Lenten Season

Today marks the start of many Christians' spiritual march toward Easter Sunday. I don't pretend to know all about Lent, how it started, etc. but I do know this - I can afford to spend some time in reflection and to give something up for a period of time to reflect on what Jesus Christ did for me over 2000 years ago.

Wikipedia says this about Lent:
"The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, penance, repentance of sins, almsgiving, atonement and self-denial."

Often times the things we give up for approximately 40 days really are no big deal; this year for me it's facebook and chocolate. OK harr harr harr, but I do have to say, when I remove things I enjoy that are an everyday part of my life, I am left a little bit off kilter. I think this is where I can capture a moment to ponder the important things in life- what I've been blessed with, what Christ has powerfully done in my life, where I need to trust Him more. Times of introspection should not be forgotten and I think Lent is the perfect time to go inward. I look forward to spending some intimate times in prayer as we approach Good Friday and I contemplate what exactly happened for all of humanity on that first Easter morning. This is a time to prepare my heart for the reality of what lead our Savior down that path to Golgotha.This is a perfect time to reorient my steps to follow this man we call The Christ, a worthy and perfect atoning sacrifice. 

I don't know about you, but I look forward to the journey, and maybe it's because I know in the end Christ is alive, yes, my Redeemer lives!  I know He wants this walk for me so that I can grow and become more like the person He always intended me to be. So I celebrate going off of facebook and not ingesting a silly little treat like chocolate for the next 40 some odd days. I'm here, Lord, ready and listening.

The Lord is my Shepherd

I'm not really sure why, but as an adult I don't memorize Scripture like I did when I was growing up in the church. Maybe everything in life as a kid was focused on learning, schooling and now as adults we have to choose to learn new things. Anyway, one passage of Scripture has really laid hold of my heart in the past couple of years and when I would read it I found myself repeating the verses over and over. I also felt a desire to really mediate on it and actually memorize it after I had heard a pastor make note of the passage in his sermon. It's such a commonly quoted passage that many people probably already have parts of it memorized. I'm referring to Psalm 23. I've pasted it into the bottom of this blog post because I love David's words so much.

OK so why has this very common passage taken hold of me? I think over the past year I've been seeing the simplicity of what God wants for us day-to-day. This passage exemplifies it perfectly. He wants to shower us with His love and walk with us in our tough circumstances, and in that process fill us abundantly with life, joy and His peace. As we walk with Him, trusting Him and looking to Him for protection, provision and care, we need not be afraid because He, the Almighty God, is right there with us. That's it! He wants nothing else, it's that simple.

One of my pastors pointed out that when God tells us not to be afraid He follows it with "I'm with You". I've been seeing that in Scripture a lot lately and I have to say it is very reassuring for someone who tends to be afraid of her own shadow. I'm beyond glad that God is patient with his sheep to build confidence in their Shepherd. As an aside, did you know that sheep scare easily? Yep, humans are simple sheep with fears, phobias, insecurities and deep, deep wounds that hinder us from continuing on our journey through life. Some people may have a hard time relating to being the sheep in this passage, but God calls us as little children to come to Him. Like a child who holds tightly to his father's hand when scared, so we are to run to our Father, to hold on to Him and His plans and follow Him. We need to be humble to see we need a Shepherd.

I also like Jesus' parable in Luke 15:4 - "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?"

I love Him for persistently seeking after me when I have lost my way. I can just picture myself hiding in a thicket away from the rest of the herd because something made a scary noise. What does Jesus say the Good Shepherd does? "When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost."

God doesn't punish us for straying, He celebrates that we are back with Him. Look for His deep love for you in this passage and you will see it. 

Psalm 23

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
³     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Full Circle

This past Sunday, the head pastor from the church I used to attend in Foster City came and preached to my current congregation in Redwood City. The pastor's message was from Luke chapter 8:

One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out.  As they sailed, He fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.

 The disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm.  “Where is your faith?” He asked his disciples.

In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him.”

Only a few people know my story of faith, no one's really asked, so what better way to talk it out than my very own blog. Here goes...

I was raised in a middle class suburban family by two loving parents and grew up in the family of faith. I am not sure I ever took any real steps of faith on my own while I was growing up though. I quickly found out in my adolescence what I most wanted in life - a boy to love me, to affirm me, to rescue me from boredom, to make me happy, to be my everything.

Heartbreak after heartbreak, one disappointment after another, eventually turned me into a calloused, hard-hearted, cynical young woman. I determined that no one would hurt me again, I would be in control, call the shots, I would do all the hurting. Love 'em and leave 'em was my motto. I was a real life man-eater for YEARS. What I really was was numb.

Close to 11 years ago, I moved to the Bay Area from Southern California, leaving behind family, friends, a growing career, all for a new job and the dream of a new life with a new man. I was determined, my mind was set, I knew what I wanted and I was going for it, at any cost. Well the relationship never amounted to well, a relationship and I was left truly heartbroken.

Instead of letting my wounds heal properly, I jumped straight into a relationship with my now ex-husband, in hopes that he would fill my loneliness, make me forget my pain. Instead it was just more pain, more disappointment. Along the way we lost an unborn child at 22 weeks and I ran as fast as I could into the arms of yet another man.  I told myself this time it would be different...

 You see at a very early age, I had made my relationships with men my idol. I worshipped the idea of love, sexual relationships and marriage. I believed that was all there was to happiness and true fulfillment. It took reading the book "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldredge to understand what I had been doing to my broken life. What I discovered is that no person can fulfill our deepest needs for acceptance, love and intimacy, only God can fill my void places. 

What is wonderful is that God has been there all along, patiently waiting for me to run into His arms, for Him to heal my broken heart, for Him to bind my wounds, for Him to fill my loneliness, for Him to be my all. I have now taken that dead, worthless idol down off of the mantel and have invited God to reign supreme in my life. He is teaching me how to truly love my husband of 3 years, how to sit in His presence and how to be comforted and full of His peace and joy. Wow, what a complete transformation!

The reason I've titled this blog post 'Full Circle' is that even though I failed my first real test of faith when "my boat was rocked" with the loss of an unborn child, I am now fully confident of His never ending love for me. He is faithful and true, forgiving, loving, compassionate, He is my solid rock, my strength, my all! 

I pray that the next time my faith is tested I will be able to stand firm in the author and perfecter of my faith, Jesus Christ. I will continue to fix my eyes on Him and know He has me securely in His hand.

Social Illness

I recently watched a very disturbing Dr Phil show http://drphil.com/shows/show/1685.

There is a legal website where consenting young, adult women who call themselves "sugar babies" meet men online, set up dates (and give them sex) and then receive monthly stipends, expensive gifts and/or cash for their dates with these men. I call this prostitution. These men are called "sugar daddies" and they pay a monthly website subscription and also pay these women to have sex with them. I call them Johns. The creator of the website is a 41 year old, MIT graduate who charges these men $50 a month to be able to hook up with his 20+ year old sugar babies. He currently has 90,000+ paying monthly members and feels "this is a great business model", clearly "meeting a demand". This man is making money off of the backs of these women, I call that pimping. The website is called SeekingArrangement.com.


A former prosecutor sat in violent disagreement with these sugar babies, their pimp and called a spade a spade (as did Dr. Phil). She was confident websites like this would be illegal in the future, the law just hasn't caught up with them yet. She noted she has spoken with numerous women who have claimed they only started as "escorts",  just needing some short-term money, then were pulled into the whole prostitution lifestyle of violent pimps, drugs, and hooking on street corners. 

What I find heart breaking is that these women have been convinced by society that it is more important to carry a Gucci handbag, wear designer clothes, drive a nice car, live in a cool condo all paid for by a man paying to have a sexual relationship with them than it is to have self-respect and work for any of those things on one's own, with one's own intelligence. They claim to have high self esteem, but what they don't see is that they don't value themselves enough to work and be satisfied with what they are able to achieve on their own, through their own education. But why not, it's their choice, the current job market is rough out there? They deserve to get what they want out of life, don't they? When society starts to approve of prostitution, it discounts the value of human worth. No one can be bought. People ought not to be for sale. We are all of very high value.


When Dr. Phil asked the website creator if he would want his own daughter to be a sugar baby on his site, he of course said yes, stating "I would want my daughter to be able to afford any education she wants, to get anything she wants."  I say it is a parent's responsibility to provide for their children's needs, to raise them believing in their own abilities, to show them we don't always get what we want, and all of that material stuff doesn't make you valuable or satisfy your soul anyway.

Clearly telling our children you deserve to get anything you want sends a message that the end result justifies the means.

I personally stand against all forms of human trafficking and will do all I can to shape this society to value women beyond our physical bodies,  good looks and ornamental adornment.

Grace and Faith Alone

Every once in a while something catches my attention while I am listening to the radio. I heard a pastor refer to the following two Bible verses when he stopped a few young women on the street to ask them about how people get into heaven:

• Jesus Christ said in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
  



• Ephesians 2: 8-10 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
  

The women’s response to this pastor’s question was pretty typical: if I am a good person, I will go to heaven, if I do good things and live a good life and don’t commit murder, God will accept me.

Is this true? Is this what Scripture says? Not even close! However, this is a prevalent Western belief that is terribly misleading. People think they have something to do with their salvation, like they earned it, or did something right, or they were baptized and that was what did it. In contrast, there are people who live in a constant state of guilt because they feel they haven’t done enough, they’ve committed sins too great for God’s acceptance, they haven’t yet proven they are worthy of God’s goodness. In either case people see themselves inaccurately with respect to their position with the one true God.

From the verses above we read that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. What this is saying is that God initiated everything on our behalf, not because of anything we did or did not do. He sent His son to die for our sins, even while we were still sinning; He made a clear and direct way to be reconciled to Him for all of eternity, not based on one’s successes or failures, innate flaws or character strengths; He even gives us the “gift of faith” to believe in Him. Heartlight’s Search God’s Word website has defined grace as this: “good will, loving-kindness, favor. Out of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.”

Do you see the pattern that has caught my attention? It is nothing that I do that affects God’s love for me. He is the One wooing me, drawing me near to Him, convicting me, and doing ALL the work in me. I can do nothing on my own to please Him anyway, so this is freeing knowing He doesn’t expect me to do anything to earn His love (or salvation). I’ve always taken solace in Romans 5:8: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Or to put it frankly, while I was adulterous, murderous, hateful, angry, haughty, proud, lying, stealing, God still loved me enough to die for me.

He is calling out in the desert of our lives to turn to Him. He desperately wants a relationship with us and has already done everything to make that possible. The part we play in the role of our salvation is simple: humbly turn to Him away from our sinful nature and accept this wonderful gift. It just takes a simple step of faith to Him (AND GOD GAVE THAT TO US TOO!). He then sets our lives on a new path, headed in a new direction!

This is good news!!

Ordinary Radical

I frequently visit fellow Christians' Facebook pages to be encouraged and to see what everyone is up to. This past week I watched an inspiring YouTube video called "Irresistible Revolution". In the video two words came out that have stuck with me - Ordinary Radical. "What is ordinary about being radical?" I thought.

I recently returned from a short-term mission trip to Haiti where a small team of eight people spent one week in a village outside of P-A-P called Caberet. Four of our team members were medical professionals, or in training to be, and worked with sick clients diagnosing illness, administering meds, and spending time in a small class of nurses teaching some basic first aid. The other four team members spent our time working on two construction projects that were underway. We mixed cement with shovels, poured cement into buckets, transported cinder blocks from one location to another and carried the blocks and cement to the masons who then laid the cinder blocks. We weren't asked to do intellectually challenging task, instead we were asked to do whatever the leaders needed, which ended up being very physically taxing. When you add in the heat and humidity, fatigue and dehydration, the tasks were harder than they seemed. Part of the time we just hung out with the children who came up to see the Americans on the job site.

We had to rely on God's strength every day to help us, I know I called out to Him numerous times to help me stay on task, to help me carry one more cinder block down the rocky path, to deliver one more bucket of cement with His strength, to have patience on a long bumpy ride home in the back of an old truck. God greatly answered our prayers! He was our strength in Haiti and I learned to lean on Him with everything. He cares, He truly does!

Eight ordinary people decided to dedicate a week of their lives volunteering with total strangers in a foreign country. What came out of it was nothing ordinary. Almost our entire team has said that they want to return next year. It is likely that we will be asked to do more physical labor, so why would we go back, knowing what it is we have to endure?

It's a radical idea that Jesus talked about in John 13:34-35. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

The reason many of us will return is because of this new, strange and radical command to love others as Jesus has loved us. We opened up our hearts to Haiti and quickly grew to love the Haitian people, their children, and their God-fearing leaders. Our hearts ached as we watched them struggle with poverty, thirst and hunger on a daily basis; we watched their pain as they deal with a corrupt government and continue to deal with the rubble from an earthquake that has left their country in ruin.

Nothing can be as radical as loving total strangers. I thank God that He has filled me up with His love so that I can be obedient to His call on my life - to be radical in ordinary ways!!

We are not on a cruise ship, rather a war ship

I've recently become a member of PCC, Peninsula Covenant Church, in Redwood City, CA and I am enjoying a sermon series on our core values, to describe who we are as a church body. It's been helpful for me to see what the body of Christ in Redwood City values the most. I am totally in! I completely agree with everything Gary Gadinni (sp?) and the other pastors are preaching. Why? I think it is because they are preaching out of God's Word and are lead by the Holy Spirit.
Anyway, I had to miss the last of the 7 part series on our values so I listened to the podcast on "following the Holy Spirit". I am so glad I checked it out!

One thing our pastor said that resonated with my spirit was that this life is not a cruise ship but rather a warship- or a battlefield. This life is hard! There is death, financial troubles, sickness, depression, hatred, racism, pains, addictions, pornography, broken families, sex slaves, sexual abuse, and on and on. How are we to deal with all the world's woes? The reason the battle metaphor really resonates with me is because I had spent years hiding in my own little foxhole (comfort zone), only to come out to run straight to the nearest cruise ship (pleasure). Over and over again, I would fearfully run in and out of my comfortable little foxhole, while friends and family around me would battle through their tough situations, strengthening their faith in God. I would watch them grow stronger while I felt weak and incapable of truly dealing with life's problems, never overcoming any of my problems.

Jesus Christ said in John 16:33 " I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

So do we fight? Are we to be warriors? Does God have a mission for us? Jesus said it was better for Him to go to heaven so that the helper (Holy Spirit) would come to help us fight the good fight. According to the Word of God in the book of Ephesians verses 10-17: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. "

I believe if we are honest we will see that alone we are powerless, without the Holy Spirit working in our lives we cannot mobilize to complete God's mission for us.

If I didn't have the Holy Spirit as my Counselor I am confident that I would have remained in my foxhole or running to the cruise ship instead of out into the Lord's battle!

Will you join me?