Time for a New Year

Think about 12 months ago

The year was still brand new

Remember the goals you made for yourself

Determined to make it through

You promised this year would be different

Now 12 months later what changed?

Are you where you want to be today?

Did you waste your time or live a lie?

Did you make too many mistakes?

Look back on your year and your life and reflect

Are you who you really want to be?

If not, it's okay

It's never too late

For tomorrow is coming

And with every tomorrow is more grace

More grace and more love and more infinite mercy

Every morning is made new by His love

For even if you aren't quite there

If you didn't quite reach those goals

If you fell one too many times

There are never too many times for our God

But maybe it’s time to make a new promise

A new commitment to our Savior

To stick more closely to His Word

To love more

To serve more

To truly follow

There are so many things a new year can bring

And maybe even painful reminders of the past

But look back on the lessons and look forward with hope

Trust that something good is coming

Hope brings joy and joy brings peace

And peace comes from above

So live for Him and love like Him

See what changes come about

For all you know, this year could be your last 

So live life like you mean it

Don't just survive and keep getting by

But thrive and live life to the fullest

I've always felt that it’s kind of cliché

That all those resolutions are foolish

But the beautiful thing about living for Christ

Is that every day is new

We’re not stuck in our failures

Every morning when you wake up

You’re still covered by grace

Still safe in His embrace

Still loved more than you can imagine

So take on this challenge

For today and tomorrow

For next week and so on

To simply be loved and share that same love with others

To find peace in His arms and bring that peace to the shadows

To share light, to share joy, and to serve like He showed us

For God knows we need people like you

To take a stand and make a difference

Another blog about healing...

A lot can happen in a day. However, there are also many, many things that can't and won't happen in a day. This is yet another blog about healing, because I have to face it everyday: I'm still healing. Recovering from two knee surgeries and an infection simply will not happen in a day. Its been about four months since hurting my knee and I'm so over this recovery process. It is soooooo slow.
And I'm not a very patient person.
I'm tired of being limited in the activities and things I want to do and having to do things like physical therapy instead. But this following statement couldn't be more true:

Healing doesn't happen in a day and it doesn't always happen on its own.

There have been so many times when I haven't wanted to go to physical therapy or do all my exercises and stretching and icing and etc. I just want to start running and jumping and being able to play and be active again. I don't want to do all the slow and boring stuff. But if I ever want to play again, I don't have a choice.

What about you? Are there wounds in your life that you're refusing to let heal? Is there brokenness that you work on for a day and then put aside? I know I have my wounds that I put aside because it doesn't ever feel like they will really go away. It's hard to be patient and let the healing take its place. But you have to give God time to work healing in your life in the best way that He sees fit. It may take days or weeks or even months. You have to trust that God is healing you and be patient in his timing.

You also have to work with God. My physical therapist alone can't make my knee better if I don't do anything and put in the effort. In the same way, your wounds will be healed more effectively if you open up to the things God wants you to do. 

Another very important part of healing is actually allowing it to happen. Sometimes people are so stubborn. Although we say we want to be healed, our stubborn hearts don't open up to God's healing because we're afraid to be vulnerable and we're afraid of the pain that might arise when the wounds hidden within us resurface.

"Healing is a matter of time, but it is also sometimes a matter of opportunity."
-Hippocrates

Although Hippocrates may have been talking about physical healing, the same goes for emotional, spiritual, and internal healing. We have to allow healing to take time and we have open up our hearts to the healing opportunities God gives us. Don't hide your wounds and your scars and your pain. Because none of it is ever meaningless. Brokenness brings about beauty. 

This process looks different for every person because God works in uniquely different ways for every individual.
If you have to forgive someone to heal, then do it. Or maybe you're so caught up in guilt and shame and you're the one that needs forgiveness, then go find it. If you have to let go of something that has happened in your past, do it. If you have to reprioritize and seek God first to heal, do it. Maybe you just need to really have faith that God will heal you. Whatever it is that will open the door to the healing you need in your life, go do it. Stop wasting time sitting and sulking in pain and go make something happen. Chances are that this is going to take longer than you would like, but one thing for sure is that it won't happen at all if you don't do something about it.

My encouragement for you tonight is this: 

Everyone is broken in one way or another, at one point in time or another. And, a lot of people are hiding those wounds away. But the deeper you let the pain crawl away, the longer and more difficult it will become to get rid of completely. Let the wounds resurface and seek God's healing hand to determine what actions you may need to take in your life to let the wounds heal and the scars fade away. Also, you won't go through life's journey without acquiring some scars, but don't cover them up. Scars are beautiful, because they tell a story and they mean you battled and made it through something. It may even mean that God's healing hand touched your life to bind the brokenness and give you freedom from your wounds. 

Psalm 147:3
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

Mark 5:34
"He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.'"

What hope?

1 Peter 3:15 says that we should always be ready for people to ask us about the reason for the hope that we have. But John Piper asks a very important question in regards to this verse, "Why don't people ask us about our hope?"

He's right! Think about how often you've been asked about the hope within you. How many times do people approach you about why you’re living the way you are... With hope and faith and love?

Piper said the answer is simply this,

"We look as if we hope in the same things they do."

People aren't asking because they aren't seeing anything different. They aren’t seeing a lifestyle worth asking about. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago we don't have the time to be complacent as believers. It's time to start standing up for what we believe in so we can give people a reason to ask about the hope that we have. I personally find the question so convicting to think about... Seriously, why aren't people asking? We have to give them something to talk about... Something more than that we're hypocrites...Something more than that Christians are arrogant, or hateful, or judgmental. Something more than that maybe we're just nice people.

People should be wondering about why we love the way that we love. Why are we sacrificing and serving and putting others first? Why are we humbling ourselves and loving our enemies? Why are we opening our doors on Sunday mornings to anyone who wants to walk in? Why are we living our lives as worship before God's throne? Why are we so quick to forgive and have mercy and compassion? If you know the answers to those questions and you believe in the answers to those questions, then live like it!

Give people a reason to wonder.

          We live in this world with people from all different walks of life, missing the hope that we as Christians should have. But even though we live with them and among them, we should have lives that are set apart because our hope is in something different. Live in such a way that makes people wonder. Stir up so much curiosity in the people around you that they can't help but ask about the hope you have in Jesus. Live to give people hope.

“God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that He really is.” –John Piper

Steadfast Surrender

James 1:3

“For the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

One of the most important lessons I've learned in college is this: people change, change is inevitable, and some things just won't last forever. And it's really crazy weird!! Because for so long I imagined being friends with some people for forever. You really never imagine how much the people and things in your life can change even in just short periods of time. When people told me life would happen otherwise, I always believed they may be right but that I could still hang on to some of the things I had. But reality is you can't hang on. You can't really hang on to anything because people, places, things, and circumstances are always changing. It’s true for everyone, and although change can definitely be a good thing, there are times when it isn't. Or there are times when something changes so much that it's not at all what it once was or how it should be.

Changes in life are inevitable, but one thing should remain steadfast: your faith.

When I read this verse yesterday, "For the testing of your faith produces steadfastness," (James 1:3), change is the first thing I thought about.

The definition of steadfast is to be firm or unwavering. Some other synonyms are constant, reliable, committed, relentless, unchanging, and uncompromising.

Is your faith constant? When you're in the midst of the storm are you just as committed to God as when the waves are at rest and the boat is still? Lastly, is your faith uncompromising?

Why is it that we try to make compromises with God? Compromising is one of those things you learn to do when your little and your fighting with your sibling about who gets to play with that cool toy and for how long. You learn that it's a good thing, it's what we should do, right? Just like change, of course compromising can be good. And there's a time and place for both change and compromise. But our relationship with Christ is not that time or place for us to constantly be changing, swaying, and compromising. You can't tell God ‘well I'll do what I want this weekend, but I promise come Sunday morning I'm all yours again.’ Some people subconsciously do this, but I think most people know exactly what they're doing. We rely on the fact that God is unchanging to give us room to sway and go back and forth between relentlessly pursuing him and making compromises. And, on top of compromising with God, we listen to the world and other people. One person tells you to live this way, and another person says the other. And you're constantly torn between who you should listen to and what's right. But isn't God bigger than all of that?

How long are you going to let yourself be tossed back and forth by the waves?

Growing up in a Christian school, going to church every week, and then going to a Christian college I see people all the time who know exactly what God's truth is and how they should be living their lives, but then they start making compromises. Making compromises is the easy way.

I start making compromises and thinking things like, "God, if I make it through this busy week then I'll pray more and I'll read my Bible more." Or "God, if you just give me what (I think) I need, then I'll trust that you really do provide." The list goes on and on. Here’s the thing:

God isn't someone we should be making deals with, He's someone we should be steadfastly surrendering to.

If you think that you're getting something out of compromising with God, you're not. But if you surrender to God and stand firm in the midst of a world tossing you around in every direction, something is going to change for good inside of you.

Let the trials in life produce steadfast faith. Don't compromise. And, surrender your life entirely to God so you can become 'complete’ through him.

"Let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be complete, lacking in nothing" (James 1:4).