VBS!

So, last week we had a VBS here in Costa Rica, It went so well and we saw God's hands moving. God sent down a team to make it all possible, but not only did they bless these kids and this town, they blessed Haley and me. The kids here can actually be really shy with new people, but we just watched as this team poured the love of Christ over them, and the kids opened up. We also became part of their team while they were here, it wasn't them and us, it was everyone working together to further God's kingdom. We got to spend the night with these amazing people, spend time in fellowship, prayer and devotionals. An answer to prayer. I don't know if they will ever know how much they blessed all of us here. God has perfect timing and He knows exactly what He is doing. We watched so many kids give their hearts to Jesus, and there were Bibles placed in their hands. Please keep the kids in your prayers and thank you for all of your prayers, the VBS was awesome.

Peace In Our Confusion

“You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.  How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.  They cannot be numbered!  I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!  And when I wake up, you are still with me!”  - Psalm 139:16-18

“In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus.  When I am alone, give me Jesus.  When I come to die, give me Jesus.   You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.”  I love this song, it reminds me of the verse that says, what good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul?

In this life we have so many plans, so many desires, but the only desire we need is Jesus Christ.  It can be so easy to become the Martha, instead of the Mary, and get so caught up in the work we are doing for Jesus; consequently, forgetting to just sit at His feet, to desire Him and Him alone. While in Guatemala I remember Pastor D saying, “We need to be distracted by Jesus, so that nothing else can distract us away from Him.”  If we are so caught up in Jesus, that nothing else can grab our attention, then we are definitely in His sweet spot.  This though, of course, is easier said than done.

Reading this verse I focused on the first half.  God has a plan and He has known the end since the beginning.  How nice it would be to know God’s plan.  Being in IGNITE has definitely confused the plan (aka. “My Plan”) a little bit.  Which, to be honest, can be hard.  My life has always had an order in my mind, there was a plan.  Everything else could fall apart, but I had control over one thing, where I was going. Well, at least that is what I thought.  Ehhh, wrong. God’s plan is bigger than my plan, it has more turns and bridges, it requires faith and trust in the One who is guiding me.  To follow His plan requires me to constantly be running to Him for guidance, to constantly be seeking His face, and to constantly be distracted by Him.  

That is what made me focus on the second half of this verse, “And when I wake, you are still with me!”  Life, sometimes can feel like a path with no light.  You know that you are walking on the path, you know it is guiding you to where you need to go, but you have a blindfold covering your eyes.  One has to trust the one guiding them on the dimly lit path.  It is when one lets go of the guide that one gets lost.  Just like when we become distracted by other voices, many times our own, instead of following the Holy Spirit that we too get lost.   We need to know our shepherd’s voice, He needs to be our all in all, the one who consumes our thoughts.

Only then will the path slowly shed light.

But even then,

We must trust. 

We Don't always know what is next, or what we are called for in any certain instance.  God never promised us complete clarity, but He did promise us His peace.

How Often Do We Ask Why?

“But the jar the He was forming did not turn out as He has hoped, so He crushed it into a lump of clay and started again.” – Jeremiah  18:4

I remember so clearly the first time God really used this verse to speak to my heart.  I was around 17 and I was doing a Singles Life talk at a Christian girls retreat.  When I read the second half of this verse I remember the chill, my heart started racing and the verse just came alive in that moment. How awesome is the power of God’s word and how crazy is the fact that it doesn’t only happen once?  Here in Costa Rica God has again laid this verse on my heart, just not for the same reasons.

Let me try to explain what I mean (by how it is different).  If you have ever watched Pastor Mike’s pottery presentation in church you might remember a certain part that no one really expects.  You watch Pastor Mike make a vase, a beautiful vase, and then all of a sudden it seems as if he is intentionally destroying it.  But, that is not what he is doing.  The entire time he was planning on making a bowl, and so he had to cause parts of the clay to collapse and then rework on other parts.  The first time I saw this presentation the first thought that popped into my mind was, “why?”  Why, it doesn’t make sense, I don’t understand.  How often is that my first thought when God does something in my life?  Why.

I guess what I am trying to say is this, how often do we feel like we too are being crushed and all we can do is ask why.  We can have peace and hope that the Lord is in control, this gives us rest and strength, but we often still ask why.  Right before I left for IGNITE my dad got literally crushed by a truck, just a couple of days before my brother’s wedding.  I remember being at work when I heard the news and all I could do was walk back and forth in the copy room, praying.  All I could say was, “Lord why?  I know that you are in control, I know that you can do wonders through this.  You are a great God and You give me Your peace.  But, right now I am so confused.  Please Lord, please, show me what you are doing in this and please let me selfishly keep my father here on earth.” 

God still hasn’t show my family and me what He was and is doing through that accident.  As soon as we were starting to be able to stand on our feet financially God took that blessing from us.  I don’t know why and that is okay.  When I found out I was being sent to Costa Rica, the first thing I said in my mind was “why?” It was the last place I wanted to be sent, and yet I had complete peace because I knew that was where God wanted me.  Now I wouldn’t have wanted to be sent anywhere else, in all truthfulness.  I still don’t know why God sent me here, but He is slowly revealing to me why He placed me here.  But, we are in the beginning of month three and He begins to answer my question of why.  Go to love His timing and the lessons we learn through it. J 

It reminds me of a song, How He Loves.  The first verse goes, “He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wings and mercy.”  It was actually when I was thinking of this song that God put this verse on my heart.  God’s love is described as a hurricane, an extremely strong and destructive storm.  Hurricanes can take away everything a person has in an instant and I am sure those people always wonder “why them.”  But the song says that we bend, not that we break.  Just like a hurricane brings rain, clay needs water in order for it to be flexible, in order for it to be moldable.  How much easier is it to trust ourselves, to become “hard and dry” to God’s molding when we think that we have it.  Yet, when we are in the middle of a storm, we tend to lean on Him more, we tend to be more flexible to His voice.  We don’t ask why, we ask how we can learn to dance in the rain.  We let go and Let God.  

Trust.

Hope that made sense! God bless :) 

Against All Hope, We Have Hope

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’  Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.  Yet he did not waver in unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He promised.”

 – Romans 4:18-21

            God will do what He has promised. Against all odds we have two words we can always say, “But God.”  Nothing is impossible with Him, instead all things are possible through Him.

            When I read these verses in my morning devotional time, it was verse eighteen that really stood out to me.  It says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…”  There was no hope, I do not know one person who would say “Yea Abraham! No worries, you can totally have a child!” No.  It goes against everything logical, it is physically “impossible.”  If a couple came to the church and asked for prayer, because they wanted a child, but they were in their nineties, people would probably, very nicely, explain to them how this is never going to happen.

            Yet, even though there was no hope, it says that Abraham did not waver in unbelief, his faith was not shaken.  Instead, his faith was strengthened and he was fully convinced that God would do what He had promised.  There was no doubt in his mind, he put all his hope in God, not in what man said was logical or possible. Wow.  Whenever I read about Abraham I am so encouraged by his amazing faith in the One he followed.  God said go, Abraham went.  God said multiply, Abraham believed.  God said sacrifice, Abraham obeyed. 

            God kept His promise to Abraham and Abraham had one son.  Then God told him to offer his only son as a sacrifice, Abraham took the steps of obedience until God held back his hand.  His only son, the only way that Abraham could become the father of a great nation (as God had promised), and we see Abraham willing to even give that up for God.  All of Abrahams hope was in the Lord.  Even when there was no hope, Abrahams faith was strengthened, he gave all the glory to God, because he knew that it is only through God’s power that anything righteous can be possible.

Abraham knew that he was close to death, he was not naive to the facts of life, but he was also not naive of the awesome power of God.  Abraham knew how big his God is, I pray that I too will grow and have the faith of Abraham.  We cannot focus on our ability, surroundings or knowledge, because we will only become discouraged by what this world has to offer.  Instead we need to be like Abraham, even when there is no hope, we will hope.  Because we know the One who holds all things together, we know the author and finisher of time.  

What Do We Put Our Hope In?

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?" - Matthew 6:26

While we were working at the church this morning, Don Victor noticed that there was a bird laying on the ground.  He picked it up and gentle placed it into my hands, where it simply sat looking around and staring at me.  It didn't seem frightened at all, it was completely content to rest in my hand.  I had no idea if the bird was hurt or if it could fly, so I just brushed it's feathers with the tip of my finger and kept softly talking to it.  Just as I was thinking that I should put the bird down somewhere, it suddenly took off flying. The entire time this bird had the ability to go, to fly and yet it was content to simply rest in my hands.

As I was holding this bird Matthew 6 kept running through my head.  "Are you not much more valuable then they?"  In Matthew 6:33-34 it says, "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."  These are verses that most people in the Church are all very familiar with, but I think they are some of the hardest verses to put 100% of our trust in.  Jesus is telling us to let go of all our worries, to rest completely in His hands.  He is promising to provide for us, we are His children whom He loves. He is telling us to keep our eyes focused on Him, to be distracted by Him and Him alone.

We read these verses and we feel so encouraged and so loved by our Savior who is telling us to rest in Him.  To not think about tomorrow, but to Press On, because He has the whole world in His hands.  It is something that is so easy to read, to teach and to say we totally believe.  But then this funny thing called life hits and it can hit us hard sometimes.  That is when we are stretched, when God tests our faith to see if we are truly standing on Him, our unshakable rock.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Sarah - she was here for three and a half weeks working with us - and we were talking about Gods plan.  Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." So often God's plans are not exactly what we expected them to be.  There are glitches, storms, falls and confusion. It is so easy to get worried, confused and scared that things will end up staying in darkness and that there will never be any rest or light.  Yet, God tells us to rest in Him.  To lean not on our own understanding, but to rest completely in Him and let Him direct our path.  We both agreed that it is such an amazing comfort to know that everything happens for a reason and that God works everything out for His glory.  Yes, things get hard and we can be so confused, but as long as we nestle in His hands and trust that He knows exactly what we need and exactly what time we need it, then we can have hope.  With that hope, through faith, we can have joy and with God's strength (just like this little bird) we can fly.  God takes care of all of His creation, they are not left wanting, we cannot forget His words "Are you not much more valuable than they?"  

My team and some of our work, God knows exactly what we need :)

My teammate and Eddy, it's the group!

Washing the Chairs for Church,

trying to get them to once again be white :) 

One of the main moments we felt like we were truly becoming one with Costa Rica.
We Burned all the trash :D 

Cats and mice! The kids love this game so much!

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." - Colossians 3:23-24

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." - Colossians 3:17

Some Of My Devo Time Here In Costa :)

Love, a word that has always been so dear to my heart, I word I thought I kinda understood.  But, it is a word that I don’t think I will ever fully understand.  I might know the dictionary definition, I might know the Corinthian definition, but as life goes on I am learning more and more of what Love truly means.  1 John 4:10 “And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Yea, I memorized this verse in training, I can say it by heart, but do I truly – with all I am – understand this use of the word Love? Not even close.  This, the greatest form of love, is so close and still so foreign to me.  

I say I love you to my parents, brothers, family, friends, my class of IGNITE,  and to my Savior.  But, do my actions follow my words, are they a close second, do I even know what actions I should take?  How naive of me to think that I could actually have an understanding of this vast word love? Jesus tells us to love our enemies and do good to those who hurt you.  He asks us to look through His eyes, with a heavenly perspective.  He does not wish us to look through our own lenses that are so often scuffed and dirty.   I want to grow in Christ’s love.  The Bible says they will know you by your love for one another, for Christ is our example, we are called to love as He loves. Wow! How then should our love look?  That is truly insane, utterly insane, if you think about it. 

“God will not judge us according to how much we endured, but how much we could love.  The Christians who suffer for their faith in prison could love, I am a witness that they could both love God and man.”

– Underground Christian, prisoner.

“Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some people have entertained angels without even knowing it.” – Hebrews 13:2

To all men my love is to look like Christ’s.  The world’s standard and God’s standard of love is so far apart and different.  Being in the middle is not what I am called to, I am not to be luke warm.  Search me oh God and know my heart, try me and know my ways, teach me how to love like You, for I cannot love on my own as You have loved me.