God's Plan

God has the best plan for my life.   This doesn't mean his plan is the easiest.  It doesn't mean the most comfortable or convenient.  It definitely doesn't mean the most rational or easy to explain.  In fact, it may be painful.  It may be difficult and seemingly irrational.  But it is the life that most glorifies the Lord, in which he makes me the most like him.  It is also the life through which he can create in me the most love, joy, and peace.

Jesus did not live a comfortable life.  In fact, he willingly gave up all comfort, literally sacrificing his own body to be brutally destroyed.

Of course I hope God has nothing like that in store for my life, but the truth is the sufferings of this life are short and light in the context of eternity.  And he provides enough strength for whatever he sends.

Jesus is weird.

Jesus is weird.  Daily Audio Bible (www.dailyaudiobible.com) today somewhere around the end of Mark... just picture this in your head...

Jesus tells a couple disciples to go into town, where they'll find a donkey, and untie it and bring it to him.  If anyone asks whhhyyy they are taking this donkey that's not theres, he tells them to say, "The Lord needs it.  He'll bring it back."   They do it, and people ask, and they tell them that.  And they are bewildered, or something, and let them go.

Then Jesus rides it into Jerusalem, and people welcome him like he's a parade.  He does some sightseeing at the temple, then turns in for the night.  The next day when he gets up he's hungry and sees a fig tree.  But when he gets to it, it has no figs and he says "Let no one eat from you again."  Later, the disciples come back and the tree had shriveled up and died.  Then Jesus goes back to the temple and sees money exchangers and merchants set up in there like they usually are, selling animals for people to sacrifice, making some money off the congregation and whatnot.  And Jesus proceeds to flip over everybody's table and not let any more merchants in, saying "this is a house of prayer not a den for robbers!"  And as you can imagine, "the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching."  (from Mark 11)

I also find it amusing, in the paragraph right before that, a blind man is calling and yelling for Jesus through a crowd.  Jesus calls him over and asks-- this is the good part-- "What do you want?"  duh... the guy answers "Rabbi, I want to see!!"  and Jesus heals him.  Why did Jesus ask him that?  Don't you think he already knew, that everyone in the crowd already knew?  And why, for this guy, did Jesus just say "Your faith has healed you," and he was healed, but for other blind people, Jesus put spit or mud or his hands on their eyes and then they were healed?  Its bizarre.

Everything

Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.  (Luke 14:33)

If you love me, you will obey what I command.  (John 14:15)

If we don't have love (for God and people) whatever else we do doesn't matter (1 Corinthians 13:2-3)

Those scriptures speak for themselves.... being a Christian doesn't mean being perfect, but (in the words of Francis Chan) "having a posture of obedience and surrender, where a person perpetually moves toward Christ."

Jesus said its hard for a rich person to go to heaven.  And we are rich.  If you have a computer to read this, you are rich.  If you don't worry where the money for your next meal will come from, you are rich.  Its hard for us to go to heaven because we have so much, so many good things.  And Jesus asks us to give up everything, all of it.  That's what being a Christian is.

What we have here on earth seems so necessary and important.... but its nothing in the scheme of eternity.  Nothing.

Treasure in a field

I don't want to be a "lukewarm" follower of God, but am I really willing to give up everything.  In the parable, a man found treasure in a field, and sold everything he had to buy the field with the treasure of much greater value. Am I willing to give up everything I have? Even our savings we've worked years for and give us a secure future? I know that the kingdom of heaven is much more valuable than anything I could have here on earth.  Am I willing to risk and sacrifice for Jesus?

On another note, made "Oopsie Pizza" from Girl Gone Primal two nights ago... with goat cheese, red pepper, spinach, ham and prosciutto.  The crust is eggs and cheese-- I'm amazed it turned out!  A flaky dryish texture like a pastry.

http://girlgoneprimal.blogspot.com/2010/02/lament-plus-recipe-oopsie-pizza.html

Last night, pork chops pan fried, then added a little red wine, vegetable stock, and Dijon mustard to the skillet (without the pork chops in it) to make a sauce.  Also sauteed bok choy and red pepper with ginger.

What is love?

I've been discontent recently, thinking about where I might be now if i had made different choices and whatnot.  I'm not unhappy where I am, by any means; I have a great life.  But I'd just been thinking about those things.  

Yesterday a friend told me some stories from her life.  She didn't grow up in the suburbs like me, but as a black woman in South Africa.  What she has seen and experienced make my life seem like a bounce on a feather bed. And yet she is joyful, positive, a little crazy maybe (in a good way, in case you ever read this :) but almost always smiling and having a good attitude.  And I know why-- its because (to sound really cliche) she loves Jesus.  But I don't mean "she love Jesus" like 99% (yes I think probably 99) of Christians do.  And I'm not even talking about people who say they're Christians but aren't really.  I'm talking about people like me.  

I would definitely say I love Jesus.  I try to do what he wants.  I know that life is better when I'm following him.  I try to spend time with him and tell other people that life is better when its in line with his will.  But if I am really truly brutally honest, I'm not (yet) motivated by love for him.  I'm motivated because, like I said, I know that life is better with him.   I know that I can trust his plan more than my own.  From Francis Chan, "Do you love this God who is everything, or do you just love everything he gives you?"

The truth is God has given me a whole lot.  A great apartment, this cutest golden retriever alive, a husband who loves me more than I could ask, enough money.  But he could just as easily take all of that away.  I have no right to these things.  They are not inherently mine.  And if he did, if he did take away all that he's given me, would I still love him?  Would I still trust him?  Do I love him, or the life he's given me?

Re-centering

Got up this morning around six after more than an hour of restless not sleeping... feeling sick and really anxious and guilty!  Over a number of things, but the main one (also what was causing me to feel sick) was having too many beers last night.  Why do i keep doing this to myself?  For an hour or two of feeling good I have that one-too-many drink and feel like crap the next day.  Crap.  So, my initial reaction is that I need to make some rules.  No more than two drink in one night, ever, maybe.  Or no more than 7 total in one week.  Or no more than 3 but that much only once every two weeks.  Or maybe I should give up alcohol for the rest of lent.  

Then I got up and read a bit in Crazy Love (Francis Chan), and ironically the chapter was on not worrying or being stressed.  And there was this verse, "so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God," (1 Cor. 10:31).  And I realized:  God doesn't care how much I drink.  I mean, he doesn't have a formula... "For thou height and weight ratio thou shalt only partake of two alcoholic drinks per day, and no more than three days a week."  Instead, God care about whether I am bringing glory to him or I have my head stuck in the blinding sand of the world according to me.  

I thought about all of the things I have been thinking about lately, and they are pretty much all self-indulgent time wasters, at best.  So one thing I decided is that if I'm going to have a blog, which for some reason I feel like having right now, then it too is going to be for the glory of God.  Because the point of my life is to point to him (-Francis Chan).