Fighting for Your Own

Is Justice Worth It? feat. Micah Bournes from World Relief on Vimeo.

You never stop fighting for your own.

It is really easy to see a group of people such as “the poor” or “missionaries” or “human trafficking victims” and while we identify and believe in their causes we don’t have any sort of personal connection with them.  I’m not fighting for someone I know and love, I’m fighting for a generic idea of social morality.

I think Compassion does a great job of this by having you sponsor one individual kid.  I started sponsoring when I was 14 and have brought one child the whole way up through the program and am supporting two others right now.  Having written and received letters from Edgar, Tita and Festo over the years I’m invested in their lives.  That is one monthly bill that I make sure I pay before the others because it is important to me.  They are MY kids.

Another group that I think we glue together like that is “the youth” in our area.  Being involved in many youth groups, it is easy to just see them as a rowdy bunch of inappropriate kids who are too loud and make crude jokes.  Their emotions are sporadic, their interests can seem shallow and they don’t seem to have any sense of what is socially acceptable.  As a whole it is easy to blow them off.  But when you get to know them individually as human beings and you are involved in their struggles and victories they become one of your own.

One of my own is an amazing girl who started out being insecure and desperately dependent on her friends for self-worth.  She was engaged in some pretty obvious sin and also faithfully attending church… she didn’t seem to connect in her mind that those two things shouldn’t co-exist peacefully.  Through hours, weeks and months of discipleship she became a beautiful and independent young woman who found her worth in God and was committed to holiness through Christ.  I am proud to be able to call her one of my friends!

How can we make victims of human trafficking our own?

Check out The Exodus Road for ideas!

Why is Sex Trafficking at the Super Bowl?

By Justin Holcomb from theresurgence.com

The Super Bowl and other large sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup are increasingly being recognized as magnets for sex trafficking and child prostitution. The 2010 Super Bowl saw an estimated 10,000 sex workers brought in to Miami, while the 2011 event resulted in 133 prostitution-related arrests in Dallas.

In the past, attempted crackdowns by law enforcement have misfired by treating prostitutes as criminals to be locked up rather than victims to be rescued, but awareness efforts have been working, and government agencies have begun to pay more attention to the problem. As Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller explained, “There are enormous economic benefits of hosting large sporting events such as the Super Bowl, but the disturbing reality is that such gatherings in other states have drawn criminal rings that traffic young women and children into the commercial sex trade.” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott acknowledged the Super Bowl as “the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.”

Read the full article here…

My Ebenezer.

My family has this old binder that we call the Ebenezer notebook and it is full of stories and memories of times that God has proven himself faithful to us.  Mom found it the other day and she was telling me how neat it was to look back at all the different handwriting and seeing how we have grown through the years.  One of the stories in there that I remember is a time that something mechanical (water heater?) in our house broke and we didn’t have the money to buy a new one, but then my Dad found the exact part we needed in a box in the basement.  The notebook has been unused for years, but I remember my parents explaining to me what an Ebenezer was and why it was important to be reminded of God’s provision.

You can read this article by Dr. Gregory S. Neal for a complete explanation, but I’m going to give you a short excerpt so you can get the idea.. “Literally speaking, an Ebenezer is a “stone of help,” or a reminder of God’s Real, Holy Presence and Divine aid. Spiritually and theologically speaking, an Ebenezer can be nearly anything that reminds us of God’s presence..”

A verse that has always spoken to me is Jeremiah 31:21 which says, “Set up road markers for yourself; make yourself guideposts; consider well the highway, the road by which you went..”  How important is it for us to understand where God has brought us so far?  Would that help us avoid making the same mistakes over and over again?  Would that encourage us when we feel overwhelmed and alone?  Would that teach us to lean heavily on God for each and every need in our lives?

So I’ve decided to keep my own Ebenezer journal here in my blog.  I have a category set aside for it so I can look back and see what God has done in my life, and this is entry number one!

Tonight was our small group meeting and I was so blessed by the girls who have welcomed me into their hearts just in these past few months.  I didn’t realize the lack of female fellowship in my life until now I’ve gotten so used to praying with these women every week that I’m not sure what will fill that void when I get back to the States.  They are blessing me with a goodbye party next week and I feel so loved and grateful for their friendship.  God brought me to exactly where I needed to be and gave me friends who would be encouraging and challenging and overwhelm me with love when I thought that my friends in Guam were completely taken away from me just a few short months ago, now I am going home with a special place in my heart for this tiny church on this tiny island and I’m going to miss the fellowship dearly.

God has also really shown his hand in providing for my needs financially in this time when I haven’t been employed.  The few website jobs that I’ve been able to take have given me just enough to keep the bills paid, but I can see his hand so clearly in the blessings of the people around me who are generous without knowing how much I appreciate their generosity.  It is really hard to not be in control of that area, but it is so easy to see God’s blessings when you are unable to help yourself.

So.. here I raise my ebenezer.

I may be weak..

Of course my last weeks in Guam will be packed full of spiritual and emotional intensity, right?  So God rocked my world a bit yesterday and then pounded it home this morning and I’ve spent the whole day enjoying my friends whilst mulling over deep things in the back of my mind.  The gist of it is that a friend of mine confronted me in an area of my life that I have been complacent and gave me sufficient motivation to make some changes.  That makes it sound neat and pretty but in fact it involved tears and threats and rage blackouts.. well, maybe not that intense.  But it was certainly not my finest moment.  My sin nature does not like being exposed for what it is.

So while I was sitting in church listening to a sermon about adultery, my brain started pulling out principles and truths relating to my current scenario; train your mind to be disciplined and faithful now, develop habits of honesty, learn to be mature, have realistic expectations and do not get complacent.. lots of good stuff there.  Mid-sermon I started humming the tune to Give Me Faith by Elevation Worship in my head and God was soothing my heart with these words..

“Give me faith to trust what you say,
That you’re good and your love is great.
I’m broken inside, I give you my life..”

My heart and flesh will fail me for sure, there isn’t any doubt of that.  I don’t have any illusions about being a strong and diligent person, no qualms about admitting that I am as lazy and self-absorbed as they come, but I have the source of all goodness and strength powering my spirit and that is more than enough to conquer (AND ABOLISH!) the ingrained habits of sin in my life.  He has given us everything we need for life and godliness.  (2 Peter 1)  Oooohh, that’s good stuff, here’s the whole passage with some added emphasis..

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these (his glory and goodness) he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them (great and precious promises) you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”  2 Peter 1:3-4

There is more, go read it.  My point is that I can live a godly life because of my knowledge of God, knowledge being key to having the things needed for the godly living.  (I had to edit this paragraph down because my brain shot off in 20 different directions and it was very inspiring, but also rather convoluted.)  But at any rate, it made sense to me and I was able to be at peace because I knew that the Spirit inside me would provide the strength and discipline that I lack.

I did not mean to go all Bible study on you, but it felt good.  🙂  So the words that had me humming (silently) and smiling in a tiny private worship service mid-church?

“I may be weak, but your spirit’s strong in me.
My flesh may fail, but my God you never will..”

Decisions, decisions..

All of these choices are looming up ahead of me and I’ve been eyeing them from a distance, trying to figure out my stance in each scenario.  I feel like people around me have followed pretty little patterns for life and stayed on the same basic path with each piece fitting together like a giant life puzzle, but in my life the puzzle pieces are tiny and at first glance they don’t even look like they belong in the same picture.

A big part of what God has been teaching me this summer/fall is about being poor and being wise and being diligent to what I know to be right.  I have a collection of sea shells and rocks that I have to try to sneak past customs and they all have verses sharpied on them so I can remember each theme that I dealt with during this trip.

The decisions coming up are about my future, what is the best step for right now and what is the best direction to start heading?  What is worth investing more time in and what should I give up?  A big part of this is seeing which doors God opens, but it also is important for me to have a clear vision for what I would like to do.  It is hard to look back and see that my life has taken so many random turns, by this time many people my age have their graduate degree and are moving into a field that they are actually expert in, but my life didn’t go like that.  I have dabbled in administration and graphic design, I have had some real experience in banking and in some of the aspects of ministry but apparently not enough to get more than an entry level type job, and my real interests lie in ministry, management, worship and discipleship.  So you’d think logically that I want to be a worship leader, right?  I sorta do… but finding the right church, or really any church is a problem.  Finding a job as a worship leader that will pay more than the bank does is a real problem.  The small ones can’t pay and the big ones want better than me.

I don’t know, guys.  So now that you are all stuck with me in the quandary and we have no solutions.. let me thank you for your likes and views and comments, because you have no idea how encouraging it is to me that people actually take the time to read about my weird life.  If you can be in prayer with me about my future and that God will maneuver me to where he wants me to go, I would be grateful.

Stumbling after Jesus together…