Happy Valentines Day!

To all my  lady friends ( That sounds funny):

Dear Valentine, 

You are beautiful, lovely, full of value! A treasure , a gift! You are special and desirable!

Regardless of whether or not you got flowers or a card or a car from that special someone, 

YOU ARE LOVED!

Happiest of Valentines day to you!

Whether I know you or not, I would pledge my life that those descriptive words up there are true of you!  We can end here. We can part ways now.  But if you want to know how I know without a shadow of a doubt that those words are true, read on. 

Valentines day is one of my least favorite days of the year. Mostly because it can bring out materialism and comparison. These are a few of my least favorite things, and something I am so terribly guilty of.

My husband of 14 years, rocks my world! He is not perfect, but I think he’s close. 

BUT, He is only a shadow of the one who loves me most of all. 

There is another. One who calls you “Worthy” and “Beautiful”. It is the most beautiful love story ever told and I could listen to it over and over again! The one who made you….He calls you by name. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He gave His life, to give you life and to adopt you and bring you into His family. 

Here are the things He says about you and the places in the bible you can find it. 

YOU ARE VALUABLE!

I am the Creator and you are my creation. I breathed into your nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). I created you in my own image (Genesis 1:27).  I knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). I know the number of hairs on your head, and before a word is on your tongue I know it (Matthew 10:30; Psalm 139:4). You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

YOU ARE LOVED!

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

If you exist in the world you can fill your name in that sentence. 

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

"Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father's house. The king is enthralled by your beauty, honor him, for He is your Lord." Psalm 45:10-11

Beloved, He does not love as the world loves! The love of the world pales in comparison to the love that Creator God has for His creation! 

So this is your valentines day card! The bible is full of many more gifts for you! The words have been the same for many many years! They won’t die like flowers. Or ever get empty like a bottle of perfume. They are at no risk of being stolen and the stock market doesn't bother them. They are for you….forever! The bible says "He gives good gifts even while we sleep!"

And one last thing,  the most important of all. He wants you. Not just on Sundays. Every day. A relationship. A real one! 

Happy Valentines Day Beloved! 

 I’m happy to share more with you! I love to tell about Him. 

Here are some songs!

https://youtu.be/sQTnREEtuNk

https://youtu.be/aCBOF21Xx44

Loved and Lost

“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

I love this quote! I first heard it in the movie Moulin Rouge
(no judging!). I haven’t thought about it in years, but it’s been on my mind recently.

As we drove away from Gambella and headed to the airport after saying our goodbyes to our Nuer friends, tears streamed down my face. How could God do this to us? How could he put us in a situation where we gave so much of ourselves and now had to leave it all?

Loving someone takes from you. It costs you, and it’s all worth it. That’s what I heard rise up within me as I questioned God that morning. I don’t know why we had to leave so abrubtly, but this time, this opportunity, this privellage--it was so worth it!

Y’all, I still cry when I see pictures of our friends. I feel a little bit like an emotional wreck! I’ve compared my emotional response to a breakup between a girlfriend and a boyfriend except...

None of our time was wasted. It was all for the glory of God. Some plant, others water, but it’s God who makes it grow. He who began a good work among the Nuer will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Not to us, not to us, oh Lord, but to your name be the glory.

We head out to a new people group in a few short weeks.Pray for us. Pray that our mourning would soon turn to dancing. That fear of loss would have no room in our hearts. Pray that we would do it all over again. That we would do it better. Give more. Love more. Serve more. That we would love well and point to this King. Our Joy! He is so worth it!

Caring for the Women of South Sudan

As I was praying for some of my South Sudanese friends recently, I was overwhelmed with God's heart for them. These women are married and have many children, yet I sensed that in many ways, they are like widows.

Many women in South Sudan do not live with their husbands. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes their men have to go where there is work. Sometimes they are estranged because of some conflict. Sometimes it’s because their marriage is more of a contract of utility than a relationship. There is too much to unpack here about the cultural norms, so I can’t explain as much as I would like--but just know this is not a cultural critique but rather me sharing the struggles of some of my friends and women like them.

God is passionate about caring for widows and orphans. He is passionate about caring for those who are disadvantaged and downtrodden. The Bible mentions widows and orphans as examples of people that should be cared for. So children that are without the love and care of parents or women that are without the provision and protection of husbands are very near to God’s heart.

I hope you will join me in praying for these women and their families. Please pray the blinders of cultural norms would be removed and that the truth of God’s Word would penetrate hearts. Please pray God would raise up some pictures within the culture of what God wants family to look like in South Sudan.

I have been blown away at the privilege of knowing these women and getting to see how everything from water wells to Bible storying can positively affect the families of South Sudan. Sometimes it still takes my breath away that God has made me one of His ambassadors, and I am overjoyed that I get to go and love on his behalf.

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” 

2 Corinthians 5:18-20

Resting in His Radical Love

Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart,  and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths.  

It’s a familiar verse but I struggle to apply it to my life many times. This is one of those times.

I have my understanding of what the Nuer need. We have been privileged to work among them for more than a year now, so I have formed my limited understanding of what they need based on much observation. My understandingis that they would benefit greatly from an outside perspective of the love of God. My observation has been that there are not a lot of examples to point to of sacrificial love. Without some picture of what sacrificial love looks like, it has to be difficult for the love of Jesus to really sink in.

In my personal culture, I can find with a little effort examples of husbands that love their wives sacrificially. I can find parents that work hard and sacrifice for their children. So I started to wonder if perhaps the Lord had chosen us to be a living example of sacrificial love and to speak of His sacrificial love and how it naturally flows into our lives as followers of Christ.

Now, as we face the final days that we have with Nuer, I have to reconsider everything that I thought I understood. So it is not, at least immediately, God’s plan to reveal himself through us, foreign missionaries. And we won’t get to spend the time and life with them that we thought we would.

I am encouraged, though, that the Lord must have bigger plans. As hard as it is for us to leave, we have to trust that the Holy Spirit will reveal Jesus in heart-transforming ways, even without anyone from the outside here. I have met men during my time that have a Spirit-driven desire to see the Church be more beautiful and more refined. They're willing to stand for truth even if culture will push back. In a time like this, I really am grateful I don’t have to lean on my own understanding and that all I have to do is submit to God in the ways I go.

I am grateful I can indeed trust that He can use whatever vessel He desires to bring the heart transformation we long to see.

I can rest in His radical love for the Nuer and His radical love for us.

Remember Your First Love

I have been thinking a lot lately about life and what is primary.

What in our lives should we put first?

Of course, because I follow Christ, what is supposed to be primary is obvious: Jesus. It’s the next step in my thought process, though, that's been challenging me. How do we put Jesus as primary? Is it by devoting our lives to service? Is it by replacing “secular” activities with “holy” ones? Is it by standing up for the truths revealed in the Bible? Is it by doing something God wants us to do? 

Of course these things fit “inside” of the answer, but as I read Revelation 2 and what it says about the Church in Ephesus, I have to think that doing for the Lord is a secondary priority to “remembering our first love." So often, though, my next thought is, "But I'm American, and so the proof is in the pudding. If I love Jesus, I will serve Jesus, so I simply must quickly turn my affection into action. I need to get busy and do before someone starts quoting James 1:22."

I would never argue that doing nothing is the answer, but I keep finding myself just barely getting a glimpse of the feet of Jesus before I start feeling like I should run and help Martha. Perhaps more tragically, I have found myself at times trying to sit at the feet of Jesus only to become a better servant of His. I got it backwards.

I try to make Jesus a means to my service or fruit instead of making Him my deepest affection.

This is my struggle. I am not trying to make it yours if you don't struggle with this, too. I hope you read this and you feel like you have permission to be with Jesus a lot more than you thought was okay before. I hope you feel permission to say no to a service opportunity or a church activity in favor of spending time in the presence of God to love and be loved by him.

I think we might have to park our ideas about “our impact” and “our legacy." We will have to tame our cultural urge to produce a product at all times. Only then will we be able to feel comfortable making the trade from “doing for” to “being with.”

Let’s try and just spend time “remembering our first love." 

I want to build something for you, God

I want to build something for you, God. 

The desire comes with mixed motives I'm sure. It's hard for us as believers to meditate on the gospel and not come away with a burning desire to advance the Kingdom of God. To see our Jesus lifted high. He is just too good to keep Him all to ourselves.

On the other hand, when I am confronted with a lack of tangible fruit in some area of life, it's revealed that maybe my desire for this advancement is also motivated a bit by my desire to feel good about what I do. I want to feel like my life counts, like I'm successful, effective, and equipped. This desire is not bad, either. I believe this is a God-given desire.

It's when I find myself chasing significance and accomplishment apart from Jesus that I begin to walk away from the life God wants for me and toward the bits of death we call sin.

God may be responding to my statement, “I want to build something for you God.”

He may be saying:

I want to build something WITH you, son.

I want you to stop looking at your building project long enough to turn toward me and to take my hand. I want you to find my heart. Let’s look at this building together. Why don’t you ask me to move the bricks that are impossible for you to move? Why don’t you look at the things you are not equipped for as things that you need my help with, not things that prevent your success? After all, I don’t need builders. I can speak buildings into existence. I don’t need your service. I washed my friends' feet when I was with them.

I came to serve, remember? What I really want for you is more relationship. I want you to walk in the joy of holding the shepherd’s hand while we go together and carry out the ministry of reconciliation. I have given you an amazing mission to go out and restore people to their passionate, loving Father. Not because I am helpless to save them without your excellent work and strategy, but because you will get to know my heart as you seek as I seek and love as I love.

I could be wrong, but as I consider these statements, I think I find every single one is scripture. Help me if you think I am wrong. 

He wants to build something with us.

Do I have what it takes?

Do I have what it takes? It’s a question I had before I left the states and it is still the main question after a year of being in Africa. It's a question that's shaped my past, and I think it will be a question that has the power to shape my present and my future.

I have a hunch that I'm not the only one. You and I don’t just ask ourselves this question, we spend our time trying to look for evidence of the answer. We look at the results of our work or relationships and we critique ourselves about the quality of our results. If we don’t find flawless execution and better-than-average results, we begin to critique our personalities, skill levels, and our natural abilities.

We find things that could have been done better if one of these things were different. We look at ourselves and notice we aren't perfectly suited for what we do today. We might look for something we are better at. We might start to avoid situations that make us uncomfortable. If we are really “spiritual,” we pray for God to improve us.

Soon, our gifts and talents are our Lord instead of Jesus.  

Do I have what it takes? That is not a question we need to answer. It’s a question we need to go to war against. It's a question in direct opposition at times with the question we should be asking.

We should be asking, "What does God want to do in our lives? What is he calling us too?"

Beloved, it's not even about the results. We are off track from the beginning if we think God wants more from us: more results, more success, or more impact. Jesus doesn’t want more from us, He wants more of us. He wants us to be consumed with Him because He designed us to be consumed by Him. When we are consumed by Him, we bring Him the most joy and we ourselves receive the most joy.

He wants to lead us to places where we will find more of Him not to find a more significant life. He wants us to stop trying to find the way we can bring him the most success and start trying to find the way we can find the most of Him 

The application of this differs slightly from person to person, but all followers of Jesus are, by nature, missionaries. We can stop asking if we are good missionaries and start asking instead, "Lord, where should we go? Lord, who should we talk to? And Lord, What do you want us to say to them?"

My guarantee is this: He will lead us not to comfortable places but to ones filled with more joy and more Jesus.