Change is in the air...

Since it's 12:30am the night before I start a new job, I'm going to attempt to make this brief. (snicker away... ;) ) There's been a lot happening in the past 2 weeks, and I've wanted an opportunity to tell you about it. However, there was another minor change in my life (moving for the 5th time since coming to Richmond 3 years ago) which has consumed most of my past 3 days. Can I just praise God for a second for the absolutely PHENOMENAL people God has placed in my life? I mean, I've known my friends had awesome servant hearts, but seriously... Tommie, Tony, Zach, Sterling, Josh S, Carrie, Jason, Erin Alyse, Mike N, Ryan, Joelle, Kim, Caitlyn, Ric, Keilan, Alana, my mom & dad... Yeah, that's 18 people that have helped me transition quickly into this new place. And that's not even everyone who's been praying or financially supporting it.. Talk about meeting one another's needs!! "Thank you" is so inadequate...


Beyond that, yes, I am starting a new job this morning. God has yet again grabbed my gaze when I wanted to set it on things, on plans, on structure, all while I was trying to remain fixed and unmoving. I'm going to be starting a position as an Executive Assistant with a real estate developing company. It seems like an amazing fit, almost too good to be true. Only God could pull this off a THIRD time in my life. I wasn't looking for this position, but He found it for me and confirmed it beyond all my doubts. I'll be maintaining schedules & emails, managing & tasking projects, meshing the staff together, and pretty much anything else that's needed.


It's a big change in that I'll no longer be on staff with Aletheia, though I will definitely still be a member. Last week, I found out about the job details on Sunday, interviewed on Wednesday, was offered the position and accepted Thursday, and will be beginning a week later --> aka: today. Yeah, fast. But God has been assuring me over and over in that His plans were established before the foundation of the world. There is nothing hidden from Him, no surprise, no sudden change. I know that the Lord is setting Himself to move through all this, that His fame would increase, and His light shine out in darkness.


As I was struggling to know what was right or wrong, the gospel began to overwhelm me. Jesus made Himself a servant to His Father's will. He walked in obedience the steps marked out for Him. Who am I to say to God, "My ways are higher than Yours?" It's pitiful when I'm reminded how much I THINK I know, and then how much I actually don't at all. God called me to the DOD, He called me to Richmond/to Aletheia, and now He's distinctly calling me to this new place. And if I truly seek to lose my life that I might be found in Christ, this is where I will go.


Please be praying with me that the Lord works His mysterious and powerful will in all this. I'm excited, albeit a little anxious, but confident that He is my rock and fortress. In all things I praise Him, and the same passage that brought me here to Richmond 3 years ago is still ever so powerful- "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,  and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." Philippians 3- He can take me anywhere, make me do anything. It's His adventure. I'm just excited to be in on it by His grace, because there's nothing else like it... nothing! He who loses His life for the sake of the gospel will surely find something far more precious.

Expecting Nothing In Return

This picture is beautiful to me. Upon first glance, it's not anything startling. It doesn't embody any particularly notable natural beauty. This is a normal dirt road leading away from a village called Rio Esteban in Honduras. That's me on the right and the woman to my left is a wonderful lady named Bictalia. At that point, we (Joelle & I) were leaving from having stayed at her house for a few days with her family. She and her sisters are the roots of a program to raise up and send missionaries from Honduras to other areas of the world that are closed to the Gospel. Her daughters lead a bible study/youth group in their village at the church. And one of her daughters, Delmy, is a teacher in the bilingual school there, teaching the kids the basics (reading, writing, arithmetic) in a context that teaches them English as well.


Something you need to know to understand the time I spent in Honduras is that I speak virtually no Spanish. And the people we were with for the most part spoke just as much English. An intense conversation for me (if you want to call it that) would be saying a string of the few nouns I know that related to where we were or what we were doing, and gesturing in between to communicate the verbs. If we were setting the table for a meal, I'd say something to the effect of "cups there?" if attempting to assist or "love food, love to talk!" when attempting to comment on dinner time. I learned the word for excited after a few days, and so to show any emotion in any circumstance, I was either excited or not excited. With this taken into consideration, it was hard to be of much help without being able to anticipate needs, let alone develop deep and meaningful relationships.


So the question began racking my brain... What in the world was I doing there?? It's amazing how much I trust in my ability to communicate. Whenever I examine what God has called me to do, or what He's gifted me in, it is without fail things that require verbal communication. Leave aside the fact that I was a Communication Studies major at JMU... I love to teach; I love to share the word of the Gospel; I love to listen to and (by the grace of God and the working of the Holy Spirit) offer Biblical counsel to women placed in my life; I love to discuss scripture and explore themes that God has woven throughout history by His sovereign power. These are the things I am blessed to engage in regularly here. However, take away the gift of language, and as passionately as I may want to communicate a message, I can't. (Oh yeah, and being an extrovert, I want to do these things all the time, so this is no small deprivation to me!)


So the scene is set: I'm living in a place where I know no one, they don't know me, and I can't even rock Philippians 2 (like a good Aletheian ;) ) to get past it... Want to know how I was feeling?? Useless. Why would God call me there to do nothing, to bring nothing, to be of no help to the people I was with? And fyi, that is a TERRIBLE feeling for a person that thrives on feeling useful.


But wait... I've just given away the root of the problem. Can you find it? Whenever God calls me out of the country, He always, always is at work in my heart. We're called to be conformed to the image of Christ daily, dead to self and alive in Jesus, to lay down all other things and follow Him. I remember on one of my first mission trips to Kazakhstan, we talked about how over the time spent there, we needed to be prepared for our sin to be worn on our sleeve. In order for the light to penetrate deeply, it must expose all things kept in darkness. In Luke 6:45, Jesus says, "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good. The evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart." The problem is in the heart, not simply the mouth, so we prayed that God would dig up the dirt... And boy, does He!


I thrive on feeling useful. Give me a task and I'll take the utmost pride in doing it to the best of my ability. Give me another task and I'll thrive even more on being able to do both well at the same time. Challenge me, push me, throw me into difficult situations. Bring it on! I will destroy myself in order to not feel inadequate- not sleep, not eat, not wash clothes, not budget money, not steward gifted resources, not examine myself, not nourish my own relationship with the Lord... All to feed that precious pride monster within. I pray, "God, use me!" and the unspoken parenthesis is "(so that I know I'm not useless...)" Egocentricity at its finest. It's amazing how humility can be perverted into pride so quickly and so quietly.


It's hard to be hit in the face with that kind of reality. But the Lord does it in beautiful ways. Back to the picture, if you notice, Bictalia is carrying a large multi-colored umbrella over our heads to shade us from the sun. While I was at her home, I had a small cold. She noticed soon after I had arrived, and throughout the time we were there, she would come up to me at random times with something in her hand to give, always "para su gripa" ("for your cold"). Warm lemonade, a blanket, a chair to sit... When we were walking from her home to catch the bus back to the hospital, she came next to me, holding that umbrella above my head to make sure I was shielded from the sun on the 2 mile walk to the bus stop, "para mi gripa." She wouldn't let me hold it for her. If I stepped away, she would call me back or move to where I was. At some point, having lots of time to think as we walked because I couldn't actually talk with this beautiful woman next to me, I began realizing all the things she'd been doing for me... And I'd been utterly useless. I couldn't return her generosity. I couldn't even adequately thank her for it. She was giving and giving, but with no expectation of a return on her investment. While in Honduras, I had begun studying the Gospel according to Luke. A passage jumped out at me as I was pondering that moment later in the week.


"If you love those who love you, what good is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as our Father is merciful." Luke 6:32-36


Jesus derived no benefit from His sacrifice. He didn't do it because He needed more glory, or because He needed us to validate Him as a martyr. He was led as a sheep to slaughter because He had perfect love to give to an evil people. Grace was not an entitlement for us to receive, but something that was meant to elicit awe and reverence as it was given freely and without earthly pomp. Bictalia showed me love that I am so quick to forget. A genuine desire to serve the Lord in serving others, all the time, expecting absolutely nothing in return. I could offer her nothing, but she offered me everything. This was love; straight-up, selfless, without envy, patient, true, unfailing love. Christ's love, that I so often cannot comprehend, nor spend the time trying to... It's not about me. God is glorious, and worthy of my/our entire affection and attention. And this beautiful saint showed me His love as my sister from her overflow.


God called me to Honduras, amongst other things, to adore Him. To decrease, that I would see His increase. He has people there that love Him. He is spreading His own fame. He doesn't need a single thing from me, and He wants me to know it. I can add nothing to Him that He has not created and purposed Himself. But, what I can do is worship Him in all that He does. When He calls me to act, by His grace, I'll do it. But when He calls me to step back and watch, by His grace, I'll do that, too. And be utterly amazed.

Help my unbelief!

When Jesus returned from the mount of transfiguration, "Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and began running up to greet Him. And He asked them, "What are you discussing with them?" And one of the crowd answered Him, "Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it slams him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it." And He answered them and said, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!" They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. And He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!" And Jesus said to him, " 'If You can?' All things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe; help my unbelief." When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again." After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, "He is dead!" But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up."  Mark 9:15-27

This is such a complex and amazing story. This past week has been a series of ups and downs. Scripture is so good to reveal our human hearts and His divine wisdom in light of this ailment. I often find myself struggling to believe. Now, in saying that, I should clarify. I don't mean doubting the facts... I know the person of God as Christ, I know His sacrifices and resurrection, His power over my life and ability to restore light to the darkness I resided in. However, this "faith" is a constant struggle. I find myself able to spend entire days in a manner that in no way reflects the power with which the Holy Spirit changed me. It's scary... Without even realizing it, I forget Him. I begin to trust in myself and my deeds- always ending in gross disappointment.

The crowds that had gathered had seen and heard of Christ's power, His ability to feed, to heal, to drive out demons. They knew His disciples. They had heard His inexplicable wisdom. And yet, when Christ went away for only a small time, it was enough for them to look to other saviors, to become disillusioned about their confidences, and to place their trust in a disappointing tangible reality. It is very similar to Israel, after the exodus, when Moses went up on the mountain to commune with God, and the people wasted no time in requiring something in the moment to look at and focus their praise and attentions on. The people were "amazed" by Jesus' return, welcoming Him back and then hesitating to confess their concerns in His midst. Jesus is rightly frustrated by this people. I know all too well that time of losing focus and setting it on the things around.

Finally, the father speaks up for his child, who the disciples were unable to heal and requested of Christ that, if able, He would help. I look on myself in shame as I read Jesus' rebuke of his faithlessness. If I can?! If I can?! Do you know Me?? Have you forgotten? Are you so willing to demean who you trusted in, what you saw and knew? I, that have the power to conquer death and give life, to shine incomprehensible light in utter darkness? I came to set captives & oppressed free, to recover the sight of the blind, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord! Why do you forget Me??

And then the man's humble response, "I do believe! Help my unbelief!" So often I find myself with the desire to believe and then reminded that I am without the capacity to. But then, gracious Lord that He is, He shows Himself again- to these people, in the miracle of saving this child from the devil; to me, the same, but slightly different.

Last Sunday, after Aletheia in the morning, a large group of us went to Chilis to fellowship afterwards. While there, we had a wonderful waitress who several of my friends kept talking with and loving on. Towards the end, as people were beginning to leave, my friend Josh brought her over to me in an attempt to have her connect with another woman, and with an invitation to come out to church the next week. We began talking and before I knew it, the Holy Spirit was speaking the gospel through my mouth. We talked for another hour, her asking questions and confessing things that plagued her ability to believe in a loving and sovereign God and His Son, Jesus. By God's grace, He continued to answer those, returning to the truth of the gospel over and over. We put away the tables, but the conversation wasn't finished. We agreed to meet again, which happened on Friday. She laid out pieces of a torn past, growing up in foster care, siblings in & out of jail, doing and dealing drugs, now having a 7 month old, living paycheck to paycheck in the projects, and all the while seeking truth in astrology, wicca, drugs, science, anything and everything she was exposed to. Was it possible that there was a God? Was it possible that Jesus knew Him and was Him? That He loved us enough to die for us, even knowing the sin we estranged ourselves with? We talked through the Bible as God's word, that He prophesied throughout of this Messiah. We talked about Jesus's life as a man, that there are 4 amazing accounts of what He did, called the gospels, that there were amazing letters written by men who loved Him and spent themselves entirely to make Him known, that there were accounts hundreds of years before Christ that spoke as though they knew Him intimately. She went home with a desire to know the Word.

Today, we were blessed by her presence at church. And at the end, she was broken. Broken over sin, broken by compassion, broken by mercy and grace. She related to me later that as we sang one song in particular, she realized it was the truth and the cry of her heart- "All I need is You, Lord, is You Lord; All I need is You." We sat after the service in tears of hope.


Pray for her. Pray for the difficult situation she find herself in. The enemy will fight to keep her, he will strive against the power of Christ, but PRAISE THE LORD! HE WHO IS IN US IS GREATER THAN HE WHO IS IN THE WORLD! That Jesus, just as in that account in Mark, has the power to cast out the devil, and then reach out and restore life to His child.

As for me, He shows me yet again that my faith is not in vain. That He is indeed here, even when I forget. And He is power and might. Not me. Him. Jesus Christ, my Lord, my Savior. I cry out "Abba!", and He responds, Beloved one. I know you. You are mine. "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are!" 1 John 3:1

As a charge to you, I love the following note by Matthew Henry. Pray to believe! And pray that I would believe as well. Help my unbelief, Lord! Every moment, every day...

"In dealing with Christ, very much is put upon our believing, and very much promised it. Canst thou believe? Darest thou believe? Art thou willing to venture thy all in the hands of Christ? To venture all thy spiritual concerns with him, and all thy temporal concerns for him? Canst thou find in thy heart to do this? If so, it is not impossible but that, though thou has been a great sinner, thou mayest be reconciled; though thou art very mean and unworthy, thou mayest get to heaven. If thou canst believe, it is possible that thy hard heart may be softened, thy spiritual diseases may be cured; and that, weak as thou art, thou mayest be able to hold out to the end." 

And, oh, what a glorious end it shall be!