Is Walking for God Distracting us from Walking with Him?

In this season of life, I am grateful to say that I am surrounded by quality friends. Laura is one of them. She is an answer to prayer and I am blessed beyond measure to call her friend. This Sunday we sat huddled together under comforters in her living room discussing God. Sometimes the thought of “discussing God” just makes me laugh because I know by the end of the conversation He, God, will still be a glorious mystery in so many ways.

During this discussion I told Laura I have been praying that the Holy Spirit will guide my thoughts and discussions when it comes to uncovering God and faith. (This was largely inspired by Laura herself!) It is so easy to interpret the Word of God in ways that make us “comfortable” or “conviction free,” but it is my belief that when we read God’s Word, most of the time it should rock our world. We ought to be challenged by the Truth we read and apply it to our daily lives. We must let it sharpen our faith and we must have the guts to practice what we read and hear. “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” James 1:22-24

Since I’ve prayed this prayer, I have been challenged with an incredible thought. “I have done my best to walk for the Lord, but have I been walking with the Lord?” I am starting to believe this is a subtle confusion The Enemy uses to trip us up, especially me. The temptation to serve Jesus before, or in substitute of, loving Him is very real indeed. It is a temptation that creeps up so slowly that it can easily grow deep roots around the hearts and minds of Christians. Another way I’ve heard it is “the greatest competitor to loving Jesus is serving Him.” The danger with this confusion is that we start to believe that we can or must earn our salvation through acts of service alone. Maybe I’m being presumptuous by assuming everyone is like me, but I bet some of you reading identify with this more than you would care to admit.

My goal from this blog is to help us begin to check our hearts. To learn that serving Jesus doesn’t necessarily mean loving Him well is a hard pill for me to swallow, but God is clear in His Word when He says He is more concerned about matters of the heart than anything else. “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 Jesus looks at the motivations of our hearts.

Are we serving as a response to our love for Jesus, or are we serving to earn our love from Him? Are we serving to prove something to ourselves? I’m not asking these questions to accuse. I’m simply writing out the questions I’ve been asking to myself these past few days. I have done my best to walk for the Lord, but have I been walking with the Lord?

Laura and I mulled over these questions there on the floor of her apartment and we agreed that it is best to serve out of our fullness in Jesus and out of our love for Him. We do not want to fall into the temptation that serving will relieve us of our guilt from past decisions, or give us an extra dose of grace. Works alone get us nowhere fast. We do not earn grace and we cannot earn grace. How can you earn something that is freely given? That, my friends, is a lesson that I need to learn in a deeper way.

I want to clarify that I think serving others is an incredible gift God has given us. He loves us enough to give us the gift of joy and satisfaction from helping others. We must not believe the subtle lie that serving will make God loves us more or that it will guarentee us a "spot in heaven." Serving must come from an understanding that we are loved beyond measure simply because we are God’s children. I challenge each of us to slow down, focus in on our personal relationship with Christ, and then serve as a response to Love. Walking with God is the only way to walk for Him.

God Reveals Himself to You Personally

I was emailing a friend and he told me he is reading a book that has to do with God revealing Himself to mankind and how we see the results of His incredible work in our lives. I began to ponder ways that God has revealed Himself to me personally and I remembered this story from my sophomore year of college.

I was at Warner Camp in Michigan and it was my first full summer away from home. I took a job at Warner as a counselor and I didn't know anyone on staff. I guess you could say it was a defining moment for me, because I get nervous to meet new people in unfamiliar places. So...there I was at this camp, far from home, and the director made the staff shovel goose poop off of the lake front to get ready for the first week of campers. You can imagine just how grossed out I was! Well, there were not enough regular shovels so I got stuck with a pale and shovel that a child would use to collect sand or shells at the beach. Seriously...

As I shoveled poop with a child's toy feeling pretty homesick, I asked God in my heart why He had led me to this place. "God, I don't know anyone yet, I'm home sick, and I'm shoveling goose poop. Please be with me. Please just let me know somehow that I made the right decision by coming here. Please just show me you love me."

Well, as soon as my heart finished the prayer, a big yellow butterfly landed right next to me. She just sat there and slowly opened up her wings as if to show off her beauty. Then she carefully walked onto my shovel. I sat there for a long time admiring the way her wings shimmered in the sun. Then it was as if my heart and mind realized all at once that God loved me and was with me. He sent the butterfly to remind me of that. She flew away and with her, so did my worries.

That summer was one of the best summers of my life so far. It was the summer that I felt God calling me to a life of service, and it was the summer I decided to change my major to Social Work. Now every time I see a yellow butterfly I remember God's promise to love me and be with me wherever I go.

I don't know if I have my eye out for them now or if God knows how much I need reassuring, but it seems that every time I am about to make a big decision or am worried about something, I will see a yellow butterfly. Even when I worked in the heart of a big city where there were no butterflies, I would see them whenever I felt anxious. For example, one day I was feeling so overwhelmed by the struggle I saw in the city. It was breaking my heart and I was feeling so small. I needed reassurance that God was with me. I prayed that I would see a yellow butterfly and when I looked up and out the van window, there, painted on the side of a building was a HUGE mural of a yellow butterfly. Not kidding. You probably guessed the next series of events...I gasped, pointed, screamed, cried, and treasured it up. The passengers in the van didn't know what I was so excited about and looked at me a little funny, but it wasn't for them. It was for me. And that is why I'm so in love with this God who reveals Himself to mankind. I firmly believe that He reveals Himself personally to us. How incredible that the Creator God of the Universe and all that is in it, wants to reveal Himself to me in a way that is special to my heart. It is the same for you. How is He revealing Himself to you? Let us remember to pray that our eyes, ears, and hearts will be open to His Voice.

Lessons Learned and Dreams Inspired by a Great Book

I am reading this book Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, and I have been challenged by it in many ways. I didn’t think it was going to be a book I liked. The title alone seems a bit boring, and nothing about the cover convinced me otherwise. Even so, I sat and listened as my sister, Erin, read the first chapter aloud one morning to my mom and me during breakfast. What caught my attention was that the main character’s name was Much Afraid. That was actually her name. Much Afraid lived in the Valley of Humiliation where she enjoyed working in the service of the Great Shepherd. However, her name described her well and she found herself bound by the misery of her Fearing relatives. Aunt Dismal Forebodings, Gloomy, Spiteful, Pride, Self Pity, Bitterness, Resentment, and her greatest enemy, Craven Fear to name a few. Poor Much Afraid didn’t have much of a chance with a bunch of family members like that! Needless to say, after the third page I was hooked on this book.

Summary: Much Afraid has had it with the unbearable torture her relatives bring her each day, but almost dies of utter dread when she discovers she is to marry Craven Fear himself! She begs the Shepherd to keep her from her horrible fate and promises she will do anything He asks in order to escape. With much delight, He plants the thorn shaped seed of love in her heart. This is where her journey begins.

The book describes the journey of how Much Afraid receives a new name from the Shepherd and a promise to climb out of the Valley of Humiliation and develop the feet of a hind, or a deer, so she can easily jump and leap up the mountains. However, she cannot develop hind’s feet before she goes on a long journey with her two companions, Sorrow and Suffering. You see, the journey will be difficult for Much Afraid because she is, in fact, crippled by her fear. She has twisted feet which make it hard to walk let alone climb a mountain, and ugly facial deformities which make her feel unworthy to even think about traveling to the High Places. But despite her fear, she believes in the great Shepherd. She believes He is trustworthy and powerful and full of grace. She believes that He can make her feet like hinds feet to enable her to leap and skip up and down the mountains with ease and grace.

Much Afraid clings to Sorrow and Suffering, the companions the Shepherd himself picked out for her, and begins to rely on their strength to get her safely through the Shores of Loneliness, the Desert, the ascent up the Precipice Injury, the Forests of Danger and Tribulation, the Mist, and the Valley of Loss. You will have to read the book yourself to see what happens in the journey of Much Afraid and to learn what name the Shepherd gives her.

As I read this book, I couldn’t help but wish our lives, my life, was a literal journey. I know we are all on a literal journey, and that journey is called life, (yeah yeah, blah blah…I know) but wouldn’t it be awesome if we were born for the purpose of climbing out of an actual valley in order to receive the promises of a Shepherd we could see, touch, and have face to face conversation? In this story, Much Afraid simply has to call on the Shepherd and He will be standing next to her in an instant ready to confront her enemies and physically wipe off her tears. She can actually look into His eyes and see the compassion and power flowing from His gaze. Oh man how I long for this to be a reality!

Don’t get me wrong and think Much Afraid had it easy. She can visibly see the Shepherd, but this means she can also see Pride, Self Pity, Bitterness, Fear, an all her other relatives standing directly before her. They physically and verbally attack her and try dragging her away from the promises planted deep in her heart by the Voice of Truth, the Shepherd.

I know this story is a beautiful interpretation of the real deal. We might not be able to feel God wiping away our tears, but there have been moments where His compassion has stilled my sobs and I know that He is with me. He is my very present help in trouble. Still, this book makes me dream of the face of Jesus that much more. How glorious it will be when I finally can see His face and look into His fierce and lovely eyes.

I imagine the day I will hear Him call me by my New Name. This is perhaps, the most exciting part of all to me! The book says that Much Afraid learns after the long journey that the Shepherd never regarded her as such, but had always loved her as if she already was New. That, my friends, is love in its purest form.

“I will write upon her a new name, the name of her God. The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11

“I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name . . . since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth. . . I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Revelation 3:8, 10, & 12-13

A Full Closet and a Full Heart

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:25-26

Yes. We are valuable to God. When I read Jesus’ words above, a thought sunk deep in my mind. Are we not to worry about where our next meal will come from or what we will wear because our Heavenly Father gives us the responsibility to take care of one another’s needs? Think about this with me. God loves us. Jesus says that we are more valuable than even His other creations. I believe that because He loves us, He has given us the unique opportunity to know true love and joy by taking care of one another in His Name. It goes even further. He guides us down a path that rids us of our selfish desires, even though that is painful, and clothes us with strength and dignity. (Proverbs 31:25) God longs to shed us of wailing and self-hatred, and clothe us with joy! (Psalm 30:11) Yes. We are valuable, and I believe when we really know that then we cannot help but serve others. Jesus transforms us into a new creation and the joy of helping others bursts forth from our hearts like a geyser.
I was talking with a young girl from my neighborhood a few months ago and we began talking about clothing. She complimented me on my shirt and I told her I purchased it at a Thrift Store. Her face scrunched up and she said with contempt, “I don’t like shopping at Thrift Stores. It reminds me that I am poor. Are you poor?” This conversation bothered me. How heartbreaking that this young teen has felt the sting of poverty and experiences what seemed like shame when shopping for necessities like clothing. How strange that she was living in need while I was living in abundance and we live in the same neighborhood. “Do not worry about what you will wear…is not life more than clothes?” Life is more than clothes, but try telling that to a female teenager who lives in poverty and has already begun to build up thick walls to protect herself from life. This isn’t really about clothes at all, but about people being more valuable than appearances.

The Question: How do we bust down those walls?

That was the question that haunted my thoughts for months. Finally, an opportunity and an idea collided together. Let me explain. I have recently been blessed with a beautiful condo I rent. (Another amazing story in itself) In this condo I have an extra room with a huge spare closet. An empty closet.

The Idea: What would it be like if the closet was FULL of clothes, purses, shoes, hats, etc? The girls in my neighborhood could come to a safe place to “shop.” They could pick out quality clothing with friends and older females they trusted, and they wouldn’t feel shame. They wouldn’t feel like a charity case. They would feel FUN! They would feel loved.

The Opportunity: I have the best friends in the world. Yes, in the world. Please be our friend too. =0) My friend Kristin, who works with the girls everyday through an after school program, turned to me one Sunday and said, “Lindsey, I think our small group needs to have another girls night with the girls in the neighborhood.”

Ah! YES, my thoughts exactly! Small group usually meets on Thursday, so without a plan I told Kristin that we should do something our small group night that week, and we should have it at my house. She happily agreed and I went home giddy. My mind began to whirl thinking of how I could make this thing actually happen in 4 short days. I immediately went to my closet and picked out clothes that I thought the girls would like. I hung them up in my spare empty closet and stepped back. The sight was embarrassing. There were 5 shirts hanging their staring back at me lonely and depressed. Questions started flooding my mind. How will we have enough clothes for 8 girls? These girls are ages from 5-16 and are all shapes and sizes, so how are we going to make sure they all have clothing options?

The next day I went to work and explained the vision to my coworkers. They loved the idea and being the amazing people they are, began threatening their daughters and nieces to give up some of their clothing. =0) One of my coworkers, Shayne, even called her mother who works at a local hospital where I live. Within 24 hours I had an email from the Missions Director at the hospital asking me where she could drop off her 8 boxes of clothing donations. Excuse me? Did she say 8 boxes? She dropped them off to me at work and apologized that she could only fit the 8 boxes in her car and she will bring the other 6 boxes tomorrow. Ha ha! But that isn’t all! My coworkers brought in bags of jewelry, clothing, shoes, and lotions. Local families caught wind and brought purses and bathing suits, hats, and even jewelry boxes. My friends Jess and Audrey came over to help me sort through all of the goods. We had clothing from kids sizes to XXL. My closet was so full that we couldn’t fit all of the donations in it. My closet was SO FULL that I still, a week later, have 4 boxes of clothes in my car!

The room looked just like a store. We had a jewelry corner, scarves were hanging near the sun glasses on my window frame, purses lined the walls, clothing was busting out of the closet, and each girl even got a gift basket filled with shower gel, lotions, etc. I gazed upon the room amazed that the vision I had months before was sitting in front of me. Praise God! My closet was full. My heart was full.

My friends and I were gathered at my house and Kristin arrived with the 8 girls. They all barreled in bringing laughter with them. We had a blast. After the girls ate snacks and played games, we explained to them that they were no longer in my house, but in a mall and they were about to go on a shopping spree. Long story short, screams filled the air and each girl left with at least 5 new outfits everything from headbands to new shoes and everything in between. We even had a dressing room so the girls could try on the clothing and model it for everyone.
One girl said this was the “funnest night I ever had!” Another girl said, “I look beautiful!” This was wonderful to hear because she has a very low self esteem. She was beaming and she was beautiful!! We had the opportunity to tell her she has always been beautiful and speak affirmation into her young life. Another girl pulled me aside at the end of the night and said, “I know everyone said thank you, but really Lindsey, thank you so much.” She is the youngest child in her family, but is left to take care of her older sister who has special needs.

The girl who I had the conversation with about Thrift Stores was there. I was able to help her pick out clothes and even teach her how to pair things and dress more appropriately. I prayed that God would use this night to confirm in her heart that she is loved and cared for, and much more valuable than the birds of the air or the stylish new clothes on her back. She left that night smiling and I believe she left trusting my friends and me a little more. Check…1 stone out of the wall blocking her heart is gone.

I write this story not to glorify “the idea” or the people with the idea. No. This is much more than a fun night. This is much more than a group of friends being good people and coming together to help those in need. This night represents something much deeper than us. This is the Great Commission. How humbling that God loves us enough to share the joy of giving. It is so important that we notice the people around us. We may not have the resources to feed an entire neighborhood or clothe an entire city, but we have a God that will give us ideas when we pray for them. We have a God who will open opportunities if we have eyes to see. And we have a community full of people willing to give if we ask.

Thanks be to God who is the giver of all good things. May you be enriched by His love today and bubble over with joy from a full heart.