Is Jesus Enough?

I recently watched a short video that had a profound impact on me. 

So profound of an impact that I'm sharing it with you. 

Because these are questions we need to ask.

Questions I need to ask. Questions you need to ask.

Our world is not the same place it was ten years ago, or even five. 

Events are happening world-wide that should cause us to wake up and pay attention.

It's not time to sleep, my friends. It's not even time to live life as usual.

It's time to seriously reevaluate life and ask yourself some important, life-altering questions.

Is there something in my life that I can't imagine giving up?

It could even be something good. But if it's coming between you and God, something has to change. 

It could be friends, family, a relationship or social media.

Now let me just speak to social media for a quick minute here. This tends to be an area of struggle for me. I'm just being real. It's so easy to become sucked into a vicarious life online. It's easy to waste minutes, and even hours, scrolling up and down your feed, even if it's good things you're looking at.

The question here is this — is this coming between me and God? Do I reach for my phone first in the morning, or do I reach out in prayer to heaven? Be honest…

Where do you spend the best hours of your day?

We all live full lives, right? But our best hours… do we spend them on Facebook or do we spend them before the throne of God? Where are our priorities? When we need a quick breather between studies, do we go to social media, games, music, or do we go to God?

Who or what gets our best time, our best energy?

If everything was stripped away, would Jesus be enough for you?

Would He be enough? Would He? 

Watch the video and be inspired by a man who spent an entire year in dark, solitary confinement with one scanty meal a day and yet would do it again in a heartbeat because it was "like a honeymoon with Jesus." 

This is true fulfillment. This is the essence of the Christian walk. 

And these are questions to the heart. Personal things to work out between you and God.

I have my fair share of obstacles to surmount in my own life. But this one thing I know… 

I want to give up whatever is holding me back so I can have a continual honeymoon with Jesus.

Just Trust Me…

Three weeks ago my ideas were different. My plans unaltered.
I was organized. Everything was under control. It was all laid out perfectly (or so I thought).

But then things started happening.
And all of a sudden, within one week, I found a bunch of my plans flipped on their heads.

Dead end.

And I felt myself straining a bit at the reins. Because my personality likes to be on top of things, be organized, have things under control.

I hear a still, small Voice.
Just trust Me…

But, of course! Of course all things are really in the hands of His Majesty.
Yet sometimes, despite all the evidence from the past, I forget.
It's unfortunate. And it's unnecessary.

And so for a short while after each thing arose, I questioned. I wrestled. I surrendered.
But within me echoed and reechoed those simple words.
Just trust Me…

And so I trusted Him to see where I couldn't. Because obviously I didn't understand.
And He did. He always does…
I'm the slow one. The blind one.

And now looking back only a couple weeks later, most everything has already been resolved.

This week my A&P teacher overrode the system to get me into her class for fall semester.
The microbiology teacher said I can probably get into her class and lab too.

And all that after I wasn't able to register for the classes I wanted.

The Phoenix convention center was able to accommodate my date change. 

My other GYC-related meeting was rescheduled despite conflicts at both ends.

The family of one of my volunteers is going to be in the area exactly during our site visit.
And all that after my GYC site check and meeting plans had been unexpectedly interrupted.

And God's voice echoes again.
Just trust Me.

A Different Dream

Sometimes I wonder how it can be so hard to let a dream die.

Just when you think you've come to the point of full surrender, of letting go, you wake up and realize that deep within the dream is still there. Suppressed maybe, but very much still there despite all heart-searing efforts to remove it.

It's an interesting feeling when your heart plays tug-of-war. One half sings. The other half cries. Yet in the end it knows what is best. It knows what will hurt least in the long run.

And that is to surrender. To let the dream die.
Because the dream was never mine to cherish in the first place…

In fact, no dream is mine to cherish.
No dream but One.

And so I pray a simple prayer.

Lord, make my life Your dream. And make my dream, You.

Photo Credit: Michel Lee

Ideal World

We are walking down our driveway treading gingerly over icy patches. And as the brisk air turns cheeks to rosy red, we dialogue. It's just the two of us, mother and daughter, surrounded by pine trees enclosed by gray sky.

My mind is full. Thoughts dart back and forth like a confused colony of bumblebees. I feel as though my life is falling apart, yet I remind myself that it is not. It just feels like it.

And as I expound on my feelings to my patiently listening mother, she starts to smile. I've always been a perfectionist, and this is no exception. But somehow I've lost perspective.

Her words gently bring me back to reality as she articulates those very things I need to hear.

I want to live an ideal life in an unideal world. And I realize that what I think is "ideal" really isn't realistic. Yet there is perfection in every step of the journey, and I must learn to love each chapter of life He brings.

So I am seeking to simply do my best and not rake myself over the coals wishing I could have "done better" when in reality I have already done my best. Because this is just another one of the devil's traps, convincing me that I am compromising when God says perfection is in the journey. It's easy to forget experientially, but I'm learning.

God looks at the heart, not the checklist.

And when He is in my life, my world is ideal.

He Always Endures More

I climb part of the hill behind our house to my special place of communion. Rugged boulders wait serenely as though they were the thrones of majesties themselves. A cloudless blue sky envelops the world with brilliant rays of sunlight. In the distance I hear cheerful bird melodies while I watch a silvery-blue butterfly rest gently upon my bare toes. It's time to be still…

There are few things I cherish more than peace. 

My mind has travelled thousands of pathways in the last few weeks. Big decisions to make. Places to minister. People to love. 

Yet atop my mountain top perch with a birds-eye view, my mind wanders. 

--

A heavy groan pierces the silence of midnight. The stark moonlight shining through the olive branches seems to cut the blackness like a sharp knife. Huddled beneath their cloaks a few hundred feet away can be seen a few drowsy figures. The entire atmosphere seems triggered, waiting with cold tenseness.

Stillness is broken by a movement in the shadows. A pallid form raises from the hard ground shaking in sobs of anguish. Following the silent path of gravity, blood stains red the place of conflict. With faint but determined voice come the words, "Not My will, but Thy will be done. I choose to surrender. I will give all."

Suddenly His haggard form crumbles to meet the earth. This struggle has drained from Him every ounce of strength. He has made the choice.

--

I review this scene while gazing silently across the pined landscape and my mind returns to the cause of this remembering.

Upon the cross and in the garden over two thousand years ago He shouldered the sins for an entire world of ungrateful creatures.

He took them all. He bore it all. He chose it all.

And yet when everything is said and done, Satan will only suffer for the sins of the righteous.

Christ always endures more. 

His love encompasses, His heart throbs as one in our sorrow, in our agony, in our joy.

He has been through it all, and He understands.

Trust Him.

Hungering for Sacrifice

Sometimes I want to post. Sometimes I could care less. But if anyone has been wondering why so much silence, it's because there is too much happening. My journal is basically full, and it has only been two months. I had to go hunting in town for a new one (not quite my fancy, but at least it doesn´t have disney characters on the front). :)

I'm across the mountain now. Dividing time between La Zona and Santa Barbara. Time at the restaurant. Time at the school. Time at the hospital. My days are full...

Yet deep inside, I feel myself growing in new ways, discovering parts of myself I never knew before. And I'm glad for that…

Learning to take sacrifice to a new level.
Learning more perfectly the inexpressible joy of service.
Learning to create stillness and calm regardless of circumstances.

But the more I learn, the more I hunger. For one thing...

To see the sacrifice of my Savior played out in my life.

Because my life is not my own. All to Him I owe.

I love these mountains…

Gavi and Waleska, my friends and roommates :)

René teaching school

Picking delicious organic lettuce

Seedlings

The restaurant, La Canasta de Vida

Mouthwatering…

A batch of cookies I made…

This specialty, called Torta Fria, is absolutely delicious! I had the privileged of making and decorating it this time…

A friend in the cesarean ward

Cleaning off a cute little newborn

One of the nurses, Damaris, who has become a good friend. :)

False Dreams

{Jeremiah 23}

The priests and prophets of Jeremiah’s day were blatantly defiant. 

Their complete disregard for the word of the Lord was blasphemous, their counterfeit prophesy a direct slander to His name.

“I have dreamed,” they would said, but their words were full of deceit. They claimed to have received revelations from the Source of wisdom, yet in reality their dreams were fabricated by the originator of lies.

I stop to ponder… Do I have false dreams? 

Dreams that I am contriving on my own? 

Dreams that are not surrendered to the Dream Fulfiller?

Dreams that are actually thought traps?

I pray not and once again quietly surrender all into His hands. 

Personal interpretation of God’s will is absolutely dangerous. 

For how can a finite mind think to understand the mind of the Infinite? 

I want His dreams to be my dreams…

Stay or Surrender

{Jeremiah 21}

Death or life. Polar opposites. Obvious choice, right…?

You would think so.

“I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.”*

Surrender and you will live. Stay and you will die.

Why then do so many die?

Because they choose to remain within the familiar and comfortable. 

The city, though it be their undug grave, is all they’ve ever known… 

It holds a certain amount of security. 

To surrender to an unknown army, and unknown future is downright frightening. 

It is directly disregarding everything that has been ingrained in them since birth.

And so they stay…

Yet only in surrender is there life.

Then why do we shy away from surrender, from risking all we’ve ever known, from leaving the familiar and embracing uncertainty with the eye of faith?

Why are we content to remain within the comfort of our walls, forgetting that to stay means death?

Why do we cling to the chains which hold us fast when the gift of freedom is dangling above our heads?

Because in the familiar is a sense of security.

But that’s just the devil’s lie to keep you in bondage until you rest in the grave.

Risk yourself by pushing open the city walls and surrendering.

For only in surrender is there life…

*{Jeremiah 21:8}