We’re going steady.

Most of the time I don’t feel that I’m putting enough effort into my marriage with God.

He gives all of Himself to me, and I give Him the remainder, what I have left over after I have given myself away to everything else –school, family, friends, dreams, job search, desires, worry, adventure, fun times with friends, emotions. He gets my time, energy, love, and faithfulness when everything else has already taken most of me.

Recently, however, God has been more apparent. I’ve been seeking Him, not more radically, but more steadily. I desire Him more and have been looking for ways to find Him.

No, I have not been on a missions trip recently. No, I did not go on a retreat or to camp. It is not a “high” like coming home from camp and being totally on fire for God. And yet, I feel so strongly toward God, more strongly than I ever have (besides missions and the time when I was surrendering my life to Him). God is working so obviously in my life. We’re just “going steady.”

Within the last month or so, I have come to realize that I am the bride of Christ. It is written in the Bible many times, but it is one description of Jesus that I never cared to understand. Father — I can understand. Savior — it is obvious. Redeemer, Prince of Peace, Counselor, Almighty God, Emmanuel, King, Lord — all of those are fairly straight-forward. But, a bride? Yes, a bride.

Understanding that I am the bride of Christ has led me into a much deeper place with Him. I cannot say I am soaring high in the clouds every day, but I understand more of why He sacrificed Himself, what the sacrifice meant, why He loves, how He loves me. The whole spiritual realm that has baffled me is becoming more clear.

I wrote a little while ago about the meaning of life. It is very clear in Revelation that the grand scheme, purpose, beginning, end, intention, meaning, goal, mission — the whole point to our existence is to be lovers (brides) of Christ. “The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the songs of God coming into their own,” says Paul (Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey). Every person, angel, being — they are all waiting for the day when God is rightly reunited with His lover (that’s us!).

I really cannot explain how far this realization has brought me. No longer is God just a Ruler. He is personal. He is close. He is intimate. He is here.

As I often do towards the end of the year, I have been rereading some of my old posts and thinking about where I’m at since then. I want to show you where my heart has come since last year around this time. It is so wonderful to see how, in what seemed to be nearly a silent time in my life with God, I have grown so much.

January 1, 2009 | Jeremiah 29:13: “Last night, as I was struggling to roll over and fall asleep, I was texting a 7th grade friend of mine. She asked what my resolution was. ‘To love God more deeply and to search for Him because He says that when we look for Him then we’ll find Him.’ Lately I’ve been ‘putting off’ my faith. I have not sought God with all of my heart. It’s not because I don’t love God, it’s because there is a fear that when I seek Him, I won’t find Him. I’m afraid that I will always be seeking and never get to experience God, that I will desire Him, and He will abandon me. His truth is much different from my thoughts.”

Today: I have to ask myself: Have I loved God more deeply? Have I sought Him? Did I find Him? To be completely honest, I forgot I even made this resolution. But God did not. I have seen this come to life this year.

Perhaps it is not so evident for someone looking in from the outside. To me, God is so obvious!

He has been teaching me how important it is to Him that I seek Him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength– that I seek Him in the quiet place, in the stillness. It is vital to our relationship that I desire Him above everything else and that I seek Him on my own, not through other people, books, sermons, classes. I need to seek Him with all of my heart, not through the heart of another person. I need to discover Him for myself, not through the discoveries of others.

My marriage with God cannot be dependent on “spiritual highs” from missions and intense worship, or summer, or retreats. It is a steady thing, a day-to-day thing. He is not a God who I can pull out of my pocket for rainy days. He is a God who desires me every day of my life and who wants a two-way relationship. He has been teaching me how to love Him and what it means to love Him in the quiet, slow times of my life.

His peace is overwhelmingly present in my life right now. I cannot describe the complete joy that I have. Learning about God, learning through school, learning about life. God is so good. Joy and peace are abundant in a life with Him.

I’ll end with this — a prayer for faith.

My heart is glad, that you are my Father
Adopted to you, as sons and daughters
And Your love endures, as You said it would
And my heart sings…

Teach me, the sound of Your voice
With the faith to respond, to love you…
Teach me, to follow you close
With the faith you bestow, to love you…

My heart is glad, to serve you as King
Forgive the times, that I am stubborn
With a humble heart, may I come to you
And my heart sings

Art

New page on the blog.

It’s simple: a list/pictures of my favorites works of art, pieces that I want to someday own or see hanging in a museum.

Check it out, and come back for more!

The Mysterious Kingdom

Have you ever thought about what it would be like for someone important, famous, intelligent perhaps, from the past to come to the future.  What would they think? Something like this…?

“I imagined the world would be like this someday,” claims Leonardo da Vinci.
“I’m glad the world has held together so well,” exclaims Noah.
“Funny how some things never change,” observes Darwin.

Quite unlikely.

The change between then and now is astronomical! No one could foresee what was to come, and what is to come.

Recently I’ve been thinking about how John felt while he wrote down the vision that the angel of the Lord gave to him from God. The vision was of absolute unknowns: the future and God’s kingdom.

If da Vinci, Noah, or Darwin saw the world today, it would look very different, but there would be some things that would be familiar to them — nature, the changing of seasons, animals, some of the buildings (some, not many). Though they would be flooded with new things, a hint of the past would still be familiar. They saw unknown things in a known world.

When John glimpsed the Kingdom of God on Earth, it was unfathomable, unimaginable. He saw unknown things in an unknown world.

I try to understand what exactly he is talking about when he describes the coming of God’s Kingdom in Revelation, but I don’t think that’s entirely possible. John was describing the future and God’s Kingdom. He was describing times that he never knew and would never completely understand. How then, can I completely understand the Kingdom of God which is also foreign to me?

God is so mighty and unfathomable. When His Kingdom comes, we will all know that it is Him, but until then, we just wait. We wait for an mysterious Kingdom, ruled by a known God.

The suspense is exhilarating!

He’s greater than my heart.

Here is what I learned from Richard Foster today,

We have condemning hearts.

My heart condemns me for who I am. I am not pretty enough. I am not skinny enough. My nose is too big. My eyes are not bright enough.

My heart condemns me for where I am in life. I should have more leadership at work. I should have better grades in my classes. I’m not working hard enough in school.

My heart condemns me for what I do. For what I do and what I don’t do. Mistakes. Wrong decisions. Not taking that opportunity. I shouldn’t have said that to her. I shouldn’t have let him do that to me.

“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and we will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” 1 John 3:18-20

“But here is the good news that is stated so beautifully right in [scripture]: ‘we will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts.’ If we find that we have a condemning heart we can know that God is greater than our heart. Remember that significant statement of Jesus, ‘God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world’ (John 3:17). And as we learn to trust God more than we trust our condemning hearts we can, as Adolfo Quezada says, ‘relax and play as a child… leave guilt and shame behind, embrace hope, and build on the foundation of good.’”

I had to keep repeating that verse over and over again.

For all of the condemnation we burden our hearts with, God is so much greater. Let that resonate in your heart for a while.

God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Divine Romance

the fullness of Your grace is here with me
the richness of Your beauty’s all I see
the brightness of Your glory has arrived
in Your presence God, I’m completely satisfied

for You I sing I dance
rejoice in this divine romance
lift my heart and my hands
to show my love, to show my love

a deep deep flood, an Ocean flows from You
of deep deep love, yeah it’s filling up the room
your innocent blood, has washed my guilty life
in Your presence God I’m completely satisfied

[Divine Romance | Phil Wickham]

College, so far.

I feel like I need to talk a little about college.

Dorming: I love my roommates! (Samantha and Rachel) We get along really well. If you were to come to our room you would find — Daisy lights, a lot of color, pumpkins, and a bucket of candy (to bring visitors to our room and to keep us motivated on homework). We’re all fairly clean which is awesome! We all like to take naps & sleep a lot, which is also awesome. Our room is small, but not unlivable. It’s just right. From my desk, and my bed, I have a view out the window at the entrance to the Hall that I live in. It’s fun to watch people coming and going, and to wave at friends that I don’t always get to see.

Classes: Christian Formation, a class about the origin of the church and Christianity. We read a book by Chaim Potok called The Chosen which has become one of my favorites. Also, we’re currently reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis which has been on my list to read for quite some time now. I’m really loving it.
General Psych, not as easy as “general” makes it sound. I had my first test on Monday and I studied well for it. I don’t think I did too terribly, but I’ll find out today. My prof was on Oprah… a few times. Perhaps you’ve heard of him, he’s quite a prominent psychologist — Les Parrott. He even designed the questions for Eharmony.com (a dating website). If you’ve ever used the site, if you’ve found true love because of Eharmony, thank Les Parrott.
My last class is Arts & the Christian Community. We’ve been discussing pretty vs. good art. What’s the difference? Is there a difference? And in the end the question that my prof hopes to get to is, “What’s the difference between living a good life and living a pretty life?” I love art, and I absolutely love my professor! He’s so personable and fun to learn from.

Food: Let’s just say that I am so blessed by this. Is that funny to say? The food here is delicious! I’ve heard that it’s the 3rd best cafeteria food in the nation! I believe it. I have never left Gwinn (cafeteria) hungry or unsatisfied.

Christian college: I find it amazing that on Sundays, nearly everyone has a church to go to. There are few people who don’t have a church. On Wednesdays, we have a campus church service called group. Group is one of my favorite parts of the week. It’s not a normal service. It’s really just worship, scripture reading, and meditation. I love it. Lastly, I can’t express how wonderful it is to have Christian professors. To have people who encourage me in my faith and push me to go deeper in my faith. What an amazing thing it is!

Academics: I never thought it could be this easy to do homework! Throughout high school, my motivation for homework and scholarly things slowly diminished. I have been so focused! I think it’s because I know what I’m here for. I’m here to learn and to get my degree. I live at the place where I learn. Everyone else is doing the same thing. It’s just “the thing to do.”

College life: I missed out on quite a few fun events in the first couple weeks because I was sick with the flu. Last night my floor went to Gasworks Park to introduce it to all the out-of-state girls, and then we went dumpster diving. At closing, bakeries put all of their leftover goods into one garbage bag, tie the bag, and put it in a dumpster. Usually none of the baked goods are mixed with anything else. If you find the bag with pastries, it’s filled with day-old goodies that are still not contaminated because they were sealed in a clean garbage bag. Unfortunately, last night the bag was mixed with old coffee grounds, so the pastries were inedible, but it was a fun adventure anyway. I’m sure we’ll be going back, and one of these days we’ll get lucky!

Here are a few picture of recent college adventures.

Jay-Z at the Key

It’s funny to me how lives connect.

Last Saturday night I went to the Jay-Z concert at the Key Arena in Seattle. I didn’t actually go to the concert, but I was there. My friend Dawn planned an outreach to hand out 1,000 free Christian hip hop CDs to the concert attendees. Seven of us piled into a van and headed to Seattle to hand out these 1,000 CDs.

I’ve never been a big fan of rap music, but I love Christian rap. Not necessarily the rap itself, but I love what these artists do. Many of them have come from the streets or out of very bad, low, situations and into the light of Christ. Because they were living so poorly before, they are able to reach people who are in the same situation as they were in.

Thi’sl is one rapper that made an appearance in Seattle just last week. His new album is titled Chronicles of an Ex-Hustler. He used to be a drug dealer before he came to Christ. Now, he raps about the love of Christ. Upon its release, his album was number one on itunes for all hip hop music (including secular) and dropped out at number 4. He is making a huge impact as an urban missionary for Christ.

I explained in an earlier post that I don’t necessarily love the music, but I love the lyrics. I love that they just say it how it is. There is no question that these rappers love Jesus and desire to live their lives for him.

At the beginning of this post I said that I think it’s funny how lives connect. Not only did I absolutely love handing out CDs at this concert, but I found myself in an ironic situation while doing it. One of my best friends from high school was there attending the concert with all of his cousins who he is very close to. (I’ve blogged about him before. In short, I ended the friendship when I became a Christian because I felt that the friendship would not be healthy or encourage my faith and I didn’t want my faith to be compromised.)

Recently I’ve been seeing him all over the place. (Another side note: We haven’t been able to talk in 2 years, which breaks my heart, but is understandable due to the situation.) Every time I see him, we just don’t talk, but at the same time, I know that we both know what’s going on. It’s awkward. It’s hard. It hurts. When I saw him at the concert I just had to laugh. We keep ending up in the same places, but for entirely different reasons. If I had stayed friends with him, I may have ended up at the concert and actually gone to the concert, but not being friends with him, I still ended up there. I was just doing something entirely different. Because I am a daughter of the King, my priorities are different. He went to the concert, I was doing outreach.

Isn’t it funny how lives are connected? It has become very obvious to me that God is fulfilling great plans for my life. How funny that I ended up at a Jay-Z concert, sharing the gospel, but what a wonderful thing He had planned for me, and what a wonderful purpose He has for my life!

Rainy day.

It’s definitely fall here in Seattle.

Leaves are everywhere on the ground. Trees are half bare, and the ones that do have leaves are covered with vibrant yellows, pale yellows, deep red, even a few pink leaves. Yes, it’s definitely fall.

Another thing that comes with fall in Seattle is rain. Rain is no stranger to Seattlites. Since we get so much rain there comes to be this stereotype that Seattlites put on themselves that we are tough enough to stand the rain and therefore do not need to use umbrellas. I think it’s just silly and prideful. Sure I’m used to the rain. I probably drive better in the rain than people from places where they don’t get much of it. I know how to dress in the rain. Rain doesn’t put a damper on most of my plans because I learn to work with it. But not using an umbrella simply because we’re tough enough? I think it’s silly.

Umbrellas were made for the rain. It rains a lot here. Logically, we should love the idea of having umbrellas! It’s not a question of toughness, it’s a question of, “What makes sense?” I say, swallow your pride and use an umbrella already!

This fall, I have yet to leave my room without an umbrella every day that it’s rained.

What’s a stereotype that you refuse to let define you?

Things that I love:

Pandora & the current song it has chosen for me: Amazed by Eogan Heaslip.

SPU friends who brought me an invitation to a show via paper airplane.

There’s a heater pipe under my desk that keep my toes constantly warm.

I had my first skype talk/video chat last night.

Fall is here.

Christmas, yes, Christmas, is just around the corner.

I am blessed to go to a school where church is the thing to do on Sundays.

Christian rap: Why? Because Christian rap/hip hop is never cross over music. Either you rap the world or you rap Christ. There’s no in between. There are no rappers sitting on the fence between secular or Christian music. They just rap about the change that Christ has made in their lives. I think it’s awesome, convicting, so cool.

This verse:
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. — Proverbs 37:4

Because it is so obvious to me that if I delight myself in the Lord, his delights become my delights, his desires become my desires. And I desire right now for his desires. They are so much greater than anything I could ever ask or imagine.

Am I doing this right?

Sometimes I wonder if we’re taking the Bible literally enough. I wonder if we’re “doing this right.” If we’re living life the way He meant for us to live it.

I look at the people who lived with Jesus — John, Jesus’ beloved disciple.. Peter, father of the church.. Paul, missionary to the Gentiles.. They all gave the entirety of their lives for the sake of the Kingdom, and I wonder if we’re missing it completely.

When we hear stories — about casting out demons, healings, miracles, or, dare I say it, speaking in tongues (gasp!). We get all freaked out. Why is that?

When there’s a need in the church — someone needs money, homeless people need socks, people are needed to step up into leadership, or to lend their serivice. We are skeptical. We step back, not up. Why is that?

The disciples did those things. Jesus said that we would do greater things in his name! Do we not believe him? Why do we think that supernatural things are so weird? As we grow, shouldn’t they become more natural? Why do we keep acting on factual evidence rather than faith? Why are Christians skeptical of the very things they are preaching!?!

I know that my first reaction is to say something like, “It’s ok. Jesus called the disciples to a specific purpose, and that isn’t our purpose. We’re each called to something different.” Or even something a little more conservative, “It’s different now. That was for back then. Now, God is using people differently.”

I believe in an unchanging God. I believe in a God that doesn’t live by the rules of this world. I believe in a God who has great things planned for me, but right now, I’m living very small.

Paul lived and breathed through Jesus Christ. I breath through my own two lungs and I live in Seattle. Even in something as old as breathing, I have a hard time finding Jesus.

He was so set on being dead to the world, that when the world tried to kill him and throw him out of the city, he stood up and walked right back in. Paul knew hardships. He knew hurt. But he also knew Life. He deeply knew the Creator of the Universe.

Do I?

The Bible tells me to pick up my cross, daily. But usually I have a hard enough time just picking myself up and getting out the door. Why is it so hard to understand that nothing else matters?

I always think that I can have both the world and Jesus. I think that I can desire affection and be desirable by the world and still have Jesus. I think that I can serve two masters. I want both. I trick myself. The devil tricks me into thinking that I can have both. I can’t have both.

I think Paul knew that he couldn’t have both. Paul wasn’t afraid of displeasing the world. He knew that the message of the cross was offensive, yet he preached it anyway.

When will I be ready to be offensive to the world? When will I be ready to really fall in love with Jesus Christ?

When will He be our everything?