every day is an adventure... or is it?

Well I traveled to Athens yesterday to visit with some friends and have had a wonderful time. This morning I got to fellowship with Melissa, who is such an encouragement!! It was so great, because in sharing what God was teaching us individually, He touched the other person, both ways. So neat!

I was talking with her about how in teaching, every day is an adventure. I never know what to expect... even though I plan, I can't know for sure how the lessons are going to go, what kind of mood the kids will be in, how that will affect MY mood, what kind of paperwork I might have forgotten to do (yikes!), etc. It gets tough! As I was formulating the words to share with Melissa about how every day is an adventure, God spoke to me. Literally, right there, riding in her car, while I had words hanging out of my mouth, God whispered in my ear (well, my heart's ear). I stopped talking and, since I had no paper, pulled out my cell phone and saved a draft text with the words of the message I had just gotten. I had to ask Melissa to wait a minute so I could get it all down! Here is what it said:

"You don't have to wonder what each day will be like... Start out by orienting your mind on me, and plan to spend the entire day there, with that attitude. Let nothing and no one steal your joy!!!"

I read this out loud, and we were both awestruck. Every day doesn't have to be an adventure! Now, let's make clear that, with Christ, each day is a journey, a new experience in following Christ, and has its own challenges and excitements. That doesn't change. But, every day does not have to be a plethora of uncertainties, frought with hardship and struggle because you don't know what's coming next or where your emotions are going or how other people are going to affect you. If your aim is not to please people or follow your emotions, but to seek to please Christ and follow Him, you won't face all those treacherous parts of an uncertain adventure!!

Isn't that reassuring? That's what God wanted me to know today, and maybe He wants you to know it, too. You don't have to spend the day wondering. You don't have to accept that every day is a rollercoaster. I want to learn how to set my mind on Christ in the morning, to trust Him all day, to rest in His joy, letting NOTHING steal it. I want to learn how to take every thought, every MOMENT, captive for Christ! Like Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5,

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

That's so cool. When a day can be like that, who would want an uncertain adventure?!

Lord Jesus, teach me to trust you. Teach me to lean on your everlasting arms every second of every day; to press hard to know you, that you would respond and grant me joy, peace, and grace, for every moment I face, no matter what the challenges may be. I pray you would help me see that you are there every second. Help me learn how to take every thought captive for Christ, fighting with your weapons, not mine! Lord Jesus, I love you, and I praise you and thank you for revealing yourself to me through this simple Truth. Help me put it into practice, by your precious Holy Spirit and by the power of the shed blood of Jesus on the cross. In His name I ask these things... Let it be.

I pray it for you, too :)

Earth in the Window: a study of Focus

So this post is a bit random, but I think it's gonna make at least a little bit of sense. I have discovered as I've grown older that I have a hard time staying focused. And not just in any particular situation... Need some examples? Okay sure, I'm glad you asked.

Well, first of all, there's the social ADD I have (thanks for the term, Liza!) When I get around a lot of people I can get off topic SOO easily, and I'm one of the most easily distracted people I know (if you've spent any time with me, you're nodding your head right now). I even do it when I'm teaching. I'll forget where I was in conversation, forget the end of a story or joke! It's crazy! It's like I'm focused one minute and all of a sudden, I'm not.

Need another example? Okay. How about starting things, like crafts, projects, books, movies, etc... but never finishing them? I'm focused on them for some amount of time but then I get distracted or busy with something else, and my focus shifts! I have piles, mounds, boxes full of unfinished projects and books from my distracted past...

Then there's spiritually! I'm sure we can all relate to this at one time or another, but I'll have a day, a week, a month, where I'm really focused on the Lord every day, spending time with Him, growing in my relationship, and then I lose the focus and get distracted by the busyness of life, by other things, other people... I feel bad, because Jesus is the greatest thing in the universe! How on EARTH could I think about ANYTHING else above Him?? Because I'm still trapped in a human body and I think with a sinful, human brain. It's going to happen, but should it happen so much? Isn't there more than just being focused for a while, and then not focused for the next while?

I think of a few verses, like Colossians 3:1-3, "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." Set your hearts, set your minds. A.k.a., FOCUS.

Here's another one, a very powerful scripture for me, Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." FOCUS.

I often think about losing my spiritual just like when I get distracted in a group of people - something catches my eye and I turn away, mentally, emotionally, even physically, and I am no longer looking at or focusing on, the person I was talking to, or the thing I was doing, or GOD. But in college, I heard (or read, I can't remember, but Bethany I'm associating you with it!)

Remember the movie, Apollo 13? These guys went on a mission to the moon but they never made it due to a malfunction with their ship ("Houston, we have a problem.") At one point they are trying to navigate themselves and because their power is so low, they can't turn any systems on to help navigate. So someone figures out (Houston or the crew) that if they can just keep Earth in the little triangular window of the ship, they will be on track. So they fight to keep the Earth in the window. Due to natural forces like gravity, turbulance, etc, they have a hard time keeping the Earth in the window - it slips, it moves, they struggle, but eventually, Earth gets back in that window.

It's such a beautiful analogy of our relationship with Christ. Most of the time, we aren't jumping out of the spaceship, we aren't turning around to head back to our doom, we haven't fallen asleep in the hull of the ship and ignored any need to do anything, no... we just have to work at keeping the Earth in the window. Or in this case, keeping the Cross at the forefront of everything we think, see, and do. When it slips, it is not because we stink at being Christians.. it's because natural forces are pulling on us!

Distraction happens. Don't beat yourself up. Just get Earth back in the window and "set your mind on things above."

life is a highway

So I think I need to make more road trips. Long ones, not just an hour or less, but like 2, 3, 4 hours. Why? Because my drives to and from Augusta in the last couple days really were more like Journeys with God. Lots of emotions, lots of pretty scenery, lots of music, lots of prayer. Fantastic.

I guess I don't spend enough alone time where my mind is focused. I spend a lot of it vegging and doing nothing, but no, that doesn't do it. Something about driving, when my mind is actually paying attention and I have lots of free time to just talk to God and listen, it's really great. PLUS, I got to spend hours just listening to the music on my iPod. I had forgotten how much of a healing effect music has on me...

God used each trip to reveal something new to me (or remind me of something old so it became new again). So wonderful... well there's that.

In other news, the wedding was SOO BEAUTIFUL!! There was hardly a dry eye in the house, it was a very sweet and beautiful wedding. Ben and Brittany love each other SOO much and it's so very clear. Their families mesh very well and were very welcoming to me and everyone else. I had fun meeting some new people, eating some yummy food, and spending some time in a new town! (Yay Evans/Augusta/Martinez!) Oh, and buying a new dress and wearing it and looking really perty :) that was fun too!

I'm so glad I got to be a part of the special day. During the reception, I started reflecting a bit, since I had no one to dance with and was rather bored... Two more of my friends are now married. I'm sure tons more are going to get married or engaged soon, and it's just a little lonesome every now and then. In an emotional girl moment, it finally hit me, as everyone was pairing up on the dance floor, that I had no one there with me and I felt really lonely. That wasn't very fun. So that was one of the things me and God talked about in the car ride home, and that got better. Yay!

I've been trying to write this post for like an hour and I'm getting nowhere new, I'm gonna sign off now.

First days... for the second time

So we started back again. It's going pretty well, I'm having fun and enjoying being back. My classes keep going by faster or slower than I planned! I have so much laid out for us to do and then we don't finish, or we finish WAY too early and I have nothing else!

Guess in time I'll learn how to always have enough on hand to do, eh?

If We Are the Body...

So I had a revelation today, after a heartbreaking experience and a long talk with my two best friends. It kind of a re-revelation, but that's not the point. Here is the point:

Go to almost any church and visit a college or young adults class/service/gathering/whatever, and you are likely to see a trend... No one will talk to you.
If you are lucky enough to come with someone, they will often walk you around and introduce you, but sometimes not... If you go to a group and know someone there, that is helpful but sometimes not reliable, because they may or not even talk to you, much less introduce you to other people.
If you come alone... GOOD LUCK.

We get soo caught up in our own little worlds and our own little groups of friends that we fail to notice new people in the room. In the building. In the world...
You see, I have heard (and believe it to be infallibly true) that college [and I add pre-career young adulthood] is THE most self-centered time in your life. (I'm not saying everyone this age is self-centered, let me finish.)

When you're in college, you are focusing on stepping out on your OWN, become your OWN person, meeting your OWN needs, deciding on YOUR major, making YOUR new friends, paying for your OWN stuff (sometimes, lol). Deciding on YOUR career, YOUR mate, YOUR future.....
discovering YOUR personality, YOUR needs, YOUR wants, YOUR likes, YOUR dislikes, and wanting to find/finding and marrying someone who makes YOU happy... As I mentioned before, everyone in college and young adulthood is NOT selfish. That's not what I'm saying. Neither is seeking God's will for your life in your career and marriage and everything else a bad thing, it is a very good thing actually. But it IS a self-centered time in our lives. Think about all the things I just listed... am I wrong?

Here is the question, though. If we are becoming, in college and early adulthood, the people we will be for the rest of our lives (as our elders tell us is true, and we should believe them because well, they already did it, why would they all lie), why do we want to develop habits focused on ourselves? Isn't that just going to turn us into self-centered adults, older adults, senior adults, and finally, selfish dead people who show up in heaven (or elsewhere) surprised when it's not all about us?? Should we not, rather, be working on living outward? I'm not saying go help other people find their callings and don't look for your own. Or help all your friends get married but don't find love yourself. No. That's dumb. What am I saying, then?

I believe, with God's help, it is possible for us to live lives that LOVE other people more than we love ourselves (hey, that sounds familiar... oh wait, Jesus said to do that...) As we are going through classes and jobs and dates/mates and church groups and what not, it has to be possible to still find God's will for our individual lives, but live for his global purpose. It HAS to be possible! In any one given moment, is taking five minutes out of my day to be nice to someone REALLY going to ruin my future? Probably not. If I'm the only Jesus that person ever SEES, could it ruin THEIR future? Quite possibly. Which is scarier?

Here's the other thing: if we can't even be nice to other Christian people at church, how in the WORLD do we plan to be nice to someone who believes something different than us? We probably won't... And besides - how do we know that person walking into our sunday school class, singles group, worship service, bible study, fellowship, meeting, whatever ... is truly a believer anyway? Our acts of selfishness and failure to make that person feel LOVED and WELCOME could very well turn that person away from church and from God for weeks, months, years, a lifetime... Oh God, I pray I have not been responsible for any alienation such as this!!

I confess that I have been the self-absorbed person, yes indeed. It STILL happens to me, I admit it! But I pray that God would help CHANGE that in me, and give me an OUTWARD lifestyle, rather than an INWARD one. That's how Jesus lived. And I wanna be like Him.

Back to it..

Well we had planning today. I got a great deal of stuff done, but not everything I needed to do. My DREAM planning day would have gone like this:

1) Clean ALL the papers off my desk
2) Go through and organize papers from last semester
3) Move furniture
4) Plan first week for all three preps (including creating notes and homework assignments for all three preps)
5) Getting all my copies made - ALLL of them
6) Setting out schedules for first period (in seating chart order)
7) Make seating charts for all six classes
8) Hang up first period sheet for guided study (too bad I can't find it...)

Now, how much of that actually got done? Part of #3, part of #4, part of #5. That's it. BOO!

Oh well, it was still a productive day. And believe it or not, once I was there and around my co-workers I enjoyed being back at work. I work with a great crew of folks :) I don't know if any of us feel ready for Monday, or not, but I DEFINITELY don't!! Hope it goes okay...