Truly Seeing

When it comes to encountering the homeless, I have mixed feelings. I grew up with a handicapped father whose life mottoes included pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, not falling prey to your circumstances, life is what you make of it, that whole shebang. So when I see my brother or sister with a handwritten cardboard sign at a stoplight, I have the why can't they get a job thought, followed by the I would give them money but I don't know what I'm truly funding thought. Then I have what I might call my Christian sympathy. If Jesus was walking the earth today, wouldn't he interact with the homeless? He wouldn't pass by them in his car, unsure of if he should give or not give.

So, knowing that about me, I met a very nice homeless man the other day. My friend Madi and I were sitting on a bench outside of Starbucks, enjoying the afternoon sun, when a man walking his bike, stopped to talk to us.

It was clear by the cardboard sign tucked under his arm and his worn clothing that he was at the very least begging if not homeless.

So he stopped to talk to us, commenting on our coffee and talking about though he's grown up on the streets he can't give up his coffee.

Normally I would have a tight smile and might try to give hints to end the conversation but there was something different about this man, he was nice to talk to. He asked if I went to school around Westwood (I get it all the time, I have the skin of a 17-year-old) and I told him I was a high school teacher. He talked about his mom and how she was a teacher and how he rarely paid attention in school because he had his mom to teach him.

He said in school he studied the clouds outside, not giving much of a care to what his teachers were teaching. I could picture a younger version of this man, sitting at his desk at school, gazing out the window at the shapes of the clouds. The man before me had weathered, leathery skin that had seen many winter nights and summer days, and I couldn't help but think of my students. Were any of them slipping through the cracks of school, destined to a life like this man?

He continued to talk about getting kicked out of the house early and getting into all sorts of trouble thereafter.

And then he asked for my name. Jacky. Short for Jacquelyn? Yup.

And he asked for Madi's. Short for Madeline? Madison.

He nodded and gripped the handlebars of his bike like he might be finished with this conversation.

I asked what his name was. George.

George and I talked for another 10 minutes about his name and getting called George of the Jungle and Curious George and even though some of his words slurred together and at some points he lost his train of thought, I really enjoyed talking to George, and I've thought of him almost every day since.

Our greatest human desires are to be seen and to be known. So maybe instead of treating homelessness like it's either a desire to work or not to work or a will to make something of oneself or a state of complacency, I can just be content to know people, to ask for their names and tell them mine, to listen.

If you didn't go to the Skate Church you might not know Jeff, who can be seen sitting beside a cardboard sign or walking all throughout West Seattle, especially the Junction area. I may have met Jeff over a dozen times and he still doesn't remember me, but he's a person. More than that he's the man who, when the church was invited to my best friend's wedding, found a suit and attended her wedding sober.

I want to begin to treat people like people, what a concept. Jesus had meaningful, intention interactions with people and I want to live the same way. Lord guide my steps and my words. Help me to love people as you did.

Unsung Hero

I have a new unsung hero. Normally my heroes are writers throughout time who put themselves out there and make their words known--Tolstoy, you're my homeboy--but they aren't my focus today.

Today my unsung hero is a 17-year-old girl who just gave up her baby for adoption.

Backtrack.

There's a young lady in my life who didn't plan to get pregnant but life happened and she found herself in a tough situation. Halfway through her term she switched to online school and didn't come around youth group so it wasn't until this last week that I saw her for the first time in a while.

I had the privilege of giving her a ride home and we caught up. She spent two days with her healthy baby boy before she handed him over to the adoptive family that she chose.

The more I talked to her the more apparent it became to me that this girl grew up fast. This was not the giggly teenager I knew from months ago, she had matured through this situation.

She told me that her deciding factor in choosing adoption was when she found out that her baby was a boy. She had been told how important it was for a boy to grow up with a father. She couldn't give him that and she wanted to give him his best chance.

I was awestruck. When had this teenage girl grown up and become so sacrificial?

As she told me about this Christian couple that she had chosen for her son, this couple who were unable to have children on their own, I could see how God beautifully orchestrated this open adoption.

So I dropped off this young lady at home, told her how proud I was of her, and I cried the whole way home. I could not believe how selfless this young lady had become, wanting the best for her son, even if it meant she wouldn't be the one to raise him. (Note: I also have some brave young ladies in my life who are choosing to raise their babies and I have nothing but love and respect for them.)

I cried and cried and could not stop, especially when this verse came to mind:

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

For the first time in a long time I was actually able to feel the weight of this verse. God loved us so he gave. He gave up his only Son so that those who believe in Him could have eternal life.

And I cried and I cried. How could God do that? How could He give us his only Son that we would accuse and beat and crucify. I wept with gratitude and with a lack of understanding thanked God for His sacrifice, for his Son.

And I thanked him for this young lady in my life who showed me what sacrificial love can look like.

Life, Interrupted

“But when it pleased God…” –Galatians 1:15

If you are like me, you hate to be interrupted. Whether it’s while you are speaking, or when you have your entire day mapped out before you and something unexpected happens. You like to always know what's coming.

It’s comfortable, it’s safe.

But God wants us to live interruptable lives.

How many times have you allowed God to “interrupt” your life and your plans? We have to learn to give God room to move. Constantly, we make plans for our day, saying this and that will happen, assuming that we can control when God will fall into our lives. But we forget that God comes and goes as He chooses. What if we were having a meeting, and all of the sudden He wanted to move? Or if we were hanging out with friends, and surprise! He wants you to pray for someone.

Can you imagine how Noah felt when God wanted him to build an ark? Imagine how he seemed to his friends and family. But when he was floating safely over the water, with his family safe and everyone else dying around him, can you imagine his relief? He listened to God, and God did not disappoint.

                          

He doesn't always come in the same way, but He does come. Look for Him. That’s how you make room for Him. Always keep your eyes alert for Him, but never expect Him to come when you expect Him to.

“However much we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that at any minute He may break in.” –Oswald Chambers

I think we always forget that God is His own “person.” He decides when He wants to arrive. “When it pleases God,” He shows up. It has nothing to do with our plans.

Are we humble enough to allow God to mess up our plans?

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” –Proverbs 19:21

Always expect God to show up, and when he does, listen to what He says. Something amazing will happen. His plans are better, much better, than ours!

Prayer:

Lord, interrupt me. Do it all the time. Don’t let me become destroyed by my own plans, because I know they will fail me. You know what is best for me, and what is best for your children. If you need me, use me. If you want me to suddenly stop driving and start worshipping or praying, let me know. Change my heart, Lord, I am prideful and childish when it comes to my plans being interrupted. So, Lord, change me and mold me into the interruptable person that you want me to be.

What are you looking at?

"Eyes on me... Eyes on me."

Have you noticed how hard it is to pursue God when you're having a good season? The greatest spiritual difficulty is to focus on God, and to depend on Him, even when we don't feel we need a savior. Difficulties make it almost impossible not to look at God, and His blessings will, a lot of the time, take our focus off of Him. Take the message of the Sermon on the Mount: we need to start whittling down all of our interests and passions until our mind, heart, and body are completely and totally focused on Jesus Christ. Until we are “looking unto Him.”

Sometimes, we find ourselves focusing on the lives of the “saints,” AKA those "goody two-shoes” people of this world, and find our focus has completely shifted from the One who matters most. Focusing on saints, or even trying to become like a saint, will not bring about our salvation. When we look at God, it’s not that we WILL be saved, as if it hasn't occurred yet… when we look at Him, we ARE saved. If our focus is right, we will find what we are looking for. Our problems, our bad attitudes, our depression will cease when we look unto Him.

Do you believe it?

No matter what trial you are going through, look to Him, build your hope on Him.

“’Look unto Me,’ and salvation is, the moment you look.” –Oswald Chambers

 

Nat's Reflection:

It seems that whenever I have an issue, I look everywhere BESIDES to Him for the answer. I read books, I eat food, I lounge on the couch watching a movie, when all I need to do is look to Him. I worry so much about the future of my child, and my children, and if I will be a good parent, and the entire time I forget that I just need to look at Him, and I am saved. He will save me from being a bad parent. No, He already has saved me from being a bad parent. I will be a good, not perfect, mother for my children because I look unto Him. He has saved me.

Feeling Spiritually Off

For the whole month of November I have just felt off. Do you know that feeling? 

I come from a family of muscle clenching, bad backs, and inflammation issues so we can easily detect at family functions who isn't feeling 100% (easy indicators include ice packs, heat packs, ibprofen bottles within a foot of them). So I know when my body is off and I know the route I take to wellness. 

Being a woman, I also know what emotional imbalance feels like. One minute you're going to a coffee shop to get some God time and when your debit card malfunctions the barista offers you her shift coffee and pretty soon you're crying in the back of Cafe Ladro. Why? Your emotions are resting on the surface so surface things all of the sudden have full access to your wide range of emotions. I have somewhat grown to understand and recognize when my emotions are off.

Yes, this month my body has felt off, and yes my emotions have been backfiring and shooting off everywhere, but where I have felt most imbalanced is in my soul. 

The youth group God has given to my care has been going through the book of Colossians since September and we have been ringing this book dry for all of it's information and Holy Spirit-filled messages. 

I don't know if you've ever felt off through and through, like you just can't come up with a proper self-diagnosis but you just don't feel like, well, you. Here's what I've found. 

Colossians 3 is the heart of what god through Paul is trying to say to the church at Colosse.

"1Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory" (Colossians 3:1-4 NLT).

In the last two days I have been listening to Judah Smith's sermon series on the soul (I don't listen to podcasts all that often but what I was doing wasn't working so I thought to try something new). God through Judah has been speaking to exactly where I am at in my spiritual imbalance. 

Something Judah said in his sermon "A Quiet Soul" was that a quiet soul comes from giving God the control. 

I'm not a big video gamer so I'm hardly ever good (just being honest!) and when I try to play, I often get stuck on a level and when I'm frustrated and am about to give up, I hand off the controllers to someone more experienced who takes over. 

I have not been giving God the controllers. Judah said society tells us that we can do anything, be anything if we just try harder, work harder, but God says you will find peace and rest when you're living out of who I called you to be.

That's what Paul is saying in Colossians 3 verse 3, "Your real life is hidden with God." 

Yielding control to God means receiving peace and rest, every time. It's admitting that we are not God in our own lives. We are not the gods of our schedules, God is the God of our schedules. We are not the gods of our future, God is the God of our future. 

Where I have felt imbalanced is where I have been trying harder, working longer hours, struggling all the more to create balance in my life. God sees me drowning and refusing to call out and gosh darn it even though I insist I can do it on my own, I can't, and He scoops me out of my frutrations, struggles and pressures. 

It's when I let God in that I feel most whole. When I am the nearest to Him is when I admit just how much I need Him. 

This is the last thing I'll say so bear with me. 

I think I've mentioned this in past posts but I'm a visual person, so when I long to be with God I close my eyes and I can picture myself and God in a meadow. (P.S. I felt like I found my meadow while vacationing in Edinburgh, Scotland at the bottom of Arthur's seat, pictures below.)

This is how it goes every time. 

I close my eyes and there's a red fenced gate with the door already open. I walk through the gate through tall, lush green grass and not far from where I start my trek God is waiting there. Like a father, He stands up to greet me and to hold me close in an embrace. 

We sit on a soft blanket in the grass and all it takes is God smiling at me in that caring, paternal way and asking how I am that I break down. I realize how hard I have been trying to do right, to be the best I can be, but without calling on God for resources and guidance I always come back to our meadow feeling heavy-laden and needing rest. 

That's where I find myself today. I was designed to be close to my Father, to call on Him for help like I call on my earthly father when my car breaks down, and oh how I need my Heavenly Father when my life is what's breaking down. 

I feel off when I am not seeking out my Father, recognizing who He is and who He has called me to be. 

My real life is hidden with Christ, so instead of running around earth, unrooted like a sheep without a shepherd, I will wait and rest and find peace by giving God control over my life. I would rather be in my meadow with God than anywhere else, so that's where I'm going to be. 

God bless. 

His Love

The youth group that God has blessed into my hands, Ignition, has been going through Jesus Is: A Participant's Guide together weekly, where Judah Smith who pastors City Church, topically brings us back to the basics of our faith in Jesus Christ.

This week's topic is called "Count the Ways", where Judah is asking us in our daily devo section to recall and record God's love toward us.

In the devotional for day 1, Judah starts by asking us if we as humans can comprehend of all God's love towards us, and then he asks what analogy (comparison) we use to best describe God's love towards us.

I sat and stared at my journal.  Due to my self-competitive nature, I typically go through my devotionals pretty fast, so I was thrown off by the need to ponder on that question.

So I shut my journal, got ready for work, and have rolled that question around in my mind like a river tosses around stones.

What human comparison could I give to describe God's love?

In between my classes on Mondays, I rest at Dubsea Coffee, so I trekked my normal route and stood surveying the goods with which to indulge myself.

On long days, like this one was turning out to be, I tended to treat myself beyond my drip coffee with either a latte or an almond croissant. Today I desperately wanted both, but as it is with a budget, I didn't want to break my daily allowance.

As I placed my order for an iced vanilla latte, out of the corner of my eye I saw an almond croissant wrapped in plastic wrap, labeled for a third of the price, since it was from yesterday's batch.

That's when I realized my best comparison for God's love towards me.

God's love for me is so great that He cares to see into my smallest desires, like discounting my favorite baked good so I can enjoy it in the midst of a trying morning.

Even as I ordered my croissant and thanked God in my head for His great love towards me, the barista told me that he's never seen a day-old almond croissant last that long in the day without being snatched up.

I know, that's God for you. He cares about my biggest life-altering hurtles and about my smallest wishes and hopes, that's the love of my Savior and that's only one human comparison to compare His love to.

Psalm 18:28-30
"28 You light a lamp for me.
The Lord, my God, lights up my darkenss.
29 In your strength I can crush an army;
with my God I can scale any wall.
30 God's way is perfect.
All the Lord's promises prove true.
He is a shield for all who look to him for protection."

Our Needs, He Feeds

Last night I gathered with a handful of youth pastors and youth leaders to pray and cast vision into the Seattle-area Foursquare Summer Camp for 2014. We registered and talked logistics and laughed and worshiped together. Both firstly and lastly we prayed.

In the closing prayer, the director for junior high camp told us to pray for our needs and to proclaim them in God.

So if our needs are that we are currently weak and apathetic (low energy), then when we pray, "Thank You God for your strength, thank You for Your energy."

It was simple. And yet it stirred my faith in a new way.

Instead of complaining or praying myself into a pit of despair, my prayers did not focused on me and my humanity but on God and His infinity.

I cried out, "God You are strong, God You have the answers, God You are understanding, God You can turn all situations around for Your good, God You know what will be, God You have peace, God You are confident."

Wow. WOW! What if we spoke out our needs by proclaiming how God is and has all that we need?

So that was last night, today on my break between classes (it literally took my computer refusing to turn on for me to stop wedding planning and to open my dang Bible), I opened my Bible to the book of Psalm.

I began reading Psalm 28, a psalm of David.

"1 I pray to you, O Lord, my rock.
Do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you are silent,
I might as well give up and die.
2 Listen to my prayer for mercy
as I cry out to you for help,
as I lift my hands toward your holy sanctuary.

3 Do not drag me away with the wicked--
with those who do evil--
those who speak friendly words to their neighbors
while planning evil in their hearts.
4 Give them the punishment they so richly deserve!
Measure it out in proportion to their wickedness.
Pay them back for all their evil deeds!
Give them a taste of what they have done to others.
5 They care nothing for what the Lord has done
or for what his hands have made.
So he will tear them down,
and they will never be rebuilt!

6 Praise the Lord!
For he has heard my cry for mercy,
7 The Lord is my strength and shield.
I trust him with all my heart.
He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy.
I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.
8 The Lord gives his people strength.
He is a safe fortress for his anointed King.
9 Save your people!
Bless Israel, your special possession.
Lead them like a shepherd,
and carry them in your arms forever.

You'll notice I broke up this psalm into 3 different sections.

First, in blue, David is calling out to God in distress for God to come to his aid.

Second, in purple, David is listing injustices against him and against his people and he's calling on God for justice.

Third, in red, what is David doing? Thanking God? Why? Did God answer his prayers before he finished writing this psalm? No.

David began thanking God and he prayed for his needs by proclaiming how God would provide.

"For he has heard my cry for mercy", "The Lord is my strength and shield", "I trust him", "He helps me", "The Lord give his people strength", "He is a safe fortress".

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

I could never figure out why David always brought his praises back to God in the midst of psalms that start out so dramatically "For if you are silent I might as well die".

Now I see. David was not only bringing the praise and focus back to God but he was proclaiming God's provision for all of his needs.

So how 'bout it? How about when we pray we pray for all the ways God can meet our needs? It's changing up the way I'm praying and thinking about my daily needs, it could change yours.

Be blessed today.