R...R...R...

"The Earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all its people belong to him." Psalm 24:1

"The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it." Genesis 2:15

The fact that the Earth belongs to God should be enough incentive for us to not trash it up. We take care of the nice TV's God has given us, or our laptops. But what about the nature around us that sustains life?! Say you wanted to go on a vacation so you borrow your friends' RV. Wouldn't you take the best care of it that you possibly could, and return it in just as good of shape as when you got it? (or maybe even better shape!) That's the same thing we are doing here. We are borrowing a temporary home that belongs to God. And, its quite rude and disrespectful to trash it an leave it behind, especially when others are going to borrow it after us.

Not only does the Earth belong to God, the first thing he did after he created man was put him in the awesome garden He had made and said "here, take care of this." He wants us to take care of his creation so lets do it.

Wake Up

I am seriously torn up by how desensitized so many of us have become, especially Americans. We have life nice and easy. We are sheltered and protected and if something doesn't make us feel happy we can look the other way. Generally we are so busy making sure that our lives and our friends lives are awesome that we don't look beyond our little bubbles.

I just got done watching half of Taken with 12 and 13 year old boys. They thought it was good entertainment. They thought a movie about prostitution and teenage girls getting sold into slavery was good entertainment. Not to mention the drugs, corrupt government workers getting slave money, and more murders than could be counted. This crap is REAL, peoples' children are being sold into slavery by the millions. And we just think its a good saturday night flick.

There are more slaves in the world today than there have ever been (LA Times). More slaves than when slavery was legal! That is crazy. The fight to end legal slavery was only won in the United states and England with enormous aide from churches. The fight to end slavery in our day will only become a reality if we start opening our eyes and get our churches involved again.

This is not entertaining, this is real lives, of real people:

• The average age of entry into prostitution in the United States is 13 years old
• Lowest estimates suggest that over 325,000 youth in the United States are prostituted.
• In some countries such as Guatemala, children account for up to 80% of the prostitution population
• Human trafficking has become a trade which earns twice as much world wide revenue as coca-cola
• Human trafficking is the second largest source of illegal income worldwide exceeded only by drug trafficking

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

http://www.stopthetraffik.org/

www.ecpat.net

www.unicef.com

www.freethechildren.com

Coming soon: Why the "Slap Game" for iphone isn't funny, especially when 2 and 3 year olds are playing it.

My Utmost 1/26

...we are taken up with confusing considerations. How much time have we taken up worrying God with questions when we should have been absolutely free to concentrate on His work? Consecration means the continual separating of myself to one particular thing. We cannot consecrate once and for all. Am I continually separating myself to consider God every day of my life?

Straight Ahead

"Look straight ahead and fix your eyes on what lies before you." Prov 4:25

When I look straight ahead I see Jesus and Jake and Eli. God has called me to pursue a relationship with Jesus, and to do the best I can to give Jake and Eli healthy diet, and healthy activity, in a patient, fun, relaxed atmosphere. When that is all I'm focused on I am at peace. When I start looking to the sides and noticing all the things I don't have that I want, or what God is doing in other peoples' lives that I wish he were doing in mine I become bitter, jealous, and hurt. God knew it would be this way for us and that's why he gave us a book full of his wisdom to teach us to get our focus where it needs to be. I'm so thankful that God reached out to us all through the Bible and that he still reaches out to us individually today.

"For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 1 Cor 2:2

Service

Dear Lord Jesus, remind me that although I am busy with acts of service, You really want me to BE a servant. I can serve You and still be egotistical and proud; but to be a servant, I need to humble myself, to put others needs first, and to be willing to "wash feet" as You did...Oh Lord, am I a big enough person for that, secure enough in my own identity? Help me to be all that You want me to be through the power of the Holy Spirit. In your holy name I pray. Amen. (D.L. Hammond)

Prayer

If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray. For the secret of prayer is a hunger for God and for the vision of God, a hunger that lies far deeper than the level of language or affection And a man whose memory and imagination are persecuting him with a crowd of useless or even evil thoughts and images may sometimes be forced to pray far better, in the depths of his murdered heart, than one whose mind is swimming with clear concepts and brilliant purposes and easy acts of love...

It is the will to pray that is the essence of prayer, and the desire to find God, to see him and to love Him is the one thing that matters. If you have desired to know Him and love Him, you have already done what was expected of you...

No matter how distracted you may be, pray by peaceful, even perhaps inarticulate, efforts to center your heart upon God, who is present in you in spite of all that may be going through your mind. His presence does not depend on your thoughts of Him. He is unfailingly there; if He were not, you could not even exist. The memory of His unfailing presence is the surest anchor for our minds and hearts in the storm of distraction and temptation by which we must be purified.

-Thomas Merton

Good Morning!

Who needs coffee and donuts...

When you've got a swimsuit and inhaler?

I LOVE SWIMMING!

Phil 4:12-13

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." - Paul and Timothy to the church in Philippi

I have so much to learn. When I was at college I was surrounded 24/7 by people within 2 years of my age. All I wanted back then was to be around some kids and adults, to feel like I was actually part of a functioning world. Now that I'm always with kids and old people all I want is to have someone my age around.

I want to learn the secret of being content. I want to be thankful, focused on and satisfied with what I have here and now. One things for sure, I know the only place I'm going to find this contentment is in the arms of Christ.

These Are Great Days

This is how I spend my days:

Potty Training (aka bribing the boys to use a toilet!)
Napping

Building Santa's house ("Now can I eat one?!" -Jake)
Making decorated brownies ("I want a snowman!" -Eli)

Fishing

Making Playdough

Playing at the lake ("Yee-haw cowboy!")

("Custal, the wake is all fwozen!" -Jake)
Sledding ("swedding is awesome!" -Eli)
Eating Snow

Baking muffins ("They're not muffins they're cupcakes!" -Jake)
(Woody waving at the muffins)
Building a pile

Oswald Chambers

The call of God is not a call to serve him in any particular way.

The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us.

The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves...But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.

Its such a relief to know that as long as I am pursuing Christ and am in a right relationship with him I will not miss the call of God. Its not a call "to do," but its a call "to be." To be in a growing relationship with Christ, to be in tune with his nature, to be the expression of God's call to others. As long as I am being those things the service opportunities will naturally present themselves. Then, as an expression of my love for God and others I can serve freely.

Great Day

Today was a great Sunday. In less than 12 hours God took me from the bottom of a pit that was only getting deeper and lifted me up onto solid ground. As Psalm 40:1-3 puts it:

I waited patiently for the LORD;

he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock

and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear the LORD

and put their trust in him.

That has been my Psalm for years. I genuinely hope and pray that I am coming to a time in my life where I can say that I have stayed on the "firm place" and refrained from falling into yet another "slimy pit." I'm so done with this cycle of pit, cry out to God, solid ground, new song, same old pit, cry out to God...

Identifying the lies satan is feeding me, and I am accepting as truth, is key for my freedom from the pits. I nailed a big one today. Satan feeds me the tale that "God has just forgotten me." As I sat around with some friends tonight I found myself fighting back tears as the fear that I may have actually been forgotten ambushed me. All I have to do now is laugh and remind myself that that is a lie and I am free from satan's grip.

Today was also a great day because I ran 4.5 miles. The farthest I've ever ran in my life! I really didn't know it was possible for me to do such a thing. And, a protein shake combined with 30 minutes of yoga afterwards made for a great recovery! After running 4 last week I felt horrible, and was a little scared for this week. But, after my 4.5 I'm actually looking forward to tackling 5 miles next weekend. I am really REALLY looking forward to my 8 mile weekend. After 8 miles I'm going to buy a package of double stuff oreos and eat them until I can eat no more. I figure after burning over 1000 calories my body can handle a few cookies. That's really my motivation to run, I run to eat.

Today I am free. Today I made the commitment to go "all in" at the church God has given me the opportunity to serve at. Today I am moving forward. Today I have accepted forgiveness. The fact that I am living today is all because of JESUS' love for me and NOTHING that happened today happened without him putting it into motion.

...The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deut 6:4

New Hobby

I have decided that my new hobby is going to be practicing yoga. I do enjoy a good butt kickin' yoga workout with Jillian Michaels or Tony Horton, but I want to start practicing the slow, deep meditative kind. I've had stress issues since middle school, and the more I run the tighter my muscles are getting so I figure picking up this new hobby will be fun and helpful in more ways than one.

The pose pictured above is my goal that I'm working towards. (I wouldn't mind having those sleeves someday either!) I'm super excited to get some upper body strength, and see what kind of crazy poses I can do in a few years!

Namaste

Shhh

I once heard a story of two guys who were chatting about their faith. One asked the other, "tell me about your personal relationship with God?" To this the man replied, "Oh, no, I can't. That is much to intimate to share."

I always thought that was kind of weird, until recently. I'm really open about everything. I don't try to hide or cover up the junk that's been in my life, and I love rejoicing with others when good things come as well. But recently I've found myself journaling a lot instead of blogging all my thoughts out. It probably has something to do with that fact that I'm just now starting to understand the HUGE gap between God's awesomeness and my patheticness. But this time I've been spending with God has been so sweet, and so intimate. Its great just to have something between the two of us. And I don't really want to share it with the world, at least not yet, because its just God's and my thing. For the first time in 7 years of being a Christian, I get why that man would say that he didn't want to share about his personal relationship with God.