I can't believe it! I'm already into my 3rd block of my senior semester here at New Tribes!!! There's lots going on, lots of classes and projects to turn in! I've been working a LOT and keepin' myself busy...hence the fact that I haven't updated this thing in a while.
****I'm sensing that I'll probably ramble from here on....thoughts are floating around in my head and they'll probably spill out. So if you don't read any or all of this post...please watch the video at the end. It kind of sums up all of these thoughts.****
One of the classes we just finished up was on Philippians. There is so much wisdom and treasure that just flows from the words that are written in that book! So much conviction and thought-provoking went on, I can't even begin to describe it! One thing that has really stuck in my head though is the concept of giving up everything for God as I move in the direction of going on the mission field. Am I really willing to give it all up? And why in the world do I think that all of the material and comfortable things I have now are so great that I'd take them over sharing the Word?
You know how sometimes you hear or notice something and then it keeps popping up EVERYWHERE? That's how this has been. Classes...chapel...devotions...conversations...stationary....posters....seriously, you name it, this concept is either there or it'll move my thoughts in that direction.
We had a guy come speak in chapel the other day and he asked the question "When will we finally get to the point where we say 'God, I'll give you this and this...but I can't give up THAT for you..." Yikes...seriously? Yet, I know I struggle with that.
Talking with a friend of mine today, he stated that when he came to America (after growing up as an MK in Thailand) the "American Dream" seemed so alluring. It got to the point where he was looking for something better to do than work in missions. Finally he came to the same response: Really? Seriously? He said something that really got my attention...he said "We indulge ourselves in the "good" things we have here only to find that they don't fulfill instead of throwing ourselves into work that is frightening and considered "bad" but more fulfilling than anything we could ever dream of." That work he spoke of is the work of bringing the Gospel to those who don't have it and have never heard it.
I know I'm wandering a little bit here...but really...the bottom line is that if I'm really wanting to devote the rest of my life to God's service as a missionary, I'm going to have to give up some hard things! Comfort, security, eventually I'll most likely lose the closeness of family, and even my dreams. Ever since I was little, I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted my life to look like when I grew up.... Reality check: Grace...your life is not even close to heading that direction. And I have to ask myself....is that okay? Am I okay with this?
How in the world can I not be okay with it?! It's not going to be easy, I know this. But what aspect of my present or future life can I honestly look at and say "THIS is so important to me that I'll hold onto it and keep the Gospel of the ONE Who gave up everything for me"...?
Our final project in Philippians was to make vidoes/skits based on passages in Philippians that were assigned to our groups. The group I was in didn't upload our video onto youtube or anything, but this is one of the videos that was made. Personal opinion: This was the best video out of all of them. They did a stellar job and it kind of wraps up these jumbled thoughts that are wandering through my head. Talk about conviction....
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Food for thought....
Today in classes we talked about life, suffering, people, love........
Going through Philippians has been so very convicting as I see, especially in chapter 1 all that Paul was facing and his response to it. He was in prison at the time he was writing and yet, he was okay with that. He knew that people were coming to Christ because of his imprisonment and since the cross was being proclaimed, he was glad to suffer for Christ. It was all for the furtherance of the Gospel. If I was in a similar situation, would I be able to respond the same way? I wimp out at the smallest bumps in the road. It really is pathetic. If there is a tiny bump, my reaction is to start looking for some way to go around it so I don’t have to trust God to get me over it. Something my teacher said is "suffering is about God and how we fit into His purposes." He is sovereign and has everything under control. His purposes are far beyond anything I could even imagine!! This life isn't even mine anyway. I get so wrapped up in living my life for Him that I forget that it's His life to begin with. My life belongs to Him. My life needs to BE Him. Existence apart from Him isn't even life. Christ must be the source and motivation of all life! Then when we encounter suffering, we can rest assured that it is for Christ and for the furtherance of His message. Am I living for Him? "If what you're living for isn't worth dying for, then it isn't worth living for." (Mike Sullivan) Christ gave up everything to die for me. He is worth living for!! I say this so often and so easily. However, can my heart honestly say that He is also worth dying for? Can I say that and be ready to act on it at all times? Something that was said in class is "Only someone ready to die for Christ truly knows how to live for Christ." How often I fool myself into thinking that I'm closer to this than I really am.
We also talked about the value of people. It's easy to place a large amount of value on myself, but do I value others as I should? If I am to be in ministry, I think it is vital for me to recognize that all people are created in the image of God, He values them, Christ DIED for them......and yet I can often have such a bad attitude and lack of concern toward those around me. There is absolutely no reason to withhold love from anyone at any time. The example was given today of a man who was fed up with his wife. He hated her and wanted to divorce her. He sought counsel from someone at his church asking, "what should I do?! I can't stand to be near her! I want out of this marriage! How do I deal with her?!"
The man replied, "You must love her as Christ loved the Church. He gave everything to redeem her and loves her unconditionally!"
The disgruntled husband became angry. "Absolutely not! I can't love her like that. She doesn't deserve it."
His friend then said, "Alright then, treat her like a neighbor. How are you supposed to care for your neighbor? Love you neighbor as yourself."
At this the husband yelled, "I can't love her! I don't even want to be near her!"
His friend nodded as if he understood. He said, "I understand. In that case, you must resort to treating her as you should treat your enemies. Love your enemies."
I think we can guess that the husband wasn't happy with this answer either, but it really struck me that God makes it clear that we are to treat people in all levels of relationships with great love. Whether they are a spouse, family, friends, acquaintances, or even enemies, we don't have a choice when it comes to love. Love at all times. Love when it is difficult. Love when you aren't loved in return. Love when you are hated. LOVE!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Still thinkin about Philemon.....
This is what has occurred to me in all of my ponderings about the book of Philemon. Tell me what you think.... Agree? Disagree? Thinkin' where in tarnation did she pull that from? Don't really care? Let me know!
So anyway, it seems to me that the book of Philemon is kind of like the Church's version of Hosea. God used the life of Hosea to portray His relationship with His chosen people, the nation of Israel. His faithfulness and love vs. her prostitution, unfaithfulness, and rejection.
The book of Philemon, as I wrote about in my last post, portrays our relationship with God. God used the lives of Philemon and Onesimus to paint a picture of our unfaithfulness to God and His forgiveness, love, and acceptance. Restoration! (Isn't that a great word?)
Anyway.....that's what's rollin' around in this brain of mine. Now that I wrote it down, maybe I can concentrate on my Daniel/Revelation test and time-line...
So anyway, it seems to me that the book of Philemon is kind of like the Church's version of Hosea. God used the life of Hosea to portray His relationship with His chosen people, the nation of Israel. His faithfulness and love vs. her prostitution, unfaithfulness, and rejection.
The book of Philemon, as I wrote about in my last post, portrays our relationship with God. God used the lives of Philemon and Onesimus to paint a picture of our unfaithfulness to God and His forgiveness, love, and acceptance. Restoration! (Isn't that a great word?)
Anyway.....that's what's rollin' around in this brain of mine. Now that I wrote it down, maybe I can concentrate on my Daniel/Revelation test and time-line...
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
So...blogspot hasn't been working very well at the school...
Up until yesterday, blogspot was completely inaccessible, and even now, it only comes up sometimes. I'll update as often as possible, but if I don't...you know why. :)
Confession time: I've always been fairly indifferent to the book of Philemon......until today.
Why? Because for the first time today I really saw the parallels between myself and Onesimus. I was sitting there in class and was thoroughly excited to see so much of the book come into focus.
Onesimus was owned by Philemon. However, he was an unfaithful servant, useless to Philemon, and he eventually ran away. However, he was introduced to Jesus Christ through the Apostle Paul and gave his life to the Lord. The book of Philemon is Paul's appeal to Philemon to forgive and restore Onesimus. Verses 17 through 20 are Paul's plea that Philemon accept this brother, to receive him as if he were receiving Paul. Any debts that Onesimus had were to be charged to Paul's account to be repaid in full by him. Therefore, Onesimus was to be accepted and restored to Philemon on the merits of another person.
I have been unfaithful to God. My back was completely turned him as my sin offended Him daily. Time and time again I wronged the holy God of Heaven. However, Christ came to earth and took my debt upon Himself. He repaid my debt "by canceling the record of debt that stood against us (me) with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." (Colossians 2:14) Just as Onesimus' debt was imputed to Paul and Paul's fellowship with Philemon was imputed to Onesimus......my sin was imputed to Christ and His righteousness was imputed to me. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Philemon received Onesimus back as he would receive Paul, and God receives me as He would His Son, Jesus Christ. I am accepted and forgiven on the merits and by the work of Jesus Christ.
My response? I must rest in the work that has been done on my behalf, knowing that it wasn't earned. In that rest, there must be an overwhelming sense of gratitude to the One Who did what I couldn't.
Thank you Lord Jesus!!
Confession time: I've always been fairly indifferent to the book of Philemon......until today.
Why? Because for the first time today I really saw the parallels between myself and Onesimus. I was sitting there in class and was thoroughly excited to see so much of the book come into focus.
Onesimus was owned by Philemon. However, he was an unfaithful servant, useless to Philemon, and he eventually ran away. However, he was introduced to Jesus Christ through the Apostle Paul and gave his life to the Lord. The book of Philemon is Paul's appeal to Philemon to forgive and restore Onesimus. Verses 17 through 20 are Paul's plea that Philemon accept this brother, to receive him as if he were receiving Paul. Any debts that Onesimus had were to be charged to Paul's account to be repaid in full by him. Therefore, Onesimus was to be accepted and restored to Philemon on the merits of another person.
I have been unfaithful to God. My back was completely turned him as my sin offended Him daily. Time and time again I wronged the holy God of Heaven. However, Christ came to earth and took my debt upon Himself. He repaid my debt "by canceling the record of debt that stood against us (me) with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." (Colossians 2:14) Just as Onesimus' debt was imputed to Paul and Paul's fellowship with Philemon was imputed to Onesimus......my sin was imputed to Christ and His righteousness was imputed to me. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Philemon received Onesimus back as he would receive Paul, and God receives me as He would His Son, Jesus Christ. I am accepted and forgiven on the merits and by the work of Jesus Christ.
My response? I must rest in the work that has been done on my behalf, knowing that it wasn't earned. In that rest, there must be an overwhelming sense of gratitude to the One Who did what I couldn't.
Thank you Lord Jesus!!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Good Good Good news!!
The first good news of the day, for all of you were were praying for my wonderful friend Bethany today, is that Kate Lael Potter was born just about 2 hours ago! Everyone is healthy and I can't wait to meet her!! Praise God for the beautiful gift of life!
The second good news is in regard to my finances. I know many of you were aware of my financial situation and have been praying with me for God's provision. As always, God proved His faithfulness in a way that took me by surprise and blew me away! I got an email from my Pastor telling me that my wonderful Grace Baptist family is sending me about $1300! Add that to the check I'll get at the end of the month from my job, and my entire semester will be pretty much paid off! I've really been walking on cloud 9 over the last few days. Ask my roommates....I can't settle down. God is so good! Thank you to all who prayed and thank you to all who have helped to support me as I get ready to wrap up this first phase of my missions training!
I'll try to keep this blog updated, but over the last few days, I haven't been able to log on to it at school. I'm doing this while Jack and Owen are sleeping. So, until then, thank you all for your prayers and support!!
The second good news is in regard to my finances. I know many of you were aware of my financial situation and have been praying with me for God's provision. As always, God proved His faithfulness in a way that took me by surprise and blew me away! I got an email from my Pastor telling me that my wonderful Grace Baptist family is sending me about $1300! Add that to the check I'll get at the end of the month from my job, and my entire semester will be pretty much paid off! I've really been walking on cloud 9 over the last few days. Ask my roommates....I can't settle down. God is so good! Thank you to all who prayed and thank you to all who have helped to support me as I get ready to wrap up this first phase of my missions training!
I'll try to keep this blog updated, but over the last few days, I haven't been able to log on to it at school. I'm doing this while Jack and Owen are sleeping. So, until then, thank you all for your prayers and support!!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Is He enough?
I'm Still Yours
If You washed away my vanity
If You took away my words
If all my world was swept away
Would You be enough for me?
Would my beating heart still sing?
If I lost it all
Would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives and takes away
If You take it all
This life You've given
Still my heart will sing to You
When my life is not what I expected
The plans I made have failed
When there's nothing left to steal me away
Will You be enough for me?
Will my broken heart still sing?
If I lost it all
Would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives
And takes away
If You take it all
This life You've given
Still my heart
Will sing to You
Even if You take it all away
You’ll never let me go
Take it all away
But I still know
That I'm Yours
I'm still Yours
Oh, I'm Yours
I'm still Yours
I'm still Yours
If You washed away my vanity
If You took away my words
If all my world was swept away
Would You be enough for me?
Would my beating heart still sing?
If I lost it all
Would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives and takes away
If You take it all
This life You've given
Still my heart will sing to You
When my life is not what I expected
The plans I made have failed
When there's nothing left to steal me away
Will You be enough for me?
Will my broken heart still sing?
If I lost it all
Would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives
And takes away
If You take it all
This life You've given
Still my heart
Will sing to You
Even if You take it all away
You’ll never let me go
Take it all away
But I still know
That I'm Yours
I'm still Yours
Oh, I'm Yours
I'm still Yours
I'm still Yours
Thursday, January 14, 2010
I'm back in good ol' Michigan!
It's good to be back! I had a great and relaxing break, just what I needed. Now I've got my nose back to the grindstone and it feels great! I can't believe I'm a senior! Everything has gone so so fast! I remember coming in with the freshmen class and looking at the Seniors like they were walking, talking Bible commentaries and encyclopedias. They MUST possess vast amounts of knowledge about the Scripture because....well....they're seniors! Now that I'm here, although I've learned so much in the past 3 semesters, I see now how far I have to go. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. That is such an exciting concept to me! I could study 24/7 for my entire life and never exhaust the wisdom and knowledge of the Scripture!
This semester is going to be difficult. Not as difficult as my Junior semester was (or so I hear), but definitely difficult. I will be studying:
-Daniel/Revelation
-Colossians
-Philippians
-1 and 2 Timothy
-1 and 2 Thessalonians
-1,2, and 3 John
-Oral Communications
-Christian Life
-Eschatology
-Ecclesiology
-Philemon
-Titus
-Intro to Tribal Missions
-Intro to NTM
-False Deities of the Ancient World
-Partnership Development
-Esther/Ezra/Nehemiah
-Handling Conflict
-Psalms
Needless to say, it's going to be busy. I'm also working as much as I can, trying to continue to raise money to pay for my tuition. As of now, I made my initial payment of $1800, and have somewhere around $2000 left to pay off for the semester. My family was so very wonderful in helping me out!! I am so very blessed to have them. Even when I was home for Christmas, if the family was going to go out and do something, they would chip in and pay for me so I could go along to. The reason that I made my initial payment was because various members of my wonderful family came up to me at different times and gave me gifts that left me speechless. I was able to come here and continue to study the precious Word of God because of the provision of my heavenly Father through the wonderful people that I am so grateful and blessed to call my family.
Please pray for me as I continue to work as many hours as I can possibly get! Sometimes its hard to get hours where I work, but God has been so good since I came back. I've been able to work quite a bit and I'm praying it'll continue. Please pray for my financial situation in general. Also, please pray for me as I try to balance classes, work, homework, dorm responsibilities, and all the rest of the craziness that we get to call life. Thank you all so much!!!
I'll try to get back into the swing of updating this thing a little more often. :)
This semester is going to be difficult. Not as difficult as my Junior semester was (or so I hear), but definitely difficult. I will be studying:
-Daniel/Revelation
-Colossians
-Philippians
-1 and 2 Timothy
-1 and 2 Thessalonians
-1,2, and 3 John
-Oral Communications
-Christian Life
-Eschatology
-Ecclesiology
-Philemon
-Titus
-Intro to Tribal Missions
-Intro to NTM
-False Deities of the Ancient World
-Partnership Development
-Esther/Ezra/Nehemiah
-Handling Conflict
-Psalms
Needless to say, it's going to be busy. I'm also working as much as I can, trying to continue to raise money to pay for my tuition. As of now, I made my initial payment of $1800, and have somewhere around $2000 left to pay off for the semester. My family was so very wonderful in helping me out!! I am so very blessed to have them. Even when I was home for Christmas, if the family was going to go out and do something, they would chip in and pay for me so I could go along to. The reason that I made my initial payment was because various members of my wonderful family came up to me at different times and gave me gifts that left me speechless. I was able to come here and continue to study the precious Word of God because of the provision of my heavenly Father through the wonderful people that I am so grateful and blessed to call my family.
Please pray for me as I continue to work as many hours as I can possibly get! Sometimes its hard to get hours where I work, but God has been so good since I came back. I've been able to work quite a bit and I'm praying it'll continue. Please pray for my financial situation in general. Also, please pray for me as I try to balance classes, work, homework, dorm responsibilities, and all the rest of the craziness that we get to call life. Thank you all so much!!!
I'll try to get back into the swing of updating this thing a little more often. :)
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