Rain

It's holiday here. Yes, isn't that a fantastic word, "holiday"? I think I shall forever discard the use of "break" or "vacation"! Unlike many expatriates on holiday, I spent the day settling into my apartment. Of course this means I was still scrubbing, but this time with no accidents. I was in the kitchen cleaning my cabinets when I heard the all familiar patter of rain.

It's the dry season here, so it doesn't rain much and when it does rain, it doesn't last for long. Today I stood mesmerized for that short period of time at the window watching. Just watching the rain drip down the window and off the ledge outside. The rain brought with it a transformation. A sky white from a haze of smog cleared to reveal a city stretched across the horizon. This simple transformation seemed to demonstrate an idea addressed yesterday at church and in my devotions this morning.

"Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong." Ecclesiastes 5:1

How do I come before God? What is the condition of my heart and mind? What are my actions when I come? In the Old Testament the Lord required that a perfect lamb without blemish be brought for sacrifice (Deuteronomy 17:1). When I come before the Lord, should I not bring Him the BEST sacrifice I have to offer? Of course I am not bringing a lamb, as Jesus Christ has paid my debt, but I am bringing my heart and my mind. Psalm 51:17 says, "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise." Is my heart broken and contrite? Or do I come before God with unconfessed sin?

If I'm honest, there are a lot of times I come before God in a rush. Life has caused me to be frazzled or distracted so when I pray confession seems to get tossed out, along with praise, in order that my "requests" make it in. Why is that? It seems as if somehow I have forgotten who God is and who I am. "If [I] claim to be without sin, [I] deceive [myself] and the truth is not in [me]" (1 John 1:8). He is a holy God and has called me to obedience. Do I think that He can't see my unconfessed sin or doesn't care about it? Might I believe unconfessed sin won't effect my relationship with Him?

Unconfessed sin is like the smoggy horizon before the rain. I can't see clearly. My relationship with the Lord just isn't the same. Confessing my sin brings a transformation, like the rain. When I have humbled myself and been honest with God I experience His grace in a much fuller way making my joy complete.

I want to guard my steps when I come to God. Perhaps think a little bit more about just who I am coming before and what He requires. I want to come broken, contrite, humble. Ready to listen, not to talk. I don't want to be enveloped in smog, I want the rain, the rain that will let me see and know Him.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9 

 

Scrubbing...A Little Too Hard

My bathroom is tile. Not just the floor, the walls too. In theory, I would love this, but the tile is well...gross? Therefore, after acquiring some much needed supplies I set to work scrubbing.



Things were going well until I was scrubbing the tile near the toilet. Before I go on, I must tell you toilets are considered a "western" amenity in Indonesia. Indonesians use what is sometimes referred to as a "squatty."Rather than using toilet paper, they use water and their left hand to clean themselves. Due to this, the left hand is considered dirty and never used to pass anything to someone else. Many bathrooms have a sprayer next to the toilet to assist in the cleaning process. Having not read extensively on the Indonesia toilets prior to coming, I walked into my apartment bathroom and wondered what in the world a kitchen sprayer was doing in the bathroom! Haha :)

So there I was putting some good elbow grease into my tile wall when I happen to hit the top of the sprayer pipe.

Water.

Water!

Water!!

The pipe busted right off the wall! Water was jetting out of the wall, out of the bathroom, and hitting the hallway wall. Quickly, I grabbed the broken part and tried to jam it against the wall to stop the stream. Thankfully, I was with a friend who ran to call for help. So here I was in a foreign country, jammed against the wall attempting to keep a jet stream of water from flooding my apartment!! After the intial shock, I found the situation somewhat entertaining at least until I thought some more. My apartment is quite a ways up in a high rise building. If it flooded, not only would I lose my stuff, but perhaps damage several other apartments and businesses in the building.  I started praying.

Where I spent at least 20 minutes of my life... like my yellow toilet seat? A replacement = $53 *sigh*

It didn't take long for the water to cover the floor. Thankfully, the bathroom floor sits about one inch lower than the rest of my apartment floor. When my friend got back from making the phone call she started scooping buckets of water into the shower. With me jamming against the wall and her scooping buckets of water, it seemed as if we could keep the water contained to the bathroom. However, I wasn't sure how long we would have to continue. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but probably only 20 minutes, the water got shut off.

The water trickling after it was finally shut off.

There were so many things to thank God for in this situation: my apartment not being damaged except for the pipe that busted off the wall, a repair man coming a few hours later so I could have running water again, and a friend who scooped bucket after bucket of water. SO many things. No matter how often I have to scrub the tile I am now thankful it goes from floor to ceiling. No matter how many times I trip over that one inch lip stepping out of the bathroom I am now thankful its there. No matter how many times I recall this story I will always laugh! God is good :)

Cleaning accident turned swimming!

All fixed with a new sprayer.

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