I listened to God's prompting and applied. I felt inadequate, under qualified, and unsure how I would make it through something so foreign and hard. And it was hard. Looking back, it was one trial after another of doing my best, finding out it wasn't good enough, and stepping up to the challenge with God as my strength.

Wow. I was going to go into how realizing that just made me feel but God brought something else to mind so I'll say that later :P This past summer I didn't go back to camp as I did the summer before; I got a job working construction. I have never had a real life job before. During high school I applied places and no one ever got back to me, working in food service at Cornerstone isn't what I'd call a full time job, and counseling was a very different thing altogether. This job had set hours, set hourly pay, and was far from my comfort zone. I was brought face-to-face with who I honestly was. There were times I could slack off when no one was looking, I could cut corners, or I could even not attempt something if I was unsure how to do it. I had to face each day with a question mark of if the integrity that had been trained into me would hold firm. It did, most of the time. I would be lying if I said I always made the right decisions. But by the end I look back and realize there were countless times I was faced with something I had no idea how to do, backing up a trailer comes to mind. I had never driven with a trailer before working and day two they asked me to hook one up, back into a garage, and drive it around--I had also only gotten my license a couple months before. But I did it, pulse pounding and fearful I'd break something. I didn't, and by the end of the summer backing up a trailer, long or short, is nearly second nature. By the end of that job I realized something; God has not only gifted me with abilities I don't know about but He has and will always be beside me as I tackle new things. Like I said, I made mistakes, bad choices, and let uncertainty get the better of me, but through it all God blessed me, He gave me favor in the eyes of those I worked with, and He grew me through it all.

Wow. Right now all I can think of is how good my God is to me. It took work, it was hard, but in it He has been there for me. I still don't feel like I have the wisdom or the right to make decisions that will affect other people than myself. Yet, I am faced with them. I have to choose my course and set my sights on the horizons that lay beyond it. I started writing this wondering how this will turn out if I mess up one of the decisions, projects, or waste the time before me, but God has reminded me that He brought me here. Not set up to make an easy living, not set up with a confidence that I can do whatever I set myself to, and not even that I will have a smooth time of it. But He brought me here. God has brought me here! And if He's brought me here, He'll carry me through the rest of the plan He has for me. As I look back on how He's prepared me in life I see one defining thing; I can do nothing without Him. When I removed God in my life it's always ended in failure or pain, but when I let Him lead me He turns the pain into growth, the failure into triumph, and the fear into a tried and true confidence in Him.

Am I ready for life? No. I wasn't ready the moment I left home and I won't be until who know's when. But is God ready for my life? Yes. He's been there through thick and thin, up and down, and no matter the size of what He's put in my path. I've accomplished some rather impressive things when I look at what God's done in my life and learn to see where He's brought me as an opportunity for Him to work instead of an opportunity for me to fail. Because both are a sure thing, but one will bring joy and the other despair. So, here's for God working in my life and carrying me through the next two months of this crazy roller coaster called life.


Looking for the Opportunity for God to Work!
Joshua

Finally Finding Out How to be Foolish!

What happens when you look at someone you Love and realize you don't know them? With a marriage, a friendship, or a relationship it often means that they're over or that really hard times are ahead if both are willing to work through them.

What about our walk with Christ? What happens when we find out that how we've been pursuing God is off course, how we think we understand His Love is flawed, or what you've always held as His desire is only your own idea of what God wants? It's a hard question and one I've wrestled through this past week.

What makes you feel furthest from God? Is it pain, is it loss, is it being wrong, or something else? I know that for me I feel furthest form God when I come face-to-face with the truth that I don't know God. I don't know how He Loves unconditionally. I don't understand His plan for me. I don't, I just don't some times and it's then that I feel like I'm a million miles away from Him. How can He be close to me when I struggle so much to give myself to Him, to know the one I profess to Love? The answer is one that takes time to come to.

I found out this week that I still want to serve God how I have planned. Crazy huh? Think I would have realized after almost four years of Him tossing out every plan I've made and finding new ones that I'd finally realize He can and will use me anywhere! Yeah, I thought I would too by now, but it's a lot harder while you're in the valleys to believe something you've seen on the mountain tops. Not impossible, but very hard.

I was faced this week with how honestly bad I am at what I always thought I was gifted with and good at. Feedback about my skills, desires, and passions that say, "You're par at best and generally sub-par." It's discouraging. How am I supposed to use my gifts for God's glory when they aren't anything special? What am I supposed to surrender to God when I have nothing of value? How do I live my life for Him when I am lost and confused? How do I serve Him when what I honestly believed I was called to serve Him with is pulled away from me and I am left with a fear that I won't be of use to Him? That's been this week.

Now that I am at my lowest, now that I am broken, where does God take me? He doesn't build me up (big surprise), He doesn't remind me that He will use my gifts despite how poor they are right now. He didn't tell me to trust that He's bigger than my problems or that He was trying to get me to let go of myself. Instead He held out a hand. I was puzzled and didn't understand. I took hold and tried to pull myself up but He didn't let me pull myself up. I was confused! Why wasn't He there to rescue me? He smiled, It's not time for Him to rescue me. He was inviting me to walk with Him. I took His hand again and instead of pulling me up He came into step with me.

We walked through the valley together a while before I finally asked, "What do you want from me?" I was nearly losing it. I was of no use to Him and after so many times of picking me up and setting my focus straight He wasn't going to do it again. He looked steadily at me and said, "You."

I shake my head, frustration rising, "That's the problem! I keep giving you everything I can, but it never seems to do anything and I keep coming back to where I was." By the end I was nearly in tears. At that point I was kneeling in a room by myself crying out to God and lost while He was walking right beside me.

He kept walking with me and slowly my gaze was drawn to a book that is constantly close to me. It is called My Utmost for His Highest. It is a devotional by Oswald Chambers that I read every day. Over the past week it has been speaking very powerful truth into my life that has been something I've clung to in the midst of the uncertainty of this past week. If you are struggling with the same kind of feelings I would recommend look at the entries from October 20th till today, they can be found here. It was today's entry that really turned this week around.

This morning, God was still walking with me in the valley. I was wondering if He had gotten tired of walking with me in here. Was He tired of me still struggling? Was He bored with how often I turned to Him? But He didn't answer. So this morning I was reading My Utmost to His Highest and as my eyes followed the words on the page He reached over my shoulder and pointed to the words. I paid close attention and that's when it all fell into place. It said that our purpose is behind us. That we are not seeking and saving the lost. That's not what missions is about. Missions is not about the people, as much as that sounds so wrong! I have been rebelling inside against what I've been reading all week and looking back I am seeing that's why I was where I was at.

So what is the focus of missions? The focus is God. Well, that's the church answer, but in reality God cares about people so we need to focus on people because that is focusing on God. Wrong. We are not saving people because they are so important, that diminishes God's glory and the fact that it is only Him who calls the lost and only Him who can do anything. And once we start focusing on people we lose the one who called us, as Chambers puts it, "He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way." Wow. In my frailties He will use me? I just need to let Him? Yes.

And that is why it's so hard! Letting Him do with us what He wills is so...passive. Passivity is roundly denounced by everyone today. Passivity is equated with laziness, sluggishness, and even sinfulness. But not with God, we mess things up when we try to "proactively accomplish His will". The end of today's devotion talks about great men and women of faith and how we credit them with keen intelligence to understand God's plan, but in reality, "...the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were “foolish” enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment." That hit home. I used to wait for God's guidance in my life as He would lay what He wanted of me in my path and I would walk that path in faith. This semester has been time and time again of me trying to do things I decided were what God wanted. In the end He has blessed those ventures, but I can clearly see that they are just my interpretations of what God wants, not actually waiting for Him.

What now? Well, I am climbing now. God has shown me the way to the next mountain top and I am pushing onward! I know once I reach the top I'll be headed either quickly or slowly back into another valley, but as Oswald Chambers says over and over again, it is not who we are on the mountain tops that reflects our walk with God but who we are in the valley that reflects who we are with God. That being said, I am not being spurred on by a goal ahead of me that I need to reach people, Love them, and bring Christ to them. I am spurred on by a God behind me that has my back, is worthy of sacrificing my life for, and will lay the path before me He wants me to walk. I don't need to strive to discern His will, struggle finding the purpose for my life, or worry about what's before me. I just have to have that childlike faith that is, "'foolish' enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment." He is the reason for everything I do. And when I realize that again, He suddenly shows me how to lay down myself and follow Him. I also realize I will be laying down myself for the rest of my life, but I will gladly do so for so great a God!


Being Foolish for Him,
~Joshua

Coming Full Circle

I have come full circle.

An expression that is often used. It usually means completion, but for me it means beginning. Go back to last year, at the beginning of the the semester. I had gotten into my first relationship and my life was headed for a lot of change. But to set this up, I need to do a bit of backstory...

I grew up in a great home. I may not have liked it then and I may feel that something was missing now, but my parents loved me and raised me well. As for me, I am someone who once I get an idea I hold it very firmly until something comes along that can sway me to let go of that idea and look for a new one. So, growing up I got a lot of my values, a lot of my habits, and a lot of my beliefs from my parents, from what they taught me, exemplified for me, and disciplined into me.

When I first left home and went to college, I held onto these beliefs to help me navigate my way through a foreign and scary new environment. I had those beliefs challenged, shocked, or reinforced through that first year and I started to make them my own, but only my beliefs. How I acted, who I was, stayed the same. College challenged where I stood on things, not how I was raised or how I decided to live. That started last year.

Until last year I had never dated anyone. Until then I had never stepped outside my social bubble. Doing both has done a number on how I live, how I view life, and my personal compass. I have come face-to-face with people who view life totally different than I do. I knew plenty of people did, but when I actually got to see why they did, what caused them to view life the way they did, I started to lose the ground I stood on. My faith and morals that had been reinforced my whole life and shored up by caring parents were starting to crumble without the help I had been provided while at home. Over the course of a year major parts of each were put to the test and refined in fire.

The first to go was my giving. Now I'm not talking at church, but in my own life. I had an RA my freshman year who had a personal code that I greatly respect. If anyone saw a shirt on him they liked or a hoodie or something and asked for it, he'd give it to them. Just like that! Going into college I enjoy giving to others. Money, my time, any possessions I had were someone else's if they needed them! I enjoyed it, it was fun! But over the past year I have started getting stingier. I have held onto my stuff more, hoarding it away. I kept my money and didn't want to be open handed with it because I had to "think about the future." I have traveled the whole year getting worse and worse until God finally stopped me and made me make a decision. It ended with me getting rid of many things I had. They were simply things, and yet I let them get between me and my walk with God. So I gave away some of my prize possessions to those I knew would appreciate and use them. I am still letting go of a lot of my stuff, my money, and my time. I haven't gotten back to where I was, but I am come back around to where I started...

Next was reading the Bible. Since sophomore year I have been reading my Bible every day. It started intermittently and soon it became an everyday occasion because of how much I Loved to read it! I read it with an excitement and passion and I would spend time in it. Over the past year that has gone from exciting to almost ritualistic. It has slowly turned into something I just do, instead of celebrating a gift God's given me. That changed today actually. Chapel today was amazing and God reached down and spoke to me, saying, "This has become a ritual to you. One you enjoy, but one that has lost its passion for you." I realized He was right(always is :P ). And I have spent a lot of time praying earnestly today and He's re-sparking that passion for the gift He's given me!

The biggest one has probably been my future. Coming into college I trusted entirely on God to guide my steps, overcome what obstacles would rise in my path, and to give me strength when I was empty. The past year has slowly deconstructed that. Planning for the future, worrying about after college, wondering what I'm going to use my degree for, and many other things have doggedly drawn my eyes away from following God's guidance in the everyday that I may be in His will for the long haul! He's still working on me with that one. I am starting to look ahead--something He's called me to do--but I am no longer worrying about how He's going to use where He's put me. He's brought me here for a reason, and I know He has a plan for it in the future.

These are just three major ones. There are others, but through them all He is bringing me full circle. He is taking what was once blindly trusted in and turning it into something I can build upon; Him and Him alone. It's not been an easy process and there has been many hard times because of it, but His plans for the future are still leaving me in shock as I can only blink in awe at what He has planned :] I believe all of us undergo a testing of our foundations and what matters to us. And after the fire has cleansed the dross, we will stand before him as pure gold, ready for Him to work into a masterpiece! This is the beginning of another chapter, one built on Him and not what I've been taught.


In God's Flames,
Joshua

The Tides of Life

What does the tide do? Well, simply thinking about it brings a whole host of answers to mind. It ebbs and flows. It swells. It drags things out to sea and brings things from the sea to land. It leaves gifts and takes treasures. It creates viscous currents and leaves peaceful pools. The tide is a force and a reaction. It is these and many more. Life has been very tide-like this first month at school. Lots of lows and highs. It is and will be a season of constant change but absolute assurance. Let me give you a few glances at the tide of my life this past month :]

Starting this month was not the lowest the tide's ever been for me, but it was filled with the most vicious current I've ever faced and dragged a lot out to sea. Just before school started I was informed that God called the person I'd been dating for nearly a year to let go of all others and seek Him alone. She let me know that meant me and let go of me, and I am proud of her for that. It also was the worst rip tide I've ever been in. It swirled me around, ripped me from shore, disoriented me, and left me adrift.

I struggled to swim back to shore, leaning heavily on God all the way. He was my life preserver then, the only thing holding me up when I simply could go any farther right then. I got back to shore and found myself at college. I look around the beach and realized how bare it was, the current had pulled a great many things out with it. I knew I didn't have time to stop and get oriented so I  tackled something, only to find that my source of encouragement was no longer there--I've faltered more than once since then. I faced strange things left behind by the tide, emotions, parts of my past, plenty of dead fish, but I had no one I could talk to about it, no one there that I trusted implicitly.

Those first few weeks were strange. I wandered, literally at times around campus, and was shocked at how much of my life was uprooted, torn apart, or left strew on the beach. I walked in a daze sometimes, too numb or completely overwhelmed to even begin to think. It still happens now, I find myself unable to do anything from playing a computer game to enjoy simply walking outside because of the utter lack of anything or the pure overwhelming chaos of everything. I can't even begin to describe how hard it is to be outside looking up at the stars at night and feel...nothing. No closeness to God, no peace, no joy, just nothing because I'm filled with so much there that there's no longer room for anything else. I can't even think. Imagine being unable to think. Yeah, if you'd asked me to do that before now I'd probably have looked at you strange and wondered how someone could not be able to think. Well, I guess I didn't know everything, but I already knew that ;] ...sorry, couldn't help that one :P

Through this whole time I've been actively running after Jesus. He's the only one who can help. He's the only one who can show me where peace is. He is the only one who can give me confidence. He is the only one who knows what will set me on my feet again. And at times I find Him and am at peace for a while as I walk with Him unhurriedly and rest in knowing and being with Him. Then the tide rushes in and sucks me out again, the overwhelming emotions cascading over me. I struggle out of them back to the beach and start my search again. Every time it's impeded by skewed hopes, broken pieces of the past, or my own frailties. But every time He is faithful to lead me back to Him and give me the peace without which I would have lost it after a couple weeks.

Recently Jesus has been doing something a little different. He's still walking with me and giving me peace between the ebb and flow of my emotions, but every once in a while he points to a hole in the sand. I run over and look in. It's a tide pool. Some are deep, almost bottomless, and some are shallow enough I reach the bottom. In every one He shows me things I wouldn't have seen if the tide had just stayed high. One is he confidence He has given me as my own. The ability to rise to a difficult or bewildering challenge and face it with His help. This pool was made with help by a very special person who I remember every time I look at it and God reminds me of it. In other ones I find hopes long buried, possibilities never before seen, and glimpses of mysteries I am still unraveling.

The ebb and flow is still there, not as bad as before, but at times it still catches me by surprise. Yet God is using it to point out where I need to rely on Him more and learn from Him. I'm finding some incredibly difficult things to work on, things that have been part of me my entire life and are not easily changed or surrendered. And even harder is not only getting rid of them, but then filling that empty part of me with Christ and becoming like Him. For some reason my flesh doesn't want to become like Christ...huh, go figure. I think God's said a couple times that'll be how it is... :P

So, how about right now? Right now I am at peace. I have seen some pretty rough places in my life that need changing. I need to learn how to hope again. Pure hope, hope based and focused on Christ, and hope that will not disappoint. I need to start looking ahead to where God is leading me and what I need to be doing now to follow His lead in the here and now. I also need to suck it up and do my work. I have a book to edit, schoolwork to do, a small group to finish planning and start up, and a relationship with my Jesus to seek after. It's a lot, but He's given me the time, strength, and ability to do it; I just have to die to myself and start killing the flesh when it gets in my way.

Those are only a few. There are more ones that are small, ones that are all encompassing and can't be expressed in words, and some that honestly hurt too much to share, sometimes even with myself. But here are a few that you can ask me about if at any time the Spirit leads you to. I'll answer honestly, so be prepared to have some time to listen ;]

Right now, I feel close to God, but I know at any moment I could be pulled viciously away from Him by a surge of uncontrollable emotion. It used to be scary, the fear of when and if it would happen made me cling tighter to God and strike out harder to get back to Him on the shore. But now I'm not so keen to. He's brought a passage to mind that has made me stop and think. It is in Hebrews.

"It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. 

Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." - Hebrews 12:7-13

I find myself now sitting where the current's taken me and realizing God Loves me. He wants me to be more like Christ and is willing to put me through my paces so I do grow. I often fight it and just want to be with Him, want to be made whole, want to be at peace. But He keeps letting me be swept out to sea and come in again, then be swept out to sea and come in again, and be swept out to sea and come back again until I stop and realize what He is doing. He is training me by discipline and if I learn from it, I will gather the "peaceful fruits of righteousness."

Now, don't get me wrong. This hasn't gotten any easier, any more bearable, or any more enjoyable. Far from it. We often like to make large of little things and say that they are God correcting us and that we just have to find joy in them and they will pass or we will learn from them. But I don't think so. That isn't what this is saying. It says it's going to hurt! It says, "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful." Realize that and let it stick with you! Discipline is never supposed to be fun or easy otherwise it loses its sting, its usefulness. Yes, disciple does end in the "peaceful fruit of righteousness", but that's after the discipline is done. Not when we say it's done or we think we've learned what we need to, but when God says it's done. So, take heart! Lean on God and trust that He will carry you through. Not on your time or when you can't stand it any more, but when He has broken you down and readied you to be built back up in the likeness of His Son.

That being said, I could use your prayers. I have a long ways to go with this discipline. And as for me and Alainya, we both could use your prayers. We're still friends and when I get back from Africa the future is still open, but that's the future and we're here now. So pray that we can learn from God's discipline and grow through it closer to God and more like Christ. The tides of both our lives are constantly changing, but God is right there with us and will always be, praise be to God!


Going with the Flow,
Joshua

Breaking Free from the Familiar

Emotions are strange things. They can bring you up from despair or sink you there.

Hope is a strange thing. It can be what makes you wake up and face another tedious day with a smile or what cuts your legs out from under you when it fails.

Desire is a strange thing. It can give you a passion for something or an all consuming obsession.

Faith is a strange thing. It can give you a solid ground to stand on and rely on or what you suddenly fall through as everything around you disintegrates.

I could keep going. Until now my life has always been my own. I had simple desires that couldn't fail, faith in something that couldn't be shaken, only let myself feel emotions I could control, and had only hoped for things within reach and sight. What happens when all that is changed? Well, get ready for a rocky ride!

Have you ever been in a place you are happy or comfortable with, a place where the path forward is known though it might be a little foggy? It's a nice place when you're there. You have certainty. You know what's coming, even if something unexpected pops up you know it will be something you can deal with. That's been my life. Looking back I'm torn that I've lived that way for so long. I've lived confidently plunging ahead into the 'unknown' because I know that the worst thing that could crop up I'd be able to handle.

Something strange happened last year. I looked ahead of me and saw two paths, one was the familiar 'unknown' and the other was completely new and unexplored. I felt God's pull and started down the latter path and trekked through the rough, often obscured, path. All the while I kept trying to get back to the familiar path while staying on this new path. It created a conflict within me I couldn't see then but is so very clear now. You can't have a foot on each path. They diverge permanently and no one can keep a foot on each path unless they are deceiving themselves and blind to the fact they're back to the familiar.

That divergence happened recently, and I was faced with my choice which path I'd truly follow. It's taken weeks for me to understand what is being asked of me. I have taken what feels like a hundred miles of blundering through the jungle of confusion and uncertainty to reach the top of the hill overlooking the divergence of the two paths I've been so skillfully walking on simultaneously. I have had my eyes opened to the fact I have been given the second, final choice which path to pursue...

I've been standing on that hill top for almost a week now, talking with God about what the future of each path holds. He has been remarkably closemouthed about both of them, simply saying that I need to choose what I truly want! The uncertainty has been wrecking me! I have been so used to certainty, even in the unknown I have been remarkably certain of what was coming. But now I was faced with complete uncertainty. God wouldn't tell me if He'd fulfill my newly revived hopes, dreams, passions, and desires if I plunged into the unknown. If He had just given me one, small reassurance that He'd be there with me I could have chosen it in a heartbeat! But that was what He was trying to teach me, to trust Him. I had to choose.

Oh, it was heart-wrenching. I had to let go of everything I am, myself as a writing, a desire for a family, wanting to Love on kids, even my faith that God would carry me through it all. Why did I have to let go of those things, especially the ones which seem part of following Christ? I needed to trust Him fully, not simply trust because I knew I could trust Him but because in spite of not knowing I would choose to place myself completely in His hands.

For me, this entrusting Him with everything I am and not knowing what He'd do with it was the hardest thing I've ever done. The past few weeks have been full of impossibly hard things, but this has surpassed all of them. I, who thrive on knowing, have to know nothing. If you show me how to do something and I then know how to do it, you can trust me to do it with excellence and excitement. That's all I've ever wanted from God, to know what He wants of me so I can tackle it with enthusiasm and excellence! A noble goal, right? But that's not what He wants. He wants us to abandon ourselves to Him so He can mold us, so He can be our strength when we lack the ability or knowledge to accomplish something, and so His light is what shines through, not ourselves.

Just thinking about today makes me thrilled and scared. . .

I am scared.

I am terrified.

I no longer know what God will do. Before, I knew what God would do; I didn't have to trust Him much because I knew what He would do because I knew Him, right? ...yeah...no. I'm now stepping out in action and the only thing I can do is trust God will be there with me; everything is beyond my control from school to my very future.

Trusting has taken on a whole new meaning to me right now. I feel vulnerable right now, stripped of all my own confidence. I feel like I'm walking through a wild country and any moment something could jump out and make me fail a class, which would mean I couldn't graduate in May and thus couldn't leave for Africa! Or maybe I won't even find where in Africa I am supposed to go! I have no control and I am holding on to God like a child with his teddy bear at night as the shadows might hold terrors.

I know it sounds pathetic. it is. I have decided to become pathetic for Jesus. That's the bottom line of it. I am leaving everything I know behind as I step closer to my God.

Now, I'm not saying I am fearful that everything will go wrong, though I would be lying if I said fear isn't a pretty common thing now. But my God is so much bigger! He might not let life work out how I want or am expecting it to, He's already proved that, but I know His plan is beautiful! I caught a glimpse of it as I started down the new, unexplored path. From that brief mountaintop vision I saw some pretty amazing things ahead of me, and I sure you'll see them later on here as I experience them! ;] But now I'm headed into the valley, walking a path where each step is new, unknown, and taken only by faith.

Less than a day on this path feels more refreshing than the past twenty years walking within the bounds of the familiar. This is going to test me to my limits and beyond; I already know that. But I have an infinite God with a beautiful plan ahead of me. Looking back, I think one amazing thing I've learned from the past couple weeks is that hurt heals, pain points us to where we need strength, and loss opens up a space for God to work in.

I would like to engage you right now. Whether you believe in prayer or not, I would appreciate it if you would pray for me. God has amazing things ahead of me as well as terrifying things, and I will need prayer for both. For right now, prayer that God would guide me where to go in South Africa after graduation would be so appreciated!

I am excited.

I am hopeful.

God has shown me how much I leave behind as I start my new journey, but for me that is His way of telling me Has some amazing things I need to make space for! I hope this has helped you see where I'm at right now and maybe encourage you to check out what path you're on. It's easy to be on the path of familiarity and think it's surrender to God; I know. But let me tell you, the sacrifice starts something you've never experienced before; you start the adventure of a lifetime! Quicksand, crazy baboons, losing your way; those are things that will cause you to stumble and fail on the path, but God's bigger than our mistakes and will use our broken, beautiful lives on the grandest adventure!

I'm starting that adventure today, no maps, no predefined end or treasure to find, but a perfectly Loving Guide, a tried and true compass, and companions I am going to trust! Will you join me? Will you join this adventure? Pursue God with everything you are and live with abandon! It's the hardest thing for us as humans to do; I know. I am going to slip up and try to find my way back to the familiar at times and only God's correction will bring me back. Yet, I have hope and faith that without a doubt this is the best choice I could ever make!


Taking the Path Less Traveled,
Joshua

One Push Can Start an Avalanche

What happens when God arrests your life? I fell down on a concrete sidewalk. What happens When God gives you a little push? An avalanche has just started for me

The past two days have been intense. I have been confronted, confused, and challenged in so many ways I feel like my life is getting pulled in every way possible. I wasn't ready for classes the day I walked onto campus, the past week focused on bringing other things to God, and now I feel like I have been spending the past two days to get ready for other things. So, I still am not ready for classes tomorrow.

Tonight stood out though. After a long day of my heart being tugged around by God, I felt Him pull in a very specific way. I rebelled, thinking I would appear creepy or at least strange but not in a good way. I kept going, coming up with an infinite number of reasons for why what I felt pulled to do wasn't right. Everything from I heard Him wrong to I might creep someone out. God kept on pushing, reminding me of everything He had been pouring into me that day until I finally stopped dead in my tracks.

I couldn't go another foot farther. I wanted to just close my mind out to this pull that felt wrong in so many ways! I didn't want it to be right, not because I didn't want it but because it goes against me. It would be stepping outside my comfort zone; it would be denying myself for someone else; and it would be taking what God says both in His words to me and in His Word as just that, His words. I felt myself pulled to my knees as an internal struggles raged. I was unwilling to admit this was God pulling on my heart, wanting it to be just me wanting to do something 'nice' that would end up being weird.

I stayed there on my knees for a few moments. I finally told God I would do this. I stood up and was shaking as I went back. I asked God something very simple, if this was from Him to give me a peace about it.

Breaking thoughts but not topic, I am horrible with words. When put in an awkward situation or a place unfamiliar to me(or sometimes even one familiar) my mind will spin at a million miles an hour attempting to figure out what to say. I struggle with even basically figuring out what to say, even so much as how I will even start talking. I almost never come to what I will say and have to just start saying when I do get there.

Yet, carrying on, as I was going back I felt God's peace. I knew He wanted me to go back. I didn't know how everything would go or if I would find the right words, but I knew God had asked me to and He proved it by putting my fears and worries to rest.

I won't carry on any more, but to summarize what happened I lived out what God has been calling me to the past couple days. I have been wondering how I can be the one to lead when I am seeing how far I have to go, but God showed me a couple things.

One, He can make up for my inability. When I would have carried on, pushing the pestering thoughts eventually out of my mind, He kep them there. When I could have stayed standing and eventually just rolled off as I shut my brain off, He brought me to my knees until I listened.

Two, He has chosen me. The times I think I'm nothing special I am both telling the Gospel truth and Satan's lie. I am nothing special, in and of myself, but God has taken this broken vessel and picked it up, setting it in a place among Kings. He showed me through this that He had decided I, weak, hurting, and knowledgeless me, am part of His plan!

I was humbled and still am. I don't know what will become of what I did. I am hoping it wasn't simply a test by God and that I was used to maybe help someone. But either way I will rejoice in what God did and does do!

I honestly wish I could escape His calling. I would overjoyed to serve Him in a quiet place where I could spend the rest of my life with Him, getting to know Him as I served those around me. But I know that was never His plan. I know He has something far more uncomfortable, painful, and intimate for me than that. He's calling me to all people. First I start here, where He's placed me and what He's put in front of me to do. In the future, it will be to a people I do not know, in a place I have never been, and with a goal He has yet to lay before me.

After tonight I'm excite dto say the least. I know it will be hard and trials will stalk every foot of the way, but I have a faithful God who is and will be taking care of me so I know it's all good! I'm praying, as promised.


Taking My First Steps,
Joshua