I couldn't resist . . .

quote from somewhere online...

California Texts

I went through my phone the other day and in doing so, ran across several can't-bear-to-delete-them texts... My little snippets of adventure written home from California. These are my favorites...now here for your enjoyment. :)

Sunday, May 23, 11:30ish pm (in San Francisco)
  I rode a trolley standing up :)



Sunday, May 30, 1:50ish pm
  Happy Sunday :)

Wednesday, June 2, 5:15ish pm (in L.A.)
  How's it going? vbs day 2 over and good. :) we're staying w/ a nice family!


Wednesday, June 9, 12:20ish pm (in Menifee)
  Out canvassing; waiting 4 more flyers. just thot id say hi. :)


Wednesday, June 9, 3:50ish pm
  Was going 2 call but my phone and i got separated during our break time. maybe tomorrow!


Monday, June 14, 12:20ish pm (in San Diego)
  I will come home bearing gifts. :) happy monday!


Monday, June 14, 10:30ish pm
  We just felt an earthquake :)


Tuesday, June 15, 5:30ish pm (at Camp Ironwood where we helped remodel part of the barn)
  Ironwood is great--we destroyed things today :)


Wednesday, June 16, 9:00ish pm
  We just watched a desert sunset :)

Reminiscing

~quote by Jacques Cousteau



The Goodness of God

I love the way God works. Yes, sometimes life is painful. Sometimes it seems slow. Sometimes the exact opposite of what we wanted to happen happens. But we have a promise: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28, ESV). We know that in the end, everything will be fine—but we have to keep that in the perspective of the very next verse: “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.” What is the most good for us is to be more like Christ, and because at the end we meet God and know Him better…what can’t be good about that?!


I think the next verse is amazing. “And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” Why would God desire to bring me to heaven and glorify me? Not because of anything I have done, but because He set His love on me! “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” There is nothing to doubt. God is love, God loves me, and He knows every second of my past, present, and future.


“He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” How faithless we are when we complain and grumble, become discontent, and compare ourselves with others. God gives good, amazing gifts!


As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to go to the ocean. When God sent me to school in South Carolina, I was hopeful that would lead to an ocean trip. I was there a year. Then we took my brother to school in Florida and went to the Gulf of Mexico—very cool…but since it wasn’t true ocean, it just whetted my appetite for the real thing. :) Another two years away at school, and I graduated. What I wanted more than anything else by way of a graduation gift was to see the ocean, so graduation weekend my family and I trekked down to Charleston, South Carolina. Beautiful, beautiful.

And then I went to California on a dream-come-true missions trip—and we went to the ocean: once near LA, once in San Diego. So many years of dreaming to see the ocean…and I put my feet in the Atlantic one week, and a few short weeks later I put my feet in the Pacific!

I think God orchestrated that. :) “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17). He has a loving heart and is incredibly gracious. I have other dreams in my heart now, and I don’t know what God will do with those—but I do know He is good, and that “those who seek the LORD lack no good thing” (Psalm 34:10).

A Lesson from Jonah

I have a good job; God has blessed me a lot over the past 5 years. But I knew from Day One that I didn’t want to be in food service for the rest of my life! :) Toward the end of the California trip, I was beginning to wish I didn’t have to go home and work in my secular food service job for the rest of the summer. I was loving all the ministry opportunities I was involved in! But God was getting ready to show me the nature of my heart…

We arrived at Camp Ironwood with only a week and a half left to go of the trip. The few days we were there was the last week before the camp season began; the counselors and staff were in full gear preparing for the campers’ arrival. The camp director, in lieu of the camper’s chapel time, held a service for the counselors and invited us to attend.


Mr. Brock told the story of Jonah—the man of God who tried to flee from God but found out it wouldn’t work! I wrote in my journal, “The theme was God is prepared. He knows what will happen when we sidestep His will and when we’re right in the middle of it. I needed to be reminded of Jonah’s story…I’m having the time of life in the middle of “full-time” ministry work…and going back to [my job] is really not appealing.” I wasn’t about to run away physically…I would get on that plane to go back home and I would put on my work uniform when my first day back rolled around…but in my heart, in my attitude, that’s what I was doing. I was running even when I knew perfectly well what God wanted me to do. Praise God He didn’t let Jonah’s plans succeed, and praise God He hasn’t let me remain in my bad attitude. He rebuked me, and continues to rebuke me whenever I’m tempted to wish for something else.


I finished my entry about the message: “But God has the perfect path for me; these 5 weeks it’s been ministry in California. For the rest of the summer and the next year, it’s working full-time and getting involved at [my church]. Lord willing in a year, it will be grad school and helping out at [a former teacher’s recent church plant]! But each stage is specifically sent by God with purpose. God is prepared.”

"I will cry out to God Most High,

To God who performs all things for me.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;

Let Your glory be above all the earth.

I will praise You, O Lord, among the peoples;

will sing to You among the nations."

~Psalm 57

The Life I Live

“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;

and He died for all, that

those who live should live no longer

for themselves, but for Him

who died for them and rose again.”

II Corinthians 5:14-15, NKJ

~We did a lot of shopping in California…San Francisco’s China Town and Fisherman’s Wharf. San Diego’s Old Town and bay shops. LA’s downtown market.


We were told to try to pack for the trip in a couple carry-ons, both to cut costs on the flights and to make sure we could fit everyone’s bags into the vehicles we drove. In order to help for the flight out to California, our leaders told us that it would be cold in SF, but we’d go shopping and could buy nice jackets inexpensively once we got there. We flew into SF on a Thursday, and due to various reasons, we didn’t do the promised shopping until Tuesday! We froze the whole weekend, and believe me, as soon as I bought my hoodie, I put it on and it did not leave me for a good long while!

~I belong to Someone! I am redeemed—bought—by Christ’s precious blood. And because I am bought, I am not my own. And because I am not my own, my time is not my own. My energy is not my own. My money is not my own. My life is not my own. “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:4)


My desire, rather than to love myself, will be to love God and love others. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:22-24)


I am not here to serve myself, or to use my time, energy or money selfishly on myself. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

I, surprisingly, got a lot of use out of my hoodie in California. San Francisco’s cold seemed to follow us for awhile! God doesn’t need me like that, but He does ask that once I become His, I submit myself to His service. As Milton Vincent says in The Gospel Primer, “Compared to greater endeavors, self-love is mundane and tiresome. Consequently, the more thoroughly I can be done with such tedium, the freer my soul will be to soar at its God-intended heights.” Let’s be done with lesser things!

Service for Jesus

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…”

John 15:16, ESV
Jesus’ words are such an encouragement to me, as is what Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” I didn’t save myself; I don’t sanctify myself. God choose me specifically and He gave me certain talents and abilities to use in His service, but it is His grace and strength that accomplishes the work. I do my part and submit to His working, and then trust Him with the results!

top left: street witnessing in San Francisco;
middle left: camp projects;
bottom left: inviting people to church by hanging door flyers;
right: spending time with people and investing in their lives

So when I start viewing my teammates as more talented, more experienced, or better equipped, I have to remember that God didn’t choose a single one of us because we were talented, experienced, or equipped. God chooses us…and then He supplies the grace to do the job in His strength for His glory. He gives each of us different jobs in unique measures.

 

“Of this gospel I was made a minister

according to the gift of God's grace,

which was given me by the working of his power. …

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly

than all that we ask or think, according to the power

at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in

Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.” Ephesians 3:7, 20-21, ESV

The Depths of Love

Here is love, vast as the ocean,

Lovingkindness as the flood,

When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,

Shed for us His precious blood.

Who His love will not remember?

Who can cease to sing His praise?

He can never be forgotten,

Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,

Fountains opened deep and wide;

Through the floodgates of God’s mercy

Flowed a vast and gracious tide.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers,

Poured incessant from above,

And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice

Kissed a guilty world in love.

The devotional theme of my trip was my heart. Our leaders had the Team West leader from last year speak to us at the end of first semester. He told us that the best preparation for the team was for each of us to warm our hearts with the love of Christ…but not to do it just for the trip. Let that love fill our hearts for all our lives! That stayed with me for the whole of second semester, and I wasn’t surprised to see the reoccurring theme in my devotions throughout the trip: what does my heart look like? what is it filled with? what is pouring out of it?

Dr. Innes, the pastor of the church in San Francisco, said, “The bottom line of love is selflessness.” I can recount a few times on the trip that my problems went back to a selfish heart. I wanted my own way; I was being selfish. I wasn’t willing to say yes to God’s plan; I wasn’t loving Him. I spent a lot of time praying that God would empty my heart of my self and selfishness, and fill me with His love!

Christ’s love is sacrificial. Christ’s love said yes to the hard things. Christ’s love gave up His rights. Christ’s love portrayed in me is sacrificial, says yes to the hard things, gives up my rights. Christ’s love portrayed in me offers my life completely for the service and worship of God. Christ’s love portrayed in me says that I want to live every moment for His glory…and there is no room for self in that.

Let me all Thy love accepting,

Love Thee, ever all my days;

Let me seek Thy kingdom only

And my life be to Thy praise. […]

Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring

Thy great love and power on me,

Without measure, full and boundless,

Drawing out my heart to Thee.

~Here is Love by William Rees and William Williams

California Story: The Beginning

The picture on the right is all of us standing on the state that we are from.
In the left, we're all in California. :)

California. Sometimes God has plans that exceed our wildest dreams!

I grew up on missionary stories—giant tarantulas in glass jars, pictures of small huts in jungle clearings, exclamations of God’s sustaining grace in all situations. Missionaries ate around our dinner table and spent the night. I saved up my “Jesus money” (tithe :)) for the offering at our annual missions conference that would go to help a missionary’s special project, and in high school I started helping support missionaries financially.

When I was little, I wanted to marry a pastor and move to an exotic mission field. :) And for as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to go on a missions trip.

My youth group went to Brazil the year before I graduated high school, but God closed the door on that opportunity for me. Maybe I can go when I’m in college… But the reality of college for me saving money for 2 years and attending a community college part time while working part time. Reality was 40-hour work weeks during summer breaks.

And then another reality hit me the Spring of my junior year: the summer after I graduated might be different. Perhaps I would have a loan to pay off…but if I didn’t have another school semester looming in front of me, the time crunch wouldn’t be there.

So I prayed. And I put the BJU summer missions teams link in my favorites and visited it often, reading the weekly updates—and praying I would be them next summer.

School began again—my senior year! It was a tough semester, but God’s grace sustained me, and when the “Mission Team Organizational Meetings” took place in October, I was there. We could choose three teams to visit and get information about. I went to Australia first, because I was sure that was where God was taking me. My one criteria was English-speaking, so I didn’t even bother to investigate anything overseas except for Australia. The second meeting I chose to attend was Alaska’s, mainly because the Alaska team goes out every year and so I knew about it even though camp work wasn’t high on my list of interests. I could attend a third meeting that night, and looking through my list of options—and not ready to go back to the dorm and open the books—I choose California. A meeting about California would at least be interesting, right?

I walked back to my dorm with doubt forming about Australia—were some of the things they mentioned what I really had in mind?—and with interest forming about California.

Each team had preliminary meetings during the next few weeks. The California team’s meetings were the only ones I had open availability too; for Australia’s I would have had to find a sub at work (not an easy task). It’s interesting to see how God planned even that out! As I attending those meetings, my interest in California and church planting grew. About a month later, I knew: I was a part of the team going to California! But I didn't know this was only the beginning of what God was planning to do...

Bearing Fruit

California

Right after I graduated this spring, I spent 5 weeks in California with a group of students from Bob Jones University ministering to/with several churches—mostly newer church plants but a few older, established churches as well. It was an amazing time personally as well as seeing what God is doing in California.

Because “He who is mighty has done great things for me,” in the spirit of “go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you,” I plan to share some of the things I learned during my time out west over the next few weeks. Stay tuned. :)

(Verses are Luke 1:49 and Mark 5:19, ESV)

Trusting God

Oh, Lord, I trust Your Word;

it gives me hope and light to see.
The path ahead, though now obscured,

will open wide for me.

Oh, Lord, I trust Your love;

I feel its warm and changeless glow;
My life or death shall only prove

its everlasting flow.

Oh, trust in God, my soul,

and look into His face.
Oh, trust in God, my soul;

His holy will embrace.
Then I shall stand complete and whole,

a trophy of His grace
As I trust God.

(Francis Havergal and David Burke)