The BE ATTITUDES (part 2): Waiting through the drought

There's something about not having something you desire that drives people insane. Once you try something that's fulfilling, you want to do or have that same thing over and over and over and... You get the point. We do that whether or not what we long for is beneficial or detrimental to us.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."
When I hear that, my initial thought is of someone who lost someone and is in a state of grieving. But what about mourning the loss of other things? When about mourning when we're going through a drought? When we're in a spiritual drought, there's something missing in our lives. Whether it be that we're just being held back by our own sin and selfishness, or we need to take a step further in our faith. Whatever the case may be, we lack something we need. We've lost our fervor.
Are you going through a dry spell right now? Do you feel like no matter how hard you try, you're not growing in your faith? Do you think that things should be starting to go well for you, but instead are only getting worse? When we mourn our losses and lose ourselves, then we can experience the Living Water that satiates our thirst for more.
In our college group, we were discussing this passage and the question came up: Why is it that people choose to stay in the desert rather than wait for the rain?
Is it human nature that we push away our need in that way? I say it's because of the life fact: "You don't know what you have until you no longer have it." If we never experience the rain, then we never have a desire for it. We can't get thirsty if we don't know what thirst is.
Back to mourning. When we die to ourselves, when we humble ourselves, when we allow ourselves to no longer be controlled by the world, we mourn. We give up something we enjoy in order to do what will ultimately make our life better. But it's the uncertainty of what's to come that scares us. It's the thought that if we give up all we have, we will lose everything and not get anything back. But God offers blessings and in an abundance. When we die to ourselves, we not only gain a life worth living, but we gain a life eternal, beyond the physical realm. When we submit to the things of the world that only give us momentary satisfaction, we lose a part of ourselves. We have to give up a part of our identity in Christ in order to be identified with the world. But God wants all of you. He wants your ugly AND your pretty bits. He wants the pieces that are broken, and the pieces left whole. He wants to hold you and keep you safe. But when you give yourself over to the world, He can't keep you safe. He has to sit back and watch His child be put in harm. If you happen to be a parent reading this, I'm sure you'll understand the fear and sadness the God gets when He watches His children be put in a place where He can't protect them, and He knows no good can come of it.
Why not give yourself up to Christ, ALL of you, and mourn for what you no longer have. Mourn for Christ who died for you, his blood shed on the cross... For you can be comforted with the knowledge that he did it for you so you can live life with him. Forever.

In the Eyes of the Beholder (part 2)

Our hardships can be a thing of beauty, but without grace, what are they but struggles? When I hear the word grace, I often picture a ballerina. You know, someone with elegance. Someone who, unlike me, is coordinated; someone who doesn't trip going up stairs or miss their chair when they're sitting down. And those characteristics can certainly be a part of grace. But in order for grace to be a thing of beauty THROUGH us, which we'll cover later, we have to talk about what it looks like IN us.
Grace is a curious thing. The very definition of grace is something very pleasing; "elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action." The definition of grace is getting something you don't deserve (in a good way). The compliment of grace is mercy, not getting something you DO deserve.. Usually a punishment. Now, when I was younger and would get in trouble in the car on the way to or from a location, I remember sitting in the back, feeling so guilty. I knew what was coming. And it wouldn't be good. The only thing I could do was pray and hope that by the time we got home my mom forgot. When we got home and she said nothing about it, I was relieved, but still felt guilty. I was shown mercy.
But what's more is grace is getting something wonderful, despite wrongdoings. God showed Abraham AND Isaac grace when they went to Egypt (at different times, mind you) and lied about their wives. God blessed them, even though they caused trouble. God gives us grace, too. We sin, a lot, because we're human. That little lie you told your parents about who you'll be with and where you're going; that answer you got on a test that you got off your neighbor's paper; that failure to stand up for the kid who was getting bullied... We deserve to be punished. In fact, we deserve to DIE. But by God's grace. By God's favor toward us. He loved us SO much that he gave His ONLY son to die for us.
Now, I hope I haven't lost some of you. Especially you who might be saying "but I already know this story!" Just keep reading, I promise it will tie together in the end.
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure any parent would refuse to give up their child (even if there is one they say that they wouldn't mind handing over.) ;) But that just goes to show how lucky we are to have a Daddy who loved us so much that He would let His son die so we could live. Now that right there, that's grace. And when we acknowledge this grace, we acknowledge a thing of beauty. You remember how we were talking about a coordinated ballerina? Well, that's how I imagine grace. Even when a ballerina falls, she picks herself up with dignity and carries on. Even when we stumble, even when we sin, we can pick ourselves back up and know that God's given us grace. That it doesn't matter what we do- because we're forgiven.
I know that some of you are thinking, "This doesn't apply to me. I'm already a Christian..." So I ask you this: How many times do you acknowledge your sin? How many times do you acknowledge your salvation? Because I certainly know "Christians" (and sometimes even myself!) who go and do whatever without care. What if we started ACTING like we're saved, rather than just SAYING we're saved?
And what does that look like? Through loving one another (even our enemies and those people who are harder to love than others. And I know you know what I'm talking about; we've all got someone like that.) What about by showing grace and mercy to others? Or even just smiling at that person who might be having a rough day? My challenge for you is to find ways where you're living out your grace, rather than just keeping it for yourself.

In the Eyes of the Beholder (part 1)

I find today's blog entry a little harder to write than most. In fact, I've come up with three of four different introductions, am struggling to find a catchy title, summarizing an eternity of things I could say, and really don't enjoy discussing a topic I struggle with so much. In fact, I'm reading a very convicting book on it right now. It's called "Redefining Beautiful" (by Jenna Lucado Bishop, who is an incredible woman of God, by the way). I bet you can probably guess what's been laid on my heart to talk about... Beauty. It really is a tough subject to address, since when it's addressed in magazines, it just tells you how you have to look. It gives you unrealistic, unattainable attributes to attempt to morph your body into. It tells you that in order to fit in, in order to be defined as beautiful, you have to meet certain standards. You have to dress a certain way, be a certain size, wear your hair a certain way. Honestly, I could go on forever talking on this one subject alone, and one blog post would certainly not be enough to cover this topic (see: part 1). However, I hope to hit a few main points and address things of some importance and maybe hitting home for you. Now, we all know how society defines beautiful. But how should WE define beautiful? How does God define beautiful?
Well, that question is not too terribly difficult to answer. The Bible tells us that God created man in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). God is perfect, right? So, that means He must be beautiful, right? Correct. God made us in His image, so that makes us beautiful, too! "But, we don't all look the same." I know, but God made you YOU. God made each and every person so intricately and unique that there will never be another person EVER who looks just like you, who acts just like you. People often use the phrase "God broke the mold when He made you." Don't take it as the insult it's often used as. It's true. I imagine God, after he creates us, he takes the mold he used, and smashes it, so it can never be used again. Psalm 139:14- "I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful; I know that full well." To me, that verse says, God took the time to piece every last bit of my being together. Who takes the time working on a project they aren't proud of, that they don't want perfection on, that they don't want to look the best it can possibly be?
The Bible even tells us that our BURDENS, yes, our HARDSHIPS, are beautiful! I don't know about you, but when I'm struggling with something, I don't think it's very beautiful. Ecclesiastes 3 has a lot to say about hardships. "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end (vs. 11)." The verse right before that says "I have seen the burden God has laid on men." Our hardships become beautiful. Now, there are quite a few analogies I could use for this one... One being the process of making pure gold. In order to make the purest of pure gold, a refiner takes the pot of gold and sticks it over the fire. When the pot gets hot enough, all the impurities in the gold surface and the refiner scrapes it off. But he's not done. He continues this process until every last impurity is out of the gold. Or how about a diamond? It takes LOTS of heat and TONS of tons of pressure on this cold, black rock used to cook food over a barbeque. But the end result is this incredibly beautiful, one of a kind gem. What about a pearl? A pear starts off as a piece of dirt. It gets swallowed up by an oyster, and the oyster gets irritated by the seemingly insignificant speck. The dirt gets spit on- the mucus of the oyster. But in the end, it becomes this soft, beautiful, rare item that people pay thousands of dollars to get. All those things are things of beauty, of value, of worth. But they didn't start out that way. Our trials are what make us beautiful.