Change

Sometime back in seminary (that makes it seem like light-years ago!), God called me to be a change agent, a reformer. I also discovered while I was in Wilmore that I am incredibly inflexible. Today, it clicked in my brain. God's called me to be a change agent . . . and I can't stand change. It makes me uncomfortable, sick to my stomach, and afraid. No, I don't think I'm misinterpreting God's call. But I'm not sure why God created me to be so committed, stable, and stubborn, and such a control freak that change is hard for me.

I read this today from Henry Blackaby (by way of John Ortberg), ". . . if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God. The kind of assignments God gives in the Bible are always God-sized. They are always beyond what people can do, because he wants to demonstrate his nature, his strength, his provision, and his kindness to his people and to a watching world. This is the only way the world will come to know him."

Here's the deal: God is the one that brings change, not me. Remember, he said, "I'm going to do a new thing" and "be transformed by the renewing of your mind". God will do that in the OBX through me; and at the same time, he'll expand my ability to trust him as I see him faithfully change hearts, minds, and churches.

"Much Afraid"

Jars of Clay helped me today. I had felt empty and afraid, but there's no need to be. Christ fills me. His light initially burns when He reveals your darkness, yet here there is peace, hope, joy, and freedom! The words below mark where I've been, but God is helping me move forward in trust and obedience. "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear. . . ." (1 John 4:18). I remain in Love.

"Much Afraid" -- Jars of Clay
Empty again
Sunken down so far
So scared to fall
I might not get up again

So I lay at your feet
All my brokenness
I carry all of my burdens to you

All of these things I've held up in vain
No reason nor rhyme
Just the scars that remain
Of all of these things
I'm so much afraid
Scared out of my mind
By the demons I've made
Sweet Jesus, you never ever let me go
Oh, sweet Jesus, never ever let me go

So happy to love
Yet so far to go
You lead me on to where I've never been before

One Month

As of today, I have been living on the OBX for one month, so I celebrated by finally going to the beach (well, just for an hour!). I thought some of you might like to see some pictures of my house. No, the house doesn't come with the mini-van or my Grandma. My front yard is mainly rock and sand which is both a pleasure and a pain for mowing (since it's hard to push through sand). The other picture is of my living room.

Even though people keep asking me if I'm "gettin' settled in" (I get that question at least three times a week), Kitty Hawk and Duck feel more like home now. At a middle school football game yesterday, I ran into about 15 youth and parents from church. I guess the small town feel isn't too bad after all. It's a lot easier to have a ministry of presence when most of the youth go to the same school!

Seeing God

This coming Sunday at our first full youth group meeting (hooray for the 6th graders moving up!), I will be speaking about God's family. In my preparations, I read through parts of 1 John trying to understand our relationship to one another as God's people. Here's what I found out:

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." (1 John 4:10) It is never us who initiates love. All love comes from Love Himself. Love is sacrificial. John goes on to say, "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:11) God loves us; we love others. We are enabled to love others because of the love of God within us that overflows out of us. OK, here's the really cool part: "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." (1 John 4:12) Right, none of us has ever seen the Father. To me, that's one of the hardest things about following God. I've never seen Him face-to-face. He's not physically here when I need to feel loved. He's not physically here for me to love Him back, and He's not physically here to show me how to love others. BUT if we love each other, God is within us, and His love is made complete. God's love comes full circle when we express the love we've experienced to others. And, I think it's implied here, we SEE God.

Do you see the implications of this? If we love others, they see God. I have been blessed with friends who have almost forced their love on me when I've wanted to deny it because they want me to see how much God loves me. What a witness, and how indebted I am to you all for the ways I now more deeply experience God's personal love! However, if we fail to love others, they will not see God. Think about those who have grown up in a broken family. They have a very hard time understanding how God is a loving Father if their own earthly father has never shown them love.

I don't get it. I know God can reveal Himself to others without our help, but I also know that God's love is not made complete until it is received by us and shown to others. All I know is that I want to be a part of a family that loves one another so that we more deeply understand God's love.

Go love someone today who needs to see our God, and invite them into the family!

Weather update and youth musings

I made it through Ernesto! Now that I've had a chance to talk to more locals, I've found out that tropical storm Ernesto brought more flooding than most hurricanes! I was under Ernesto-invoked house arrest due to some flooding up the street that the ol' Honda Civic couldn't traverse, but there was no damage to the house, yard, or anything. Coolest thing I saw as a result of the storm: high school kids riding a skim board in their flooded front yard!

Today was my first real teaching time with the youth at Duck UMC. What a blast! I had 21 kids, and I wasn't sure how excited they would be about discussion. After some brief introductions and just acting a little goofy, I managed to get them to talk about what sort of things we can expect from God as Christian disciples. In order to get some more info on the youth, I had them fill out a short questionairre including a section that asked them what they expected from God. I thought their answers were pretty good: "I expect God to help me lead a good life." "I expect God to help me at school." "I expect God to help me through this stage of life." And what do they think God expects from them?: "Prayer", "full commitment", "faith in him", "to come to church regularly".

You know, a few years ago, I would have scoffed at those responses believing they were canned Sunday school answers. But I really like the simplicity of it all. I expect God to help me in my daily life, too, and I expect that life will be enjoyable (if not because life is good, then, because I'm living life with God). I expect God will make a difference in the small stuff that doesn't seem to matter much in the larger scheme of things. And I expect that God just wants me to talk to him about it (prayer), to believe in him (faith), and to commit my full self to him. . . . My youth are already teaching me . . . as if I would expect anything different.