Singapore

It's hard to believe that I am half way across the world. My journey to Indonesia included a stop in Singapore to get my visa. Singapore is a very westernized place. English is one of the four official languages and used for all business and government functions therefore making it easy to get around. During my stay in Singapore I went with a couple other teachers down to the Marina Bay area. There we saw a great view of the city and world's tallest ferris wheel, the Singapore Flyer. We also walked around the Marina Bay Sands which was a hotel, museum, casino, restaurant, and shoppes all in one. I've never been to a mall that carried Coach, Gucci, Prada, and Loui Vuitton before. According to wikipedia, "Singapore has the world's highest percentage of millionaires, with one out of every six households having at least one million US dollars in disposable wealth." The architect work in Singapore was quite amazing!

Singapore Flyer

Marina Bay Sands

City Scape

Amazing buildings! 

Inside of the mall, love the architecture!

Indonesia

       

Photos courtesy of my dad

Don't worry I took a bigger suitcase

Just a little bit excited!

I'm moving to Indonesia . . . tomorrow. I have signed a two year agreement to teach math at a private Christian secondary school. Never, ever, would I have guessed this would be me. At sixteen, I was the girl who didn't want to drive and who's family joked about her having phone phobia. I was the girl who wished Neverland was real and always ordered chicken strips despite the restaurant. I hated change, loved home, and called my parents every night my first year of college.

Its been awhile since I was sixteen, but even 9 months ago I would have never seen myself picking up and moving to the other side of the world. Living overseas was not in my life plans, however, it is God's plan that prevails.

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9

This last fall I began asking the Lord what specific purpose He might have for this season of my life. Working as an adjunct at Corban University, I walked past a bulletin board filled with teaching opportunities, some of which were overseas. One night I stopped and just decided to pick up some flyers. Next thing I know, my best friend emails me from Indonesia saying her school has an opening. The same week another friend invited me to a Mission Connexion event. I found myself thinking this couldn't all be coincidence. The thought of living overseas had alway brought forth fear. How could I leave my family? How could I leave the comfortable and step into an unknown? Yet, I just couldn't shake the thought that possibly God was answering my prayers regarding a specific purpose.

Looking back, I see so clearly how God has prepared me for this adventure. He took a heart functioning in fear and filled it with peace. At times I have said, "Lord, my life is yours, I don't want to hold anything back." Yet, I've always wondered if I really could follow through with that prayer. Indonesia is an opportunity to give action to my words.

My job in Indonesia is not support based. I do not feel that somehow teaching in Indonesia is a "greater calling" than teaching here in the United States. Rather, I feel it is an adventure that the Lord is allowing me to take. An adventure on which I hope to grow professionally, personally, and spiritually. Whether in Indonesia or in the United States my purpose is the same. To live a life devoted to worshiping, serving, and getting to know God that I might bring Him the glory He deserves.

This is not how I imagined me life, but it is SO good. I am excited to see what the Lord has to teach me in Indonesia. While I am tempted to be anxious about many things I keep remembering the verse I read the night I decided to go:

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." Psalm 139:7-10

No matter how far I go from home, God will be with me. He deserves all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. My life is not my own.

My Plan

It has been awhile, a long while since I wrote. It isn't that the Lord hasn't been teaching me or that I haven't been learning because I have. Perhaps it has been too much, too overwhelming to know where to begin. To know how to express the impressions being put upon my heart. I have tried so many times to write a post, but nothing. It has to come out though, messy or confusing as it is. So whether its "blog worthy writing" or not, I'm posting.

It follows me, everywhere. It has since college anyways. This question, no, more like a burning desire, to know what I am to do with my life. I changed majors, I changed jobs, I just start to settle in somewhere new, and its there, haunting me again. I'm fairly confident that this question is stuck on repeat in my head because of something else.

This isn't what I wanted. It isn't how I pictured my life. This wasn't my plan. I imagined a whole different life than the one I am living. I saw purpose in my plan. I felt created to fulfill it. I threw all of my hope into it. However, my plan failed. I've been upset, at times, even angry. My expectations led me to disappointment, hopelessness, and confusion. I have felt lost, purposeless. Most of all, I have questioned the Lord. Why? What was wrong with what I had in mind? Did I mess up? Did I do something wrong? Why did my plan not work out?

It has been hard accepting where I am at in life. No, that's an understatement. It has been war. Day after day I have fought battles between my heart and mind as I realize my plans did not and are not coming to fruition. Worn out and heavy hearted one day, I was crying out to the Lord on a run. I wanted to know, what was I created for? I mean surely I was created to fulfill the purpose I had been dreaming about my entire life, right?

Then it hit me. Who am I to tell God what I was created to do? Isaiah 29:15b-16 says,

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing?"   

In making my plan and holding my expectations I had been in a way telling God what I was created to do. What my purpose was in life. That I knew better than He did. Imagine a shield, a tool made for defending, saying to the blacksmith, "I am for striking!"A shield is ineffective in the offensive. The blacksmith who created the shield specifically planned for it to be a tool of protection and defense. God created me.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. . . . my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my  unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.                   Psalm 139:13, 15-16

I am God's workmanship and He has prepared my life in advance (Ephesians 2:10, Jeremiah 29:11). He CREATED me. Thus, He knows what He made me for. He had a reason in mind when He created me. He knows my strengths, my weaknesses, my fears, my passions, and He had a purpose.

I could try and continue to do what I think my purpose is in life, but just like a shield being used for striking, I will be ineffective. To be truly effective I have to let go of my plan and accept His plan. It means releasing my pride, recognizing how little I know and how much He knows. It means sacrificing my desires in light of what He has done for me in giving me life. It means not leaning on my understanding, but trusting if He created me He knows what's best for me. It means not needing answers to the "why's" and the "what's" but just following in faith.

I have thought maybe I missed out on something in life because my plans failed. Really though, I could miss out on my true purpose if I remain focused on my expectations. Perhaps my plans would prevent me from fulfilling God's purpose for my life. Perhaps God's plan has something even greater that I ever considered or imagined? It could be scary, big, the adventure of a lifetime. I don't want to miss it.

Once again, I can't help but think of this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

When the Rubber Meets the Road

Have you ever had one of those experiences with telephone customer service?  You know the ones I'm talking about, where a simple question turns into a giant puzzle? Where you get transferred from customer service to billing to account management and then back to customer service? Somewhere in the middle of this, you just want to throw your phone out the window or hang up, but you know that if you do it will take even longer so you hold. It never fails that while your on hold a sweet little message comes on to say, "This call will be monitored for quality assurance to provide you with the best service." The best service? Yeah right, you have just wasted 45 minutes of your life and talked to four different people who told you four different things. The company says they believe in providing the best service, but when the rubber meets the road they fail at it.

Is not our faith like this sometimes? We say we believe in this or we believe in that, but what do our actions show? What do our inner thoughts reveal? Do our feelings betray what we claim to believe? In my own life, I recognize a disconnect. I say I believe something, yet my inner, subconscious, unspoken, thoughts reveal an entirely different belief. I find my actions or feelings, governed by these subconscious beliefs rather than my spoken beliefs. It is almost as if I hold within two theologies: proclaimed theology and working theology.

For instance, I say I believe God is powerful, sovereign over all creation. Yet, I catch myself feeling hopeless in situations, thinking that there is no solution or way out. I find my self attempting to do whatever I can to make something happen or solve the problem. This all conflicts with my proclaimed theology "God is powerful and sovereign." My working theology puts God in a box by allowing a situation to seemingly be impossible. It demonstrates the belief that I have more power than Him as I rely on my own strength in desperation.

It's a struggle to align my working theology to my proclaimed theology. In my feelings, my thoughts, my actions, I see where I fall short. What I truly believe is not in my words, but in these. I find myself shamed when this truth is revealed. There is a battle within me between these two theologies. How I long for them to be one! This discrepancy hinders my testimony to the world.  O that God may have grace as I strive to unite my proclaimed theology with my -- thinking, feeling, doing -- working theology!! When the rubber meets the road, I do not want to fail, I want to live what I believe so that Christ might be glorified.

"So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James 2:17

Like Creation

"He set he earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. . . . You set a boundary they cannot cross . . . He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; he earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work. . . . How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number--living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. These all look to you to give them food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth." Psalm 104

 God is Creator of all the earth. It is at His calling and disposal. He holds all things together, controlling the seemingly uncontrollable. How often I forget this! In the back of my mind do I not sometimes think that somehow certain situations are too hard or impossible for Him? How wrong I am! Psalm 104 speaks of God's power over all of nature, over the entire earth. The water, winds, plants, sun, moon, mountains, creatures, are all at His fingertips. This control, this power is unfathomable to me.

Perhaps this inability to comprehend leads me to think that I have control. For I certainly do believe that I have control sometimes. I find myself thinking I have a significant amount of power over things which take place in my life. Surely if I try hard enough things will go my way. Or if I don't have control, I can somehow try to be good or righteous enough for God to bless me so things will go my way. How terrible my motives and how small that thinking makes my God! The truth is I do not have control. My power is limited to my actions. I have no more power than the creatures in Psalm 104.

The creatures have no control over the winds, plants, water, or sun. They cannot control whether there is food to gather. So why do I think that I could do such things? I cannot control these things either. Why do I think I have more power or control then they? I should look to them as examples. Truly they are utterly dependent upon the Lord for their safety and provision. God gives them their food at the proper time and they gather it up. He opens His hand and they are satisfied with good things. God sent Jesus to earth to suffer and die in my place, so will He not provide for me what He provides for these creatures?

So what would happen if I would let go and trust the Lord for these things? What would happen if I would stop thinking I had control? If I would stop trying to control that which I never had control of? What if I truly realized in my heart God was in complete control? What if I thought of myself as more of one of His creatures, completely and utterly dependent upon Him?

"These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things."                     Psalm 104: 27-28

A Fake God

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." I first heard this quote by A.W. Tozer a little over a year ago while listening to an audio cd of his book, Knowledge of the Holy One. Since then I have experienced how my view of God can effect everything else in my life and perhaps that is what A.W. Tozer meant when he said, "it is the most important thing about us."

This fall I worshiped a fake "God." I didn't recognize it at the time, but I most certainly do now. Busy trying to balance my new job and life, my time in the Scriptures slowly diminished. As life brought its trials,  I found myself questioning and upset. My mind began to try and make sense of what I was dealing with. Why were these things happening? Could God really have good things in store for me? Would God give me something I didn't want? Looking back the "God" of my mind was weak, didn't want the best for me, was unable to accomplish certain tasks, was inconsiderate of my feelings, only loved me when I did the right thing, and was not trustworthy. The result of my skewed view of God led to anxiousness, sadness, and hopelessness. It effected me spiritually, mentally, and even physically.

It began when I failed to make reading Scriptures and spending time with God a priority. Without daily filling my mind with the truth about who God was, my own mind took over and began making God into someone else. Even being raised in a Christian home, going to Bible college, and attending church regularly did not prevent this from happening. If daily I am not reminded of the truth of who God really is then He becomes what I want Him to be and I worship a fake God. The true God revealed in Scriptures was nothing like what I was thinking this fall. He is a God of hope, of unconditional love, of strength, and of wisdom beyond human understanding.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will."   Romans 12:2 (emphasis added by me)

   

My Promise Land

As I continue to read the story of the Israelites I am struck again and again by just how similar I am to them. I see so much of myself in their actions and attitudes. Reading about their story and God's responses  causes me to turn inward and examine my own heart. In this passage I read recently the Israelites are preparing to cross over into the promise land.

"On the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho the Lord said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places. Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess. . . . But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. And then I will do to you what I planned to do to them." Numbers 33:50-56

God gave the Israelites  the promise land to possess. The Israelites knew without a doubt that the Lord wanted to bring them into the land to settle. They knew the Lord's will for them. They did not have to question whether they would be able to take over the land, they just had to be willing. God would be the one fighting for Israel, driving out the inhabitants, they just had to obey and follow Him.

I am not an Israelite, I am not preparing for battle against nations, I am not moving to a new country. However, I am a child of God and He has a will for my life. In the simplest form, I am supposed to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength, and love my neighbor as myself (Mark 12:30-31). More specifically I am to "be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:16) and to do the good works God prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10).

God's will for my life, my promise land, is to walk in a relationship with Him, to enter into His rest. The question is will I drive out all the inhabitants in the land? Will I destroy all the carved images and cast idols and demolish all the high places? What are the inhabitants in my life that should be driven out? What are the carved images and cast idols in my heart? What are the high places where I dishonor my God?  God's will is for me to take possession of the land, to settle in it, and I don't have to do it on my own. He has given me the power to do so through the death of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He will fight for me, but will I obey and follow Him?

If I choose not to obey, my relationship with Him will suffer. Those things in my life, inhabitants, that I should remove, will draw me away from Him, they will entice me to compromise, just as they did the Israelites. The things which I make idols in my heart, that I worship with my thoughts, time, and attention,  will keep me from fully loving God with ALL my heart, soul, strength, and mind. If I keep the high places, those areas or activities which I know lead to compromise and idolatry, I will have trouble. They will be barbs in my eyes and thorns in my sides, they will cause me pain. The Lord may even choose to discipline me.

I must drive out the inhabitants. I must destroy the cast idols and carved images. I must demolish the high places. For I long to enter into rest, to live in the promise land God has given to me. What is it in my life and heart I need to get rid of?

". . . let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1b