To Whom Else Have We To Go?

Yesterday Catherine and I decided to take a roadtrip to a little country hick town called Boerne (pronounced Berny) to go to a church called Faith Bible. It was an hour and a half drive - very beautiful driving through the hillcountry. When we arrived we were told to follow the highschool group (I am not sure what that was supposed to mean), so we had Bible study with their highschool group. We began the study by playing a very biblical and sophisticated game called “Big Booty”. Hm. I am not sure if any of you have played this, but I had not before experienced it and I really liked it. The teacher had  a thick Texas accent and the kids were pretty distracted. But we got to talk about Paul, and it was awesome to know that there are people in a little old country town that love Jesus. Yes, the game was definately called Big Booty.

Today a small group and I have started praying through “Operation World” which is basically where we stand in the gap before the Lord and plea on the behalf of every country in the world. The book gives specific spiritual issues in each country and we just go for it. Today we started with Papau New Guinea. I have never done something like this structurally and corporately as well as consistently. It is already teaching me discipline.

God is calling us to pray. We are going from the age of the Church to the arrival of the Kingdom Age, full force and for the duration until He comes back and then after.

My 2 godsisters left for India this morning for a missions trip for 3 weeks…Lord, I pray that these two girls would encounter the One true living God who is Christ upon their stay. I ask that Indian residents would encounter Jesus through them. I ask that you would bring them to nothing until they cry like children for You. I ask that they would bow before you and make you Lord of their lives.

I ask you, dear friends, to partner with me in praying for Kristin(20) and Kaitlyn(17). Thank you.

I had the sweet priviledge of spending time with Natalie’s parents last night. Her dad had some of his friends over from his band and we ate hamburgers together. I love mama and papa Lyons so much. Papa Lyons just got the Beegee’s on DVD and he was pretty excited about it so he let us watch some of it.

Before I knew the Lord, and even in the beginning of my walk,  I was an incredibly sarcastic person. I was around a sarcastic person recently and I just realized how painful and unattractive sarcasm is to me. It is bighting. I saw a glimpse of what I looked like. And it did make me praise the Lord that He has changed me. I used to looove to make fun of people. Now even when someone makes a small snide remark towards someone it feels so painful to me. And the ironic thing is that the Lord has been calling me to confront my brothers and sisters on it lately. And to think I used to be the most sarcastic person i know..

Words really are very powerful. Catherine told me once that instead of saying something negative and causing a person’s heart to react negatively - even with something small like saying, “ewww, look at that disgusting dead bird carcass on the ground.”, you could look two feet away from it and point out the beautiful blossoming dandilion instead. I love that about Catherine, Natalie, and Ryan, and actually all my close friends, is that their words are so life-giving and encouraging. To be honest, I love these relationships so much more than I do my old ones before I knew the Lord because there was no real encouragement and devotion.

“Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” PROV12:18

“Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”PROV 16:24

At our Hope group on Tuesday we had a discussion about how the Lord has us all in a period of transition right now. It is fascinating to see the differences in circumstances between us all, but the struggles are pretty similar. With me, I realized my tendency when I feel out of control(like I was ever IN control in the first place, hello?) is to immediately hop up and respond by saying, “Oh Jesus, I want to do this and this and be like this for You.” I want to do alot of stuff. And the self expectations are pretty high, if you know what I mean. Natalie tells me alot that I am too hard on myself. Something the Lord told me about two years ago and remains to tell me is, “Jess, you do not have to strive; I am preparing the way.”

I am not saying that it is bad to want to change and be made more like CHrist, because that is a wonderful desire. I just know that I have visions - good visions - visions from the Lord, even, and I tend to strive in my own strength to get it accomplished prematurely(works, basically), not accepting that it is definately a process. Then, of course, it sets me up to fall pretty hard and I feel dissapointment in myself. But the beautiful thing about this is that there is hope in Jesus. His Love for me will never change nor is there condemnation. Because of Him I am already free, I just need to learn to walk in it.  

He invites me to take up my cross and follow Him. It is a process and one that I do not have to be perfect at like tomorrow. He challenges me for sure, but I know there are times where He is just telling me to receive His Love. In John 15:9 Jesus says, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.” Good-night, He is actually saying that He loves me the same as the Father loves the Son…Jesus really does adore us, and He is telling me to abide in His love. The greek translation for this form of “abide” is meno, and it means “to be held, kept, continually; to remain”. Yeah, Lord, I thank you for Your Love that is very great. Thank You that Your arms are always open and that we are not bound to sin and complacency. Thank You that You are not a stoic, detatched being, but that You are the Everliving God who sees and feels and acts swiftly for the sake of Love.

My prayer has been that He would pour me out of my flesh and fill me with His spirit - that my body would be broken as an offering of Love. He has been answering this prayer- as painful as we both know it is.

This God that I feel so intimate and in love with, this Lord that I am coming to trust more and more, is exposing the very skewed ways in which I see Him. I am realizing really for the first time that I experience dissapointment. Alot. Even in small things. Deep down inside there is this part of me that sees Jesus as not wanting to give me good things- things that I desire-legitimate things. It is almost as if I see Him dangling something in front of my face as someone would with a kitten, and then pulling it back when I jump for it.

This puts me in the mindset of, “well, why want this anyway, because I will not get it”. That type of attitude. Basically, it is not believing that He knows what is best for me, but even deeper than that, not trusting His Love for me. The challenge for me is instead of pulling back from the Lord and passively deciding not to pray for things with expectancy in fear of dissapointment, I must press into Him even harder with everything I have. Risk something not turning out the way I want it to. When a woman is giving birth and she has contractions, she does not pull back, she pushes harder, and the result of that is life-giving.

To be honest, realizing this dissapointment I have breaks my heart into a thousand pieces. Funny how even though Jesus is the one I am struggling with, I can’t not lay myself at His feet and I cannot make it through a single moment without Him.

This Sunday will be my last Sunday teaching the first and second graders. They are some great kids for sure. Mr. Jonathan and I are in the midst of writing blessings for each of the kids to take with them as they leave. I desperately want these kids to be living for Jesus as they grow older. I am going to make a cake for them as well.

I feel like I may have learned as much as they did in a sense. I was not raised learning all of these life-giving stories from the Bible. In planning the lessons I would find myself asking soo many questions and as the answers have been revealed I fall deeper and deeper into experiencing the Joy that is only found in Jesus Christ. For these kids when they become teenagers and are faced with trials, God will redeem the stories for them and make the words come alive and pierce their hearts. I pray that they would have ears to hear, Lord.

I turn in my application for nursing school the day after I take my HESI…and then I wait…but the Lord is having mercy on me and allowing me to work in a hospital before I get into nursing school.

I am going to work as a sitter to get hospital experience and also to get a feel for all of the hospitals in Austin. My eye is on the Children’s Hospital, of course. But I like the idea of a sitter because I get to spend quality time with a person (the person cannot be left alone usually for post-op reasons). I notice that people bear their souls to me often within ten minutes of meeting them, so this will be a good time for the Lord to love them through me. Trust me, it is nothing in of my own…