Today I was talking to some of the people from the on-campus prayer meetings about the tension of being a uni student, studying up for some job in the marketplace… but deep down wanting to do ‘full-time ministry’… it brought up something I have been pondering a lot lately… in the post-IHOP, early commerce degree internal WARZONE (oh, the drama, the drama!!). I was a singer, dancer and intercessor in a house of prayer. My job was to worship and pray and fast and read the Word and sing and dance… and I loved it. And now I am here studying a degree that is frustratingly boring and that leads to a career that doesn’t hold any greater appeal… and but despite all my tears and pleading and kicking and screaming… I am still here… I can’t do what I want to do so I feel like I’m stuck doing what God won’t let me get out of. And in my immaturity and lack of understanding so I am prone to whinging to Him… “ohhhh but I just want to do fulltime ministryyyyy” *stomps foot*… yes, oh yes, my little heart is very much a work in progress. One which He is fully committed and fully able to bring into completion (Philippians 1:6)…

But when I lift my eyes from my circumstances and actually listen to what He has to say… I am reminded that in a way, no matter what our vocation is, as Christians we are to live ‘full-time ministry.’

• “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” Matthew 5:14-15
• “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 4:5-6
• “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13

And so on and so on… obviously, this doesn’t mean that missionaries, pastors and the like are wasting their time… and I still don’t want to be an accountant… but even if I ended up as an accountant, I would still have sooo many ministry and evangelism opportunities. Water cooler conversations about God, doing all tasks with an excellence that brings glory to Him, interceding for my colleagues as they work in the cubicle next door etcetc… if full-time ministry and a life devoted to prayer, the Word, fasting and worship is truly what I desire to live, my vocation will never stop me from doing that. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35-39)… and that’s what it’s all about. I don’t want to do this thing I call ministry because I like it in itself. I want to do it because I love Him… and I want to love Him more and live a life of love that directs other people into His love… whatever that looks like.

One thing I think I need in particular is a broader definition of worship… the true definition. I am so quick to shrink it to only include things like singing and dancing… and so if I am doing a uni assignment I act all grumpy because I just want to ‘worship Him’… coming up with a spiritual sounding excuse to slack off my uni work and go do something I deem to be of ‘eternal worth’… conveniently forgetting that we are called to do all things with excellence to bring glory to Him (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Yes, He loves it when I sing to Him… but He also loves it when I cry out (even in the midst of all my confusion and immaturity… dark am I, yet lovely [Song of Songs 1:5]…) ”God, studying accounting seems like the DUMBEST thing to do right now when You’re coming back so soon and I just want to love You more… buuut for some reason You want me here. I don’t get it but I trust You…” and plug away at an assignment, when I could be reading the Word… that matters to Him. It doesn’t make sense to me… if anything, it feels like He should be disappointed with me for doing uni work instead of being with Him… but no, He wants me to be faithful to that which He’s called me in this season. That which looks like a confusing waste of time to me looks to Him like His perfect plan unfolding. And I am so amazed that He loves me so much that my little life and little heart is not overlooked… I am not forsaken (Deuteronomy 31:6)… I am not forgotten (Isaiah 49:15)… I am His beloved.

Yes, I love Him and that makes me want to spend my days praying and reading the Word and fasting and singing and dancing… but because I love Him I want to obey Him fully, even when I don’t get it. I have to trust that His desire for me to love Him more is even greater than my own… that He wants me to know Him even more than I want to know Him… and that He knows the plans He has for me (Jeremiah 29:11)… and is fully capable to bring them to pass. Whatever they looks like. Whether that means I end up as a fulltime missionary, a conference speaker… or a burning and shining lamp (John 5:35) by the office water cooler.

This the response to a teaser in a previous post. I tried to be kind of sneaky because I don’t know for sure, so I was wondering what my readers thought… and I love Katie’s answer (click on the link to the previous post to see her answer). And I talked to a friend who goes to Bible college and he said something I like a lot, that the light then came from the same place the light is going to come from when there is again no sun.

“The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.”

– Revelation 21:23

Yep. Good answer. And then props to Biblegateway for these…

• “… You are my lamp, O LORD, and my God lightens my darkness.” 2 Samuel 22:29
• “… our God gives light to our eyes…” Ezra 9:8
• “… LORD, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us.” Psalm 4:6
• “For the LORD God is a sun and shield…” Psalm 84:11
• “The LORD is God, and He Has made His light shine upon us.” Psalm 118:27
• “The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light…” Isaiah 60:19
• “… the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
• “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6
• “… declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9
• “… God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5
• “… the glory of God gives [the New Jerusalem] light…” Revelation 21:23
• “They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.” Revelation 22:5

I love 1 John 1:5. That God is light. Although that doesn’t mean that light is God. Maybe a bit like a rooster is a chicken but a chicken isn’t necessarily a rooster. God is way more intense than a rooster though but at any rate, one BIG reason why light cannot be God is because God is uncreated. God is the Creator (Romans 1:25), not a creation. God didn’t say “Let there be God…” because that would mean He was created, and that He had a beginning. HE is the beginning (Revelation 1:8).

So I like what Revelation 21:23 says. That His glory gives light… soooo maybe the light was His glory being revealed through creation… to creation. We were, after all, created for His glory (Isaiah 43:7)… and even the heavens declare His glory (Psalm 19:1). So maybe it’s about His glory being revealed in the tangible and visible… that we would encounter Him. Let there be light… let God be revealed to something other than God.

Yep… those are my thoughts… I’m glad you’re reading this, it means my thoughts are getting bounced like a multicoloured bouncy ball… hopefully my thoughts about God are more than a bouncy ball… then again, they are but a drop in an unending ocean…

Eternity is so exciting… that’s how long it takes to search out God… and that’s exactly how long He gives us

Lately as I’ve been reading the Word and meditating on it and praying it back to Him… He has taking me just a little bit deeper into understanding of who He is and the greatness of His love… and my response has often been an awestruck “… really?” As in, ‘You’re really that kind? You are that merciful? Like, Your Word truly means what it says when it says all those incredible things about You? That’s really who You are??’ Not that I didn’t believe those things before, but it’s like they’re coming alive to my heart… and I’m so in awe that this beautiful God loves me.

And then I was a bit sad too… that so many (… and even sometimes my own little heart) buy into the lie that God is a mostly angry deity, looming over us full of hostility towards us, just waiting for us to slip up so He can give up on us, cast us out of His presence and into hell. But when we read the Word we see the truth about Him… that He is the One who delights in mercy (Micah 7:18), has compassion on all that He has made (Psalm 145:9), the One who is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness (Psalm 86:15), the One who carries His people close to His heart (Isaiah 40:11), the One who so loved the world that He gave His only Son that we could be with Him forever (John 3:16), the One whose love for us is so much greater than our hearts’ tilt towards sin, the One who remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful, the One who judges in perfect righteousness (Revelation 19:11)… and so on and so on… I can’t write it all out, so go read the Bible…

I want to know truth about Him… I want to know Him as He is… I want my eyes to see the King in all of His beauty (Isaiah 33:17)… for He is too good to settle for believing less than the truth of who He is.

So this weekend I was flipping through the newspaper’s weekly magazine and one article caught and held my attention… in a nutshell, it’s about how the convents are running out of nuns because all the women are getting older and no young people are joining. But the thing that most made me go ‘wow’ is a quote from one of the nuns at the end of the article:

Sister Nora puts it a little more bluntly. “People think we’ve wasted our lives,” she says.

The table is drawn to silence as the nuns turn towards her.

“That occurred to me at the centenary celebration, when we were at Mass and they were telling the story of Mary Magdalene washing Jesus with the perfume and they said, ‘What a waste, why would she waste the perfume?’ And it really crystallised for me at that moment: that is what people think about us, that we wasted our lives.”

… Sister Nora speaks again: “I don’t think my life has been wasted.”

– extract from the West Weekend Magazine article At the Crossroads

I am not saying that I am about to go convert to Catholicism and join a convent… but something about the life of dedication they live so appeals to me. Because I want to live a simple lifestyle all about seeking Jesus through meditation on the Word and being as He is, a servant of all (Matthew 20:28)… a life that may appear wasted to a world chasing after all those other things… a life given to seeking the one thing needed (Luke 10:42), the one thing I desire (Psalm 27:4)… a life ‘wasted’ at the feet of Jesus… and encountering Him there, listening to what He has to say (Luke 10:39) and being full of joy at the sound of His voice (John 3:29)… and being able to confidently say “I don’t think my life has been wasted.” Whatever that looks like. Whether that looks like sitting in a prayer room or being an accountant who loves Jesus or anything else God has planned for me… no matter what, I want to be found with oil in my lamp (Matthew 25:4), with the first and second commandments as the reality of my heart (Mark 12:30-31), the Sermon on the Mount as my lifestyle (Matthew 5-7)…

Weeell… I don’t know where this post is going, and I have an assignment to work on so I’m going to stop blogging… buuut at any rate, I read the quote and went ‘wow’. So I thought I would share my ‘wow’ with my readers and random websurfers

Soooo… this is pretty much my favourite song at the moment… haha sorry about the Spanish subtitles and sometimes odd slideshow (I don’t understand the significance of long lines of people holding hands…), but it was the only way I could get the song actually on here…

• “… apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
• “Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.” Psalm 40:17
• “The Lord hears the needy and does not despise His captive people.” Psalm 69:33
• “The Lord protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, He saved me.” Psalm 116:6

I like John 15:5. Apart from Him we can do NOTHING. I’m clinging to that truth… and running into Him when I’m feeling overwhelmed by my weakness… and humbling myself when I’m feeling like I’ve got it all together in my own strength.

But lately I’ve been feeling more overwhelmed than having it all together. Taking a long hard look at the choices He’s put infront of me about a whole bunch of things, consequences of choosing either option, confusion over what His will is, meeting my inability to know what is His voice and will, feelin’ torn between obedience, wisdom and desire… and feelin’ overwhelmed…

And yet, in my weakness His strength is made perfect (2 Corinthians 12:9). And He sees past the weakness and treasures the heart that desires to love and obey Him completely… He delights in it… says that I am dark yet lovely (Song of Songs 1:5). And He knows, even more than I am discovering, that I can do nothing without Him (John 15:5). And He wants me to love and obey Him even more than I want to. And I ask Him to help me… and so He will. He will. He is the God who saves (Psalm 68:20)… the God who delivers me because He delights in me (Psalm 18:19)… and strengthens my feeble knees (Job 4:4) and helps me run after Him… even when I feel able to do no more than curl up into a ball and cry. But by the grace He’s given me I choose to not cry about my weakness but rejoice in His strength…

… and spend all day singing this song… my life is a musical, for sure…

ps. everyone loves a good “na na na na na na na…” at least I do…

Aaaaaaaargh. I used to have a really bad temper when I was little… and I’ve pretty much grown out of it… but ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I still have my moments. And today I spent the second half of a lecture trying to chill out from one such moment…

I love the Word of God… I can’t argue with it and win (Job 40:2). It is truth (John 17:17). And it pleases Him when I try to live it (1 Samuel 15:22). His Word chills me out when I feel that temper bubbling away underneath the surface…

Good ol’ Proverbs… gets you every time…

• A quick-tempered man does foolish things… (Proverbs 14:17)
• A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly (Proverbs 14:29)
• A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel (Proverbs 15:1
• Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city (Proverbs 16:32)
• Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered… (Proverbs 22:24)
• An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins… (Proverbs 29:22)

*siiiigh* my pride has to die. I want to be like Jesus.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8

Soooo… obedience. The Lord likes it (1 Samuel 15:22). He is the Lord God Almighty (Revelation 4:8)… that fact alone commands it. I like the idea of it, especially the idea of me living it 100%… but I often don’t like the fact that it can be hurty. And so I am so often so quick to choose disobedience because it doesn’t hurt (at the time anyway)… but, well, God is pretty good at ska-weeeeezing my little heart (aka. conviction)… or removing His presence beyond my ability to feel it (Song of Songs 3:1)… which also hurts my little heart… until I’m like “ow ow I’m sorry!!” and come running back and into His unending mercy (Revelation 4:3)… into the fact that because He loves me Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for my sins (1 John 4:10)… and then get caught up in the wonder that through no achievement or righteousness of my own I have been given right-standing before God (Romans 5:17). Be amazed that this God who knows me completely (Psalm 139:1)… sees the darkness yet calls me lovely (Song of Songs 1:5). Try to comprehend the love that caused Jesus to be pierced for my transgressions… crushed for my iniquities (Isaiah 53:5)… this love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19)…

In the face of this love… this grace that has been given to me… whyyyy would I want to disobey? To grieve the One who loves me so much and delights in me??

And yet I do…

But I am getting better. Going from strength to strength (Psalm 84:7)… even though I still am so weak… for He gives strength to those who have none (Isaiah 40:29). He is so kind. So merciful… delighting in showing mercy (Micah 7:18)… delighting in me… delighting in showing me mercy. Yes, I stumble… but He gives me strength to get up and keep plugging away (Job 4:4)… knowing that the stumbles don’t intimidate or overwhelm Him… yet somehow my little weak love overwhelms His heart (Song of Songs 4:9). Knowing that when I choose to get up again, to trust in His love, to set my heart on a pilgrimage (Psalm 84:5), to forget the other lovers and run after Him (Hosea 2:7)… it matters to Him. And I don’t have to cautiously come back… face a God who is frosty and distant because I ’surprised’ Him or ‘ruined all His plans’ by messing up again… no, I come boldly before a throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16)… and am met by Him running out to meet me as I come back (Luke 15:20)… and my mistakes and stumbles could never be so big as to cancel out His Sovereignity.

Now, I am certainly not saying that I have no need to try to obey completely… the Bible is clear that we are to make every effort to be holy (Hebrews 12:14), that He desires our obedience (1 Samuel 15:22), that there are definitely rewards for obedience (Psalm 149:19, Psalm 84:11… among LOTS of others…)… but until I get there… while I am still stumbling away… His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9).

He loves me, yes yes He does!!  *dancedancedance* … and so I love Him (1 John 4:19)… how could I not love the One who loves me so much??

And He loves you… and He loves everybody (John 3:16)… that is exciting!!

… also terrifying, when you consider His jealousy.

This verse belongs on the list of verses that do my head in:

“You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” Psalm 56:8

I was never big on crying… until I went to IHOP. Ohhh dear. Yep, I became a crier. No longer pushing emotions down and out of my mind… but allowed myself to feel. Fear, tenderness, frustration, repentance, joy etcetc… it all made me a bit teary. Still does… but to a lesser extent… and I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Whether it shows I have matured or my heart has gotten harder.

Buuut enough about me, I am here to blog about the verse…

Sooo… I like that. That God treasures my tears. That in all my distress He too is distressed (Isaiah 63:9). That even though He is so much bigger than all my problems that seem so overwhelming to my little heart… He is upset that I am upset… because He loves me. He cares about me… and so beckons me to cast all my cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7). It is incredible enough that He even sees my tears and hears my cries (2 Kings 20:5)… but He even stores my tears and records my laments.

When it came to this verse I used to be… and, well, sometimes still can be… part of the “Bible-but Club” (yep, Stuart Greaves has a way with words…). For example I would think that “… the Bible says God stores my tears but… obviously it’s only when I’m crying about the ‘right’ things eg. feelin’ all tender towards Him, getting fresh revelation of His mercy etctec…” and somehow thought that when I was crying about things like me not understanding and being unable to see past something that was making my little heart feel overwhelmed He was disappointed in me for not understanding and so somehow my tears didn’t ‘count’ before Him… that those ones didn’t make it into God’s bottle. Believing that when I don’t “have it all together” my cries mean nothing to Him. Twisting the truth that His ears are attentive to the cry of the righteous (Psalm 34:15) to not include me… despite the fact that through Christ Jesus I now have the gift of righteousness before Him (Romans 5:17). Telling myself that He knows me better than I do (Psalm 139:1), and I am feelin’ pretty overwhelmed by all the darkness in my heart… so obviously He is mad at me too… forgetting that yet He sees the darkness… but He also sees the weak but true desire to fully love and obey Him… and so calls me lovely (Song of Songs 1:5). Forgetting that even when I was His enemy He loved me enough to die for me (Romans 5:10). Forgetting that any righteousness I work up in my own strength is still as filthy rags to Him (Isaiah 64:6), the Holy Lord God Almighty (Revelation 4:8)… forgetting that I could never ‘earn’ His love. I could never come before Him confident in my own righteousness… but I can boldy come before Him (Hebrews 4:16) because of His great mercy and His righteousness (Daniel 9:18)… the righteousness He has given me.

I need revelation of just how much he loves me… just how tender He is towards me even in my weakness… for my heart to truly believe all the time that my sin, weaknesses and all the little unsettled issues don’t overwhelm Him… yet one little weak glance ravishes His heart (Song of Songs 4:9)… and every little tear is seen… and treasured.

As Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42 (NIV… buuut I capitalised some letters that NIV leaves lower case… I just like to do that…)

Yep. Mary of Bethany is my girl (… and, for the record, Jeremiah is my boy ).

In light of everything that needed to be done… Mary saw something of greater necessity… to be captivated and undistracted… just sitting at the feet of Jesus, and listening to what He had to say. This One with grace poured upon His lips (Psalm 45:2)… the One whose words are spirit and life (John 6:63)… the One who is the very Word of God (John 1). She is doing Song of Songs 2:3… “Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men. I delight to sit in His shade…” I want to be like that.

But yes, there were other things that needed to be done. We can be a bit hard on Martha. But the Word says that she was distracted by the preparations that had to be done. Now… it’s not like I’ve read it in the Greek or anything (haha as a side note… I toootally want to be one of those people who can be all ‘… actually in the Greek that word means…’ I don’t like being at the mercy of potentially sucky translations… I like NIV. Some people think it is sucky. But I’ve researched a leeetle bit into translations… and I feel that liking NIV is justifiable. Aaanyway, back to what I was saying before…)… buuut as far as I can see, it doesn’t say that Martha was actually doing the serving at the time. Reading NKJV suggests that Mary and Martha were simultaneously sitting at Jesus’ feet… but Martha’s mind was elsewhere… distracted by all the preparations and serving that had to be done.

I picture Mary sitting and listening intently, fully captivated by Jesus… but Martha sitting there and being like how I am so prone to be… trying to read my Bible but my head is swimming with a whole bunch of other stuff I have to do (eg. do laundry, study, make dinner etctec…)… so much so that I eventually just drop Bible study, which I don’t feel like I’m ‘getting too much out of anyway’ (because I’m probably too noisy on the inside to hear anything…) in favour of other stuff that needs to be done. And so I’m guessing that at some point Martha bailed and started doing preparations… the preparations that had to be done. Sooo… I’m not going to have a go at her for doing stuff that needed to be done.

Haha I just realised that I started this post planning on talking about Mary, but I’m rambling on about Martha now… oh well

Sooo… Martha had a choice… preparations that obviously needed to be done, for she had, after all, opened her home to Jesus (and I’m assuming His disciples as well…)… versus sitting at the feet of God, listening to what He has to say. There is a time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1)… so I’m guessing that there was a time to listen and a time to prepare. Nothing wrong with preparation. But being so internally distracted by things that need to be done that you can’t focus on the thing that is better than all of that is a problem. A problem I am prone to…

Oh, that I would be able to sit at His feet, gazing upon Him with dove’s eyes (Song of Songs 4:1)… undistracted, undivided devotion (1 Corinthians 7:35)… listening to what He has to say… not distracted by all those other things, as valid as they may be. For they are not more important than just quietening down and spending time with God. And then that I could go do those other things with all my heart as if I was working for God and not men (Colossians 3:23)… worshipping Him in all that I do, whether I am meditating in the Word or doing an assignment for uni… but most of all treasuring the times just spent at His feet… the one thing that is needed (Luke 10:42)… the one thing I desire (Psalm 27:4)…

Sooo one justification I had for wagging uni was that it gave me more time for things of eternal worth… ie. studying the eternal Word of God (Isaiah 40:8). Buuut God blew that one outta the water last night during a teaching on calling… eg. internal (intimacy), external (ministry) and eternal. He reminded me that we get eternal rewards according to our faithfulness with even little things (Luke19:17)… on this side of eternity.

… including our faithfulness with rolling outta bed and into a lecture at a university that in accordance with His good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2) He wants you to go to. His will that remains unchanged despite loud protesting and frequent wagging on my end. (Oh, if you don’t know what ‘wagging’ means… it is apparently the same as ‘bunking’… I think… if you are American, anyway…)

Yep, I desire eternal rewards. As well as 100% obedience. And so I went to uni today.

Yay for me.

Yay for eternal rewards.

But most of all, yay for the God who delights in mercy (Micah 7:18), rewarding us for the obedience which is surely commanded by the very fact that He is the Lord God Almighty (Revelation 4:8)… rewarding us when He owes us nothing. He has already given us the most incredible gift of all… eternity with Him, through His Son going to the cross (John 3:16). But if that wasn’t reward enough… we get further reward. Even for faithfulness with the little.

Surely, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Corinthians 2:9)…

… and for me for actually going (albeit doing a little internal kicking and screaming… my heart is very much a work in progress…) to university. It’s a small thing… but even small things mean so much to Him (Song of Songs 4:9)… and on top of the joy of knowing that even in my weakness I move the heart of God… I take heart in that He will reward me. I toootally don’t deserve it… but He will.

He is so kind