Obedience is an Act of Love

Today as I went about my day I decided to drop into a new dress shop in town to take a look.  As I browsed through the dresses all I could think was “which one would Ryan like?”  Well, I found the perfect dress and I headed home, excited to wear it to our anniversary date tonight.  I’ll let you in on a little secret…I don’t like dresses, but I have a closet full of them that I happily wear for one reason alone.  Ryan mentioned to me one time that he really loved me in dresses, that he preferred them actually.  That was it, I had become what I swore I would never be, I was now a dress wearing, cooking and cleaning, stay at home wife and mother.  I actually remember thinking women who let their husbands pick out clothes for them were crazy, but now I would rather Ryan help me choose what to buy because he is the only man I want looking at me anyways and I want him to like what he sees. Ryan would actually tell you that I straight up rejected the premise of stay at home mom when we were dating.  He had told me that he wanted a wife that would stay at home with the kids and I said, "then I'm not your girl!" I was the one who talked about the "lazy housewife" and mocked the very idea, but the truth was that came from a broken place, the place of knowing that I was never going to get the chance to be a mom. The me of 10 years ago would be groaning in agony over how much I have changed, and that is because the me of 10 years ago had not yet come to understand her place in this world and who she was in Gods eyes.  I’m so happy that I am not that girl anymore, that I have found my place and being who I was born to be has truly blessed me! I was born to be a mother, I was born to be a wife, I was born to serve God through a ministry, and my husbands willingness to support us and make it possible for me to stay home has been an amazing gift!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means saying that every wife belongs barefoot in the kitchen, or is called to be a stay at home mom.  Many wives and mothers are called into the workforce and I applaud them for that. I don't exactly sit home knitting, I serve the Lord through the ministry of LIFE Runners and sometimes that seems like a full time job! I am, however, saying that we are all called to obey our husbands.  Yup, there it is, I said the unthinkable.  Every piece of the feminist driven propaganda is beating on the brain of women reading these words, so give me a minute to walk you through what I am trying to say before you brand me a deserter of all women kind!

This little line has been removed from most vows, mine included.  I REFUSED to say that I would obey Ryan, there was no way I was going to say that.  But what does it mean to obey your husband?  Truth is that it is not the scary word we have built it up to be.

Obedience- compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority.

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

So clear as day we are told that the biblical instruction is for wives to submit or obey their husbands.  But God doesn’t stop there with the instructions because if he is asking wives to submit to their husbands he is going to give our husbands ground rules as well!

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

WOW, my husband is commanded to love me to the point of sacrifice!  Why wouldn’t I want to submit to him!  If he is loving me and seeking the Lord, then he will lead me where I need to go, he won’t take advantage of his leadership, and he will care for me beyond my expectations! Now you may be in a marriage where your husband is not doing his part, but that doesn’t get you off the hook.  Unless he is asking you to do something immoral or illegal you still need to submit to your husband and pray fro his heart to be changed.  Truth is that a submissive wife can get more done than a wife in rebellion!

To be obedient to someone you really have to be willing to be vulnerable with them, to trust them completely, and I should hope that no one says “I do” to someone that they don’t feel loves them and cares for them!  To not be willing to come under your husbands authority as head of the household changes the structure of the design of marriage and enters rebellion into the mix!  To be truly obedient we must respect and trust the person who is directing us.  We are obedient at work with our boss or we lose our job.  Our children are obedient with us as parents or they face punishment.  We are obedient to law and order of our country or we face criminal charges.  We are obedient to God or we face eternal consequences, struggles and hardships.  So why is it that wives aren’t interested in obedience to their husbands?  Well, we have been fed the lie that obedience implies ownership, the ability to lord over another person, but if you love your husband and you trust your husband then obedience should come easily, and if it doesn’t its time to start digging into the cracks of your marital foundation and begin to repair them.

When I met Ryan I was completely broken.  I had gone through hell with my ex husband and my life had fallen into utter decay from my sinful choices.  I didn’t want to say “obey” because I had no intention of ever letting a man control me and hurt me the way my ex had.  I had put up a wall of protection and I wasn’t interested in letting anyone in, not Ryan and not God.  Funny thing about walls, they may keep the bad out but they also don’t let the good in.  I kept Ryan and a safe distance and it wasn’t until God crashed through my wall that I was able to see that the only way to go from there was towards God which meant I had to trust him.  Once I let go and let God have his way I knew I had to let Ryan inside the borders of my heart and that was hard, but little by little we grew together and we moved forward.  With each passing day and each tackled hurtle I realized that I trusted Ryan not to hurt me and that made me want to fall under his leadership of our household.  The more I submitted to him the more love he poured into me.  It was an amazing process!

So today, on our 10 year anniversary I whole heartily promise to love, honor, and obey my husband.  Marriage isn’t a fairy tale, its two very imperfect people who have decided to walk through life together.  To be willing to be vulnerable with each other, to be forgiving with each other, to be dedicated to making it work regardless of what life throws at us.  To keep God at the center and to commit to pray for and with one another.  To accept that we are flawed and make mistakes, but to trust that with God anything and everything is possible. In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, until death do we part….

Do You See What I See

Isaiah 55:8-11

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.  As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:  It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

If we depend on anything other than God for our happiness we will be disappointed.  That amazing trip you planned years for is over in a blur and leaves you wondering “what now?”  The big finish line you worked so hard to reach but after crossing the finish the victory fades pressing you into the next big challenge.  Or what about the dream you poured your heart and soul into only to have it die before your very eyes….

Dreams are great, plans are good, goals are important, but if they don’t line up with what God has planned for you they will far short, way short.  There is nothing wrong with taking an amazing vacation, as long as you are being financially responsible and can truly afford it.  There is nothing wrong with setting a big goal and accomplishing it, but it should glorify God.  Nothing wrong with a little adventure, but if you are expecting these things to give you lasting happiness you will end up being disappointed.  True fulfillment comes from serving the LORD.  He is our provider, He is the only drink that satisfies!  Every thing we do can be an act of worship, it all depends on your willingness to let God lead you down the path He has for your life.  God gives us dreams and ambitions when we seek Him and His direction.  When we follow what He has put in our heart we will accomplish more that we ever imagined!

When you do something fully for yourself it won’t be long until the excitement wears off, before the victory fades away, before the thrill is all but gone.  Just like me expecting my husband to make me happy is not only unrealistic, its unfair to him.  Does he bring me happiness, of course, but does he let me down, from time to time-yes.  He was not put on this earth to satisfy my needs!  He was put here to serve God, and part of that service is caring for and loving me, but my needs, my purpose, my joy must come from God alone.

I’ve crossed my fair share of finish lines but the only one that I really remember was the marathon I ran for God alone.  Its not the race that brings a smile to my face, it was the way that God filled my heart and carried me those 26.2 miles that makes it such awesome experience.  Only in service, only in faith, only with God can we truly be complete!  I will say it again, EVERYTHING we do can and should be an act of worship.  You don’t need special skills, God has created you to serve in your own special way.  You don’t need an education to be useful to God, just pick up your Bible and spend some time seeking the wisdom that He alone can give us!  Everyone was created to serve, and we all have the choice to do what we were created for or make our own way.  Sometimes we seek to fill the void with the the wrong things; drugs, sex, alcohol, food, exercise, adventure, etc. but these things leave an even bigger hole.  God alone is what we crave and the moment we put Him in the rightful place in our hearts we begin to see nothing else measures up!

I will give you an example from my life.  My eyes we really opened up to these things when I faced the reality of my weight loss goals.  I had set a number and a jean size and I wanted it, I wanted it bad!  I truly believed that if I could reach 140lbs and a size 6 that I would be completely satisfied with myself.  What I didn’t see was that I was setting myself up for not only failure, but painful backsliding in thinking that something as arbitrary and temporary as a weight or jean size could satisfy what I was “hungering for.”  Well I did reach 140lbs and I do wear a size 6 but the body looking back at me in the mirror hadn’t changed in my eyes (in spite of losing over 40lbs).  The disappointment of feeling like I had gone so far for nothing caused me to temporarily give up and I managed to gain back 10lbs.  I'm so happy that I gained this weight back.  It made me realize that I was reaching for something that was not supposed to be my focus!  Yes, its good to get healthy.  Yes, I need to lose some of my extra weight, but that should never change how I feel about myself!  I am now able to not have the scale deeply impact my heart and my attitude, because I realize that what size I am has nothing to do with who I am.  I did see that me binging on food was my new drug of choice and it was causing me pain.  It left me feeling guilty, angry, and completely disgusted with myself after a binge.  I was trying to stuff food in a hole that needed to be filled with God!  More important than losing that 10lbs again, is to finally be free of the power food and a negative body image have had over my life for far to long.  I will continue this journey to be healthy not so I can look a certain way, but that I can be who God created me to be, someone who depends on Him alone to supply my needs!  Every thing we do should be an act of worship!  My perspective and view of myself is what needs to be changed so that my fulfillment comes from my relationship with God and nothing else!  I share this part of my journey only as an example of how the enemy uses many weapons against us, to try to beat us down and weaken our faith but He cannot win if we put all of our hope in the Lord!

Isaiah 54:17

no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.  This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the LORD.

The enemy is a LIAR!  Nothing in this world can satisfy us!  I dont care how much money you have, it will never be enough.  I don’t care how many nice things you own, they cannot satisfy your heart.  I don’t care if you travel to every nation of the world and see the wonders of this amazing creation, it will not fulfill your deepest desires.  The only thing that will quench the yearning of your heart is to let God fill it with His love, His purpose, and His plan! There is a yearning in all of our hearts, it was put there on purpose.  That yearning is where God wants to dwell, until He is the only thing we desire! 

Lean on God

Self Reliance- A false and misleading assumption that one can make it through life by their own will and desire relying on no one for help.  But we can not make it on our own will, we don’t have the endurance or ability and here is a little secret, we were never meant to rely on ourselves alone!  We were meant to surrender completely to God and rely on HIM!  He alone knows what we need and is faithful to provide when we need it. 

Today as I began my run I struggled with the heat and the headwind.  I was frustrated and I asked God why I couldn’t catch a break.  His response opened my eyes…

When we think we are strong we forge a path on our own will.  Our strength will carry us for a short while but it is not sustainable.  Like the headwind I faced, God will allow life to push back, to weaken us as we fight the very blessing meant to carry us.  When we rely on self there is no need for God in our lives, but God doesn’t leave us, He begins to work on us and presses in on us to show us the limits of our own strength.  Finally when we have fought long enough that we are completely depleted of our own abilities and we realize we need to turn back around the same “wind” that brought us to our knees will now carry us home!  If we truly want to be blessed in this life we must let go of self and trust God.  When we are not willing to let Him have control we fight against the blessings in our life without even realizing it!

Too often we find ourselves impatient to wait on the Lord, thinking we know how to get through what we are going through but the blessing in the struggle is that we can let God carry us.  We don't fight our battles alone unless we are unwilling to let God provide the way.  It's so hard to let go, I am a control freak and God continuously teaches me about letting go.  The amazing thing is that the more I let go the more peace I experience even when things are really rough.  I have come a long way in releasing my burdens and I still have a very long way to go, but little by little I see that the "wind" I am fighting against is meant to carry me if I will just change direction and go the route God had planned.  The enemy will even try to confuse us and make us think certain battles aren't meant to be surrendered but if it is a weight you carry you can be sure that God wants it, He wants to take it from you!

Ephesians 2:13

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  

We are precious, we are His and when we give our hearts to Him we can be sure that every detail of our lives matter to God.  Everything we do can and should be an act of worship, and that means that letting things burden us and distract us are things we need to surrender so we can focus on what God is trying to teach us.  I think that this for me is the biggest faith test, letting go and trusting God completely in all things.  It sounds funny when I say that out loud because God created the Heavens and the Earth, He created you, me, everyone and yet by not giving my burdens to Him I am basically saying I know better how to handle the things I face! THAT IS CRAZY!  I am thankful that God continues to work on my heart, to change me.  The things He has asked me to give up have benefited me and the things He has told me should be the most important have blessed me.  I don't feel deprived as a Christian, I don't feel left out, like I am missing the party!  Quite the opposite, I feel like I am finally living, that my life has so much purpose now! Everything has deeper purpose and meaning when you do it to serve the Lord.  I love my husband more, I strive to be a better mom, I hope to be a good friend, I pray to be a bold leader and a soul winner.  Those are ways I can serve God in my daily life and they make getting out of bed each day even more worth it! God alone is meant to be who we rely on and He is faithful to provide!

"Food can fill our stomachs but never our souls.
Possessions can fill our houses but never our hearts.
Sex can fill our nights but never our hunger for love.
Children can fill our days but never our identities.
Jesus wants us to know only He can fill us and truly satisfy us." ~Lysa Terkeurst (Made to Crave)

Food for Thought

In my journey to become healthy one truth really impacted me, “you can’t out run bad food choices.”  It's simply a well known fact.  Most of us do it in the beginning, we run our first half marathon and then proceed to reward ourselves with a 2,000 calorie piece of cheesecake or a box of donuts, but the fact is that you simply can’t out run those foods, they are great in moderation but the daily habit of offsetting your running with a treat will catch up to you! Being healthy requires good food, exercise and most importantly time with God.

I have been asked quite a few times by people who have attempted to take up running how I stick with it, why I don’t give up.  I run in heat, I run in the cold (but I try to avoid that one), I run in the rain, and crazy wind (running in between cyclones can be challenging).  I run an average of 1400 miles a year which seems like a lot to me, but is nothing in comparison to what some runners run.  So why?  Why don’t I give up when it gets tough, and honestly it gets tough a lot!  I can tell you that if I was running to lose weight I would have quit, sure I lost about 10 lbs my first marathon training, but I gained 10 lbs the second time around and it wasn’t all muscle (those bad food choices caught up).  If I was running to glorify myself I would have quit because I am no record holder and although I know my running has improved it certainly isn’t taking me places in the runners world.  So why?  That is simple, I run for something bigger than myself, than my ego, than my waist line.  I run for God.  I run so that I can serve the Lord better.  When I run I have to fully rely on God.  There is never a run that doesn’t have some ache or pain, there is never a run that isn’t challenging in its own way.  Every run is an opportunity to trust God to get me where I am going and to reach people along the way!  I run as a living banner of hope, in my time on the street not only do I have complete focused prayer and praise time, but I have the ability to be where God needs me to be to encourage someone.  Sometimes there may be someone I get to pray with, sometimes I simply get to pray for someone as they pass by.  There may be countless people that the Holy Spirit is reaching out to as I run by with the LIFE Runners “REMEMBER the Unborn, Jer 1:5” message on my back.  I don’t know, but I do believe in divine appointments and I have seen God arrange a few in my life so far.  I run because I can and because God asked me to.  I run because we are to do everything we do for Gods glory!  We are sanctified and made Holy when we trust the Lord with our salvation through His amazing grace, and that means that everything we do can and should be an act of worship and service.  I run because my life is not my own, and this is my surrender!

Running can be a very selfish thing, it can become all about self and that is the area of our lives that God is always working on.  He wants us to see that we can serve Him in everything we do!  As someone who smoked and drank through her 20’s the fact that I am training for my 3rd marathon just reminds me of what a gift I have been given.  I will continue to run for God because that is what God has put in my heart to do.

Just like the fact that we cannot out run bad eating, we also can’t and shouldn’t take grace for granted.  I used to do everything for myself and paid little mind to what God might be asking of me.  I’m so thankful that God got a hold of me and set me back on the right path but my heart grieves for those who still seem to be hanging onto hyper-grace.  The truth is that when Jesus gets a hold of us we simply must change, He does that for us, and it is amazing to let the bonds fall off!

I fear that too many people/churches seem to miss the catch, and there is a catch.  If you go to John 8:1-12 you will find a powerful story of forgiveness

John 8:1-12

1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

This story shows the awesome forgiveness of our Lord and Savior.  Here is a woman caught in the very act of adultery, she can’t deny it, she can’t escape it, her accusers know that they have caught her, but Jesus looks the accusers in the face and defies them.  Today we see so many churches living in a teaching of hyper-grace and this is dangerous ground.  They would simply leave this story at “then neither do I condemn you” and nothing more.  BUT that is not what Jesus said and that is not what Jesus TEACHES.  He followed it with a command, he told her to “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

I used to be one of these “Christians” who left it at “neither do I condemn you” unwilling to give up my drinking and selfish ways.  It simply does not work, that is not the design.  Many Christians still commit habitual or lifestyle sins and that is a hindrance to Gods ability to use you and grow you.  Maybe it is gossip, maybe it is lying, maybe it is premarital or extramarital sex, maybe it is pornography, drinking or gambling, whatever it may be the message is clear.  Although grace does cover your sin it requires a repentant heart, a turning from, a willingness to “go and sin no more.”

Can you imagine the above story from John if the adulterous woman had behaved as we seem to more and more in society today.  If after escaping being stoned to death she rose to her feet and looked Jesus in the eyes and said “Hey Jesus thanks for getting those judgmental guys off my case, thanks for finding me not guilty, but you know what I kind of like my life and I love that man I was with so I’m just going to head back to what I was doing since you declared me not guilty!”  CAN YOU IMAGINE!  Yet that is what we do every single time we have premarital sex, every time we back stab and gossip, every time we watch pornography or questionable movies, every time we tell another lie, every time we drink ourselves into oblivion or gamble away our last dollar.  We look Jesus in the eye and thank him for his grace and then we tell Him that our lifestyle is more important than our devotion to Him.  That is hyper-grace and it is a modern day lie of satan to keep us on the path of destruction!

Its kind of like binge eating the night before a run.  Sure you can still run but its not going to be good and you will struggle.  When we indulge in things that aren’t meant for us as believers it hurts our fellowship with God, our time with Him is not as powerful as it is meant to be, there is something that stands in the way of that fellowship!

Galatians 5:17

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Its time to take a minute and look within and ask ourselves, “is there something that I am taking a hyper-grace attitude over?”  If so its time to let the power of those lies be broken over our lives.  Its time to truly surrender those struggle areas to God, to seek forgiveness with a repentant heart and to never return to those choices again.  God is waiting and he is ready!

Truth in Love

My heart is completely broken at the state of things in the US right now.  With the latests tragedy of the terror attack on Orlando my mind has been reeling!  I want desperately to understand what people are going through in their lives so I can walk with them through their struggles, and the pain of a loss like Orlando is not something I can even comprehend.  When a monster walks into a building and heartlessly kills so many people its hard to know what to say.  I did notice something even more troubling come out of this terror attack.  Inspite of the fact the act was committed by an Islamic terrorist, people were still blaming Christians.  That floored me!  The Bible teaches to love, not to kill.  So how do they arrive at blaming Christians for this....

I was fasting this week when it happened and I cried out to God in frustration to reveal things to me, to help me understand and to help me reach the broken.  God answered in a way that I did not expect...

I understand that the gay community has in many ways been rejected by Christians.  Many of these Christians (myself included) are well meaning, but have failed this community in our communication with them.  While we try to live out our faith, sometimes we don't express what we believe in a constructive manner, especially when we feel that our values are being threatened.  We must learn to balance our fears of our faith being compromised while still living in love.  I'm not saying that we let our faith become compromised, but I am saying that we need to live in faith and love not fear.  The world is not going to agree with us on many things, but that doesn't mean that we run around screaming at the world and pointing our finger.  We need to always be asking ourselves "what would Jesus do?"

Jesus was uncompromising, He never sinned and He did not condone sin.  That being said, sinners flocked to Him.  They weren't scared of Him, they didnt feel judged by Him!  Jesus draws us in, in a way that no one else does.  When we get face to face with Him we start to understand that we can't even come close to understanding the depths of His love for us and that love provides for us in ways nothing else can!

If I had the privilege to talk with someone in the LGBT community in light of this tragedy and they asked me "do you judge us?"  My answer would be no and this is why...

I believe you, like most of us, are standing before a well and you are thirsty.  What you may not realize about that well is that it offers a drink that cannot satisfy.  You can keep dipping into it but it will run dry and you will still be thirsty.   We all try to drink from this well at some point in our lives, it has many names, but the result is always the same, it cant satisfy our thirst.  There is one well that I would like to tell you about.  This well has only one purpose, to fill us completely and satisfy our thirst completely.  We can drink deep of it, there is enough for all of us and it will never run dry!

If you go to this well you will meet someone that loves you more than anyone else can.  If you are willing to sit with Him He will tell you everything about yourself, even your secrets and hidden fears, doubts and pains.  You will discover something as He reveals you to yourself, He isn't judging you!  He is showing you these things because He wants you to be free.  He wants you to experience love and fulfillment in ways you never imagined.  He wants to deliver you from all of your struggles and shames.  If you listen to Him a little bit longer after He reveals these things to you, He will then tell you who you really are and how deeply He loves you.  He loves you so much in fact that He died for you and broke the bonds of sin that separate us from God.  The choice is yours, the cup is waiting...

When you leave the well, if you accept His cup He will begin to transform you.  He will change you in ways you never imagined.  He begins to break down walls and open doors.  It doesn't matter what struggle or sin you came to Him facing, He will walk with you through the journey of change.  Jesus meets us right where we are, and the beautiful thing about it is when we meet Him face to face its impossible to stay the same!  All of us need to become the people we were created to be and that means all of us have to be willing to let God work on our hearts and our minds.  I don't judge you anymore than I judge any person because sin is sin and none of us are without sin.  We are all in a fallen state and we all need Jesus!  When Jesus gets ahold of us, and He is given reign over our hearts He will change us and we will never look back!

The well is not some fictitious place, one woman had this exact encounter and it changed her forever. John 4:4-30 tells us this powerful story.  This woman, a samaritan, would have been considered an unbeliever by Jewish standards as the samaritan faith was a combination of law and ritual from the Law of Moses, and various superstitions.  This woman was at the well at noontime which was very unusual and some commentators believe that she didn't come when the other women came because her lifestyle may have made her an outcast. Jesus connected with this woman, who most Jews would have not even spoken to, by telling her all about the rugged path her lifestyle choices were taking her on.  He didn't yell at her and call her a sinner, He simply told her what she already knew in her heart to be true, that her path was not the right way.  Jesus directs her from her sinful life to true worship.  Jesus did not ignore her sin because her sin needed to be confronted, but He approached her with love and that love won out!  She chose Him!

See when Jesus offers us His cup, the living water, and we choose to take it we can't stay where we are.  Taking His cup means leaving all other wells behind and trusting in Him alone.  You can't drink from His well and be satisfied if you are still filling up on water that makes you thirst.  Jesus gives us an all of nothing choice, we can either drink from His cup and let Him fill our every need or we can continue to draw from the well of the flesh.  Some of us struggle with greed, with hate, with envy, with our sexuality, with lust, with fear, and none of these struggles are too big for God to change in us.  Jesus holds the answer and it is for every last one of us.  When Jesus truly gets ahold of you it becomes impossible to stay the same, He changes us all.  That means that you are no longer defined by your desires, what you do, who you love or what others think of you.  You are who God says you are, a child of God!  It is important to remember that just because we choose to follow God doesn't mean that all of our flesh struggles disappear.  We now have God to help us choose to walk away from those things, but we still must choose and sometimes that is terribly hard.

Galatians 5:17
The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants.  And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of that the sinful nature desires.  These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.

God will never ask you to change something in your life without being there to help you make the change.  This is not reserved for some Christians.  All Christians need to let their lives be transformed, we are all imperfect and we all need Gods mercy and grace to get us where we need to be in this life so we can serve out our purpose.  We all have our own brand of sin and I do not judge others for their struggle, I have my own struggle to face!

My prayer for those who are standing at the well willing to face Jesus and let Him minister to your heart is this...

(Ephesians 3:14-21)
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.  Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.  Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.  Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever!  Amen

So do I hate the LGBT community, absolutely not!  I love them as much as I love everyone else.  Love is a commandment, Jesus calls me to love.  I am sorry that I may not always be good at showing love to everyone, but as I draw nearer to God He is teaching me what it is to love out of the overflow!  I want to take a journey to the well with people who don't know Jesus and I want them to meet my savior who took me right where I was, drowning in my own sin, and set me on dry ground.  The world knows what we believe as Christians, we believe that the Bible is the living Word of God, unchanging and completely true.  I don't need to keep reminding you about areas of life we may disagree in because that wont get any of us anywhere.  What I do want to do is show you that I love you and that you matter to me, your life matters to me, your heart matters to me.  I would love to know more about you and your journey, and maybe just maybe we can travel to that well together....

Finish Strong - A Journey of Faith

2 Timothy 4:7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

I had the privilege and honor of being invited to speak at The Raising Sisters Conference in Fiji this weekend.  Raising Sisters has a powerful vision for the women of the South Pacific and the entire conference was a true blessing! My precious Pastors wife, Bui, asked me nearly a year ago if I would speak on abortion during the conference and as much as public speaking terrifies me I knew that I had to say yes.  Last week I began fasting and praying and seeking guidance.  I prepared my speech and printed it out and practiced it.  I was ready for all intensive purposes, but I had NO IDEA what God had planned, He was probably laughing at me as I practiced that well scripted speech……

I’m actually an introverted person.  I get overwhelmed by large groups and although I like to talk, I struggle with engaging so many people at social events like a women's conference.  That first night a beautiful woman of God got up and spoke a powerful message that really touched me at the core.  It was beautiful, it was powerful, and I was inspired.  As I drove home for the night I couldn't hold back the tears as the enemy began his brutal attack.  “who do you think you are, why would these women even listen to you?  You aren’t a pastor, you aren’t an expert, you are nobody!”  By the time I got home I was shattered.  Who was I to think I could stand up and talk to these women about abortion!  Who qualified me?  

Ryan, who is my rock and spiritual warrior sat up with me as I poured my fears out to him, he listened and encouraged me and as we spoke God answered.  “Who are you? You are the daughter of the most High God.  I rescued you from your broken mess of a life for this purpose!  Who qualified you?  I DID!  This is who you were born to be!”

I finally fell to sleep recognizing that the enemy had tried to break me down but God had great purpose for this weekend, and He had a plan for me!

The next day the spiritual feeding continued through these amazing speakers and I felt my faith growing and growing.  The more our precious speakers spoke the more I couldn't help but smile as I realized that God was knitting together all of our speaking points.  None of us knew each other, none of us had any idea what the others were going to speak about and yet all of it was flowing together!  God is so amazing! By the end of the second day I was floating on Gods presence.  The messages I had received were clear.  Take it to the next level, get out of my comfort zone and leap into faith.  NO LIMITS!  I prayed as I drove home, “alright God, I will not use my speech, I will go up there empty so you can speak and pour out of me into these women.”

The morning of my day to speak arrived and I went for a run to spend time preparing my heart for what was coming.  As I ran my eyes were being pulled to the clouds.  There was something about them and I couldn't look away.  As I watched the cloud transformed into the dark face of the devil.  I silently asked God why He was showing me the enemy and almost right them the cloud shifted and an enormous eagle appeared.  Its wings were stretched wide, its tail fanned out over the earth, its head cocked to one side scanning the land below.  I stopped right there and dropped to a knee on the side of the road thanking God for His presence.  I prayed for a few moments and then felt released to continue my run.  As I ran I realized that sometimes we live thinking that the enemy rules over our lives from above, but HE DOESN’T!  He has no authority over us!  He scrambles around causing chaos in the earth but he does not see all and he does not know all.  God is like the eagle, he owns the sky, he can see everything from a greater perspective.  He guards over us from above and he knows every move the cunning enemy makes.  God is able to swoop in and destroy the devil at the perfect time. 

As I arrived to the conference my heart was overwhelmed, I was terrified.  I was getting ready to speak to 200 women about a very sensitive topic, abortion, and I had decided to not use my notes.  I continued to pray that as I trusted God He would fill me with His words.  I folded into His presence as I listened to the speakers who were before me and then it was my time.  I can tell you this much.  GOD DELIVERED!  I have never spoken out of the overflow of the Spirit before, but I did in that hour.  The Holy Spirit took over and I mean completely took over.  The words flowed smoothly and with powerful purpose.  I have no idea what I said, but I could feel the passion pouring out of me! God spoke to those beautiful women, He reached their broken places, He delivered some of them from their secret shames and He broke down bondage!  God knew what they needed and He filled them, igniting passion for their daughters and sisters, giving them courage and boldness for their women and the precious unborn.  God lit a fire that will not soon be extinguished.  After I prayed over women who were being delivered from their past abortions, repeat miscarriages, and attempted abortions I had no energy left but to sit in my chair and cry.  My heart wept in thankfulness and other emotions that I haven’t really experienced.  I’ve asked God to keep breaking my heart for what breaks His and He has been doing that.  The leadership team then prayed a powerful prayer of blessing over Ryan and myself and the LIFE Runners ministry.

While there was prayer going on inside the conference Ryan, Ella Mae and I took a little walk.  I just felt like I needed to just get outside for a minute.  I felt bad for being outside, but I just felt like I needed to stay outside for another minute.  Right then we noticed a little girl in the pool.  She seemed to be swimming but something just didn't feel right.  I asked her “are you swimming” and she didn't answer, and I noticed that she was starting to go under.  It took my brain a minute to realize what was happening, but she had fallen in and was drowning.  I jumped in and pulled her out just as she went under.  She was breathing and had taken on some water in her lungs but was coughing it up.  If we hadn't been there she would have drown, there were no other adults anywhere near at that moment, only other children.  My heart is still so very overwhelmed by that fact.  Inside the Holy Spirit was moving mightily and the enemy was outside trying to harm a child, but God knew it and sent my family to be in the right place at the right time.  I stood there soaked and the reality sunk in as the mother took her child to the doctor to be sure she was ok.  I crumpled into a pile of tears.  I was so thankful for God using me again, for putting me and Ryan right where we needed to be to protect this life.

In church this morning I was quietly waiting on the Lord and He spoke to me that now I needed to understand that my call was one concerning life and death.  In the same way that I needed to be where God put me at the moment the young child was drowning, God would be putting my family in the path of people who needed Him right at that moment.  Our obedience to respond and go without question was now a life and death matter, be it physical for a baby on its way to being aborted or spiritual for someone walking a dark and broken path.  I had prayed for the next level and I know that I will be ready for it because God equips us and provides for our needs, but until that moment I had never considered the gravity of my obedience/disobedience.  With tears flowing down my face I committed to go when called and to not hesitate no matter how scary.

The conference finished out strong and Ryan and I received another powerful prayer of spiritual gifts and prophetic promises over the ministry and our family.  I have never felt more depleted and more full!  God is so good!  Mighty doors have been opened, and the enemy wont be able to shut them!  How many lives will be saved as women join united for LIFE, I may never know, but I know that I asked God to take me to the next level and He is and I am ready!  It’s time to stop sitting back and making plans, it’s time to just step up and do it!  There is no turning back now, LIFE Runners in Fiji will be unstoppable because God has a plan and we will go wherever He calls!

Identity Crisis

I can barely breathe when I think of the state of things in the world right now, especially in America.  I simply cant understand how we got to where we are, how the celebration of immorality and mental illness has completely taken over from the Government level down to our private households.  We no longer stand up for what is right, and most of us feel like the world has lost its grip on reality.  My heart has never been more broken then it is right now.  I literally can not sleep because i am so overwhelmed by the state of things.  This is not about gay marriage, this is not about transgendered bathrooms, this is about the fall of mankind and we have led the way by losing our ability to offend, by being more scared of hurting someones feelings than concerned for their eternity.

My husband and I were talking about it all yesterday and he asked me how someone could be a practicing homosexual "christian" and how their "church" could justify it and it hit me.  We put a line through one passage of the Bible long ago, a line that most of us still don't see as a problem and with that one line, came the lie that started this all.

Matthew 19:5
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Sex was and has always been meant to be shared between ONE man and ONE woman who are joined in marriage!  When we stopped seeing premarital sex as sin, we put a line through the word of God and this path became a slippery slope.  As Ryan and I talked about these christians who felt that homosexual sex was acceptable, a thought popped into my head and I asked him "did your premarital sex keep you up at night before you got married?"  He answered "no" and that is the key right there.  Neither did mine but it should have! As Christians we know that sex outside of marriage is a sin and yet it has been normalized since the sexual revolution so as much as we heard on Sunday that we should abstain all of the rest of the time we heard that everyone was doing it and that it really wasn't that big of a deal.  ITS A HUGE DEAL! I'm guilty of this, I had sex before I was married, I am also divorced.  I'm not standing here pretending like I don't have my sins, most of my 20's were lived recklessly in direct disobedience to God.  I struggled with sin and battled addictions, but God delivered me from them and with a repentant heart I turned back to Him and He gave me a brand new life! It did require one thing from me, to turn my back on my sinful ways, to die to my fleshly desires and to do things Gods way. I still sin, I still mess up, and I am constantly asking God to direct my path and change my heart.  It's not something you do just once, we have to die to self every single day.  We have to continue to ask God for forgiveness when we stumble and backslide and we have to press forward again and again and follow after Him deliberately!

We aren't loving our Christian brothers and sisters when we are too afraid to offend them and less concerned about their eternity.  Mother and Fathers who have a child who battles with homosexuality have a hard road to face.  Loving the sinner and hating the sin is a fine line, but it is a line none the less.  I'm not going to stand here and pretend like I have any idea what a struggle it must be for the entire family, but I will not justify the behavior of homosexuals because I love them.  The fact of the matter is that we do not get to pick and choose which sins are ok.  That would be nice, if we could have just one, a favorite and get a free pass on it, but that is not how it works.  There are plenty of people "born this way" that excuse is not a pass for sin.  You may be born with homosexual desires but a pedophile is born with attraction and sexual desires for children, shall we allow that?  A sociopath is born with a lack of conscience so should we let them get away with murder?  Morality is not subjective.  The problem is that instead of basing morality on the requirements God laid out people have rejected God and are attempting to base morality on something else, feelings and emotions.  That simply does not work, each of us has our own feelings and our own emotions so what may seem right to you will possibly seem wrong to me and vise versa, therefore morality becomes a blurred grey that has no firm foundation.  This is the morality we are seeing rising in the world today and it is a house built on the sand, it cannot withstand the test of time.

The argument now for all things LGBT is emotion, feelings.  They have wrapped up their identities in their feelings, their attractions, and sexuality.  A lot of us do this, we look in the mirror and we see what we feel.  Too fat, too short, too shy, sexy, boring, ugly, beautiful, too skinny, you get the point.  We let our emotions determine our identity.  News flash, our identity has nothing to do with our sexuality, nothing!  Our identity has nothing to do with how we see ourselves, nothing!  Our identity is not controlled by how others view us!  Our identity is supposed to come from one place, from the Creator!

We were created in Gods image, that is our identity.  We were created to serve the Kingdom of God, that is our identity.  We were created to love and encourage one another, to lead others to Jesus and to serve God alone, that is our identity.  When we accept our place and position as a child of God we find our identity.  It is not in who you desire to have sex with, that is your sexual preference, not your identity. It is not if you feel like a boy or a girl, your gender comes from your DNA, not your emotions.  We lost our identities when we stopped looking for them where they are meant to be found, in a loving relationship with Jesus Christ.  God also gave instruction for those who did not feel compelled to follow the natural order of His law.

Matthew 19:12
For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others--and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.  The one who can accept this should accept it."

I believe that some of us have great purpose in the kingdom of God and those who may have the greatest purpose may be called to trust in God alone for that deep relationship.  I also believe that those who will do the most for the kingdom face the greatest struggles.  This may mean that someone who battles homosexual desires needs to commit to a life of chastity in the service of the Lord.  I also believe that like most flesh desires, you have to make a choice to turn away from what God tells us is off limits regardless of how natural it feels to you.  Denying our fleshly desires is not some new thing and its not just something God asks a few of us to do, He asks all of us to do it!  Our flesh is contrary to Him and we cannot have it both ways.  We all struggle with our own personal brand of sin.  To think that one is harder than another is to think that you can fully understand every person and what they face.  Jesus didn't say it was going to be easy, He told us to pick up our cross and follow him.  That is a life of sacrifice, a life of self denial, a life of flesh battles and surrender to Gods will.  We don't get to draw lines through sins of our choosing and homosexuality is clearly called a sin over and over again in the Bible.  Remember, our identity is not our sexual inclination, or our emotional desires, our identity is rooted in our relationship with God!

If we continue down this path of normalizing sexual sin and immorality future generations will struggle more and more, just as those of us following the sexual revolution grew up knowing that God said sex was meant for marriage but still not seeing it so much as sin but skirting the issue.  Our hearts were hardened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and we were able to act without guilt.  There are many Christians living with little thought to their premarital sex, but this is a sin be it heterosexual or homosexual sex.  Homosexual sex is forbidden, however, and is considered an abominable act.

Romans 1:26-28
"For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.  For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.  And since they did not see it fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done."

Its time to stop being afraid of offending someone and time to start speaking the truth in love no matter what.  This isn't about judgement, its about truth.  We are all sinners, and God does meet us right where we are but He loves us WAY TOO MUCH to leave us there.  We need to get on our knees and face to face with Him and let Him open our eyes to all of the lies of the devil.  I'm not saying it will be easy, and I'm not saying it wont hurt, but eternity is at stake and we do not have time to worry if we have been politically correct.  As Christians speaking the truth in love and not condemnation we are serving God in a world that hates the truth and we will be hated for it, but our identity lies in the one who saved us, and He doesn't care how popular and well liked by others we are, he cares about the millions of salvations at stake.

This isn't about transgender bathroom laws, this is about normalizing an agenda, about raising a generation who no longer sees the truth but is spoon fed these lies.  Gender dysphoria is a mental illness that needs to be lovingly addressed.  These bathroom laws do not help the transgender community because the truth is that those who identified as women were most likely already using the ladies room and vise versa.  This law does open a free for all for anyone who wants access to a place of vulnerability, locker rooms and bathrooms.  Of course they have twisted the concern to somehow reflect that those who oppose the bathroom laws fear the transgender community, but that is a bold faced lie!  I have no fear that a transgender man will harm me while I am in the locker room.  I do not feel, however, that just because he feels like a woman means that I need to be exposed to his body in a locker room.  My concern is for a sexual predator to use these laws to his advantage as he will not have to justify why he has entered the locker room or bathroom and he may be there to harm or take  advantage of someone.  Yes, a sexual predator can enter a ladies room with bad intentions with or without these laws, but these laws don't give me to the right to ask him to leave, where as before, security would have been called. These laws are bad, they don't protect anyone.  I think if people open their eyes to the reality that they should be able to see how letting our teenagers choose which bathroom to use based on how they feel is a very bad idea.  If I had a daughter who felt like she was a boy I certainly would not think her to be in a safer situation by having her shower with a bunch of teenage boys!  Her body is still that of a girl and needs to stay where that body is safest, with girls.  That is common cents!

This all boils down to one thing.  We need to find our true identities where they are meant to come from, we need to see ourselves from Gods eyes.  We are deeply loved, created in His image to serve love and honor Him.  We need Him, we were created for Him by Him and He does not make mistakes.  We are being blinded by the lies of the devil.  It's time to open our Bibles, get down on our knees and pray.  There is nothing that God cannot heal.  There is no sin to great that God cannot forgive.  There is nothing too broken that God cannot restore.  We need to trust in the Lord, to turn back to Him, to stop following the ways and lies of this world.  The devil wants you to think that it's impossible, that you wont be able to break free.  The devil wants you to think that your identity is wrapped in these desires, but it's not true.  God created each and every one of us, perfect in his image, and we were designed to live out our lives according to Gods will! He will never leave us and He will help us through anything but we have to trust Him and we have to surrender to Him.

I pray for those who fight this battle, my heart truly breaks for your struggle.  Being someone who understands the nature of addiction and being swept away by the struggle of sin, I wish that there was a magic trick that would just set each and every one of us free from our personal struggles, but there isn't.  There is, however, and all knowing, all loving God who wants to walk with you through this and if you trust Him He will get you to the other side.