Undignified

Psalm 14:2-3 "The Lord looks down from heaven and the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one."

For much of my life I've felt like the stiff religious girl. With this passage though, God is showing me a different way to look at it. Passionate. I can NEVER be too into my God! I can NEVER be too obsessed in pleasing Him. You might be wondering how I get that from these verses. Allow me to explain. :)

2 Samuel 6:14-16 "David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Isreal brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart."

David (in the Psalm and his story in 2 Samuel) reminds me that I am not the best. This humbles me, "no one is good, not even one." I'm not too into God, that's impossible. I'm not even close! While this does humble me extremely it also encourages me! If I would just stop trying to compare myself to those around me I wouldn't be worrying if I looked like a freak. If I keep comparing myself to Jesus I will stay humble and not slow down my attempt to be better. When we try and compare ourselves to our neighbor who we think is less spiritual we get an attitude that says, "I'm doin better then them, maybe I can kick back a little."

2 Samuel 6:20- "When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!" David said to Michal, "It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people Israel-I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."

Isaiah 58:1 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet..." Don't hold back? Could that mean be undignified? :D "... Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Judah their sins."



I often have to remind myself of this subject. I have a two foot long "JesusFreak" design on my back car window just for this purpose. I'm not one to hide my faith but I am one to let myself feel I'm weird or crazy. I WILL BE UNDIGNIFIED FOR MY SAVIOR! It's ok if I'm excluded for my passion in Christ. So many other Christians have experienced much worse. I will not allow myself to be lukewarm. I am a JesusFreak.

How bold are we in our faith? Is the strength of our convictions and beliefs determined by the crowd we are with? Are we faithful in our walk with the Lord as long as things run smooth or are we sold out for Him even to the point of death?

1 Timothy 1:7-9 "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time."

10 Random Thoughts :)

Thought Number 1: (actually given to me by one of my good friend's dad haha)
What Christmas tends to be: A whole lotta people giving a whole lotta stuff to people who already have a whole lotta junk.
What Christmas should be: A whole lotta people giving a whole lotta stuff to people who have a whole lotta nothin.

Thought Number 2:
I'm totally excited for drawing and composition next semester :D



Thought Number 3:
I can't believe my first semester of college is almost over! weird!

Thought Number 4:
God is so good :)

Thought Number 5:
I don't understand men.

Thought Number 6:
I'm watching G.I. Joe and I'm totally confused. Probably because I'm doing this.

Thought Number 7:
I'm not ready for break to be over. I haven't seen everyone I wanted to see/ hang out with. I haven't gone rock climbing at petra yet :(. And I'm not looking forward to the english paper and speech when I get back.

Thought Number 8:
When the head of state didn't play guitar
Not everybody drove a car
When music really mattered and when radio was king
When accountants didn't have control
And the media couldn't buy your soul
And computers were still scary and we didn't know everything
(ok so their not my thoughts, their Sandi Thom's but I like it)

Thought Number 9:
I love to read. :D But never have seem to have enough time to as much as I'd like.


Thought Number 10:
Channing Tatum is very attractive. ;) and i'm not one to swoon over celebrities.

I'm Not Who I was

I've changed so much.

And I continue to.

Physically, Mentally, and Spiritually.

I'm not who I was.

And with that change comes the worry of being accepted for who I am.

I know Jesus defines me. I know that His approval is all that really matters.

Maybe I need to focus on that even more than I already am.

I just want you to know that I'm not who I was. But I still have faults. Just maybe not the same ones. I'm still imperfect, but I still try to be perfect. I'm broken. But I'm mending.

I wish clicks didn't exist. I wish we could accept each other and love with all we have. Instead of just being selfish and focused on ourselves.

"Forgive as the Lord forgave you." Colossians 3:14

I'm not who I was because of amazing grace.

Follow the Leader?

Tuesday night I went to a worship service called The Exchange. It’s about an hour and half long worship service with usually an acoustic guitar and a few singers. After worship they will start to call up anyone who needs to be healed and might have a devotion or something. That’s about the time I’ll usually leave, not because I don’t agree with it… I just don’t know what I think yet. Anyway, that’s not what I want to focus on, what I do wanna talk about is these two little girls I saw there probably about the age of seven. You see The Exchange is all about the families being together, which I think isAWESOME. It’s so cool to be worshiping and hear little kids running around laughing or worshiping with you. This can be distracting (especially if they’re crying) but if you get into the right zone you tend not to mind. Tonight though, I was focusing on some of the children and thinking about how the verses that talk about children. Matthew 19:14 – Jesus said, “let all the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

So I was watching all the kids dance and sing and run and play when two particular girls caught my eye. One of these little girls I mentioned (lets call her… Ann… just to make things easier) was standing next to her parents worshiping. Now, when I say worshiping I mean this little seven year old girl had her eyes closed, both hands lifted high, and was singing boldly. I was surprised. There are many christians who do not have the boldness and strength to worship like that.

I’m NOT saying that in order to have true worship you must worship with your hands lifted high and doing many “outwardly” signs of worship. In the past couple months I have experienced MANY different kinds of worship and I’ve seen many people who seem to be truly genuine. Worship is a matter of the heart. I think though, that there is still something to worshiping outwardly it takes some courage sometimes to not care what others think of you. It can show and test that true matter of the heart. I always think of the song that goes, “and I’ll become even more undignified than this” … well I guess it was David who said it first haha In 2 Samuel 6:22 when Michal called him out for dancing like a mad man.

OK, back to the little girls… Now there was a second girl (lets call her Liz), about the same age and apparently Ann’s friend. Liz was sitting a row or two in front of Ann with some other young kids. For about 30 minutes or so all she did was look back at Ann and copy everything she did (except for closing her eyes of course because her eyes were on Ann). If Ann raised her hands or raised just one hand, so did Liz. If Ann put her hands on her heart, so did Liz. You get the point.

So after a while of this (about 30 min like I said before) Liz ran up to Ann and her mom and started to suggest/ask something of the two of them. After some conversation between the 3 Ann ended up moving up to sit with Liz and the other kids. They continued to worship, Liz copying Ann as before, just with the two of them standing right next to each other. After about a song of this Liz got down on her knees and bowed down. I watched as Liz lay there for a couple minutes and Ann just kept worshiping her own way not really paying attention to Liz. It was about this time that I started to relate these two girls to myself and others.

How often do we get so focused on someone else that we think has it all figured out that we miss the point completely? Instead of searching and praying to God to teach us how to act and respond to His love we ask or look around for whatever sounds the best. We all need people to look up to and people to learn from. It’s impossible to do it on our own, but we have to question everything we’re taught and see. While what Liz was copying from Ann wasn’t anything real harmful what if later on Liz’s adoration for Ann leads her down a wrong path? Or what if the “worship” Liz is participating in never really becomes worship of the Lord but worship just to impress or fit in with man? I think it brings up questions we should really ask ourselves about why we are christians. Are you a christian at Harding because everyone else here is? Are you a christian because you’re parents are?

Do you REALLY know what you believe? Or are you just following those around you?

Rock Climbing

Rock climbing is all about the endurance and the test of your strength and ability. You learn a “nevertheless” attitude and hopefully can carry that into your daily life. You look forward to that feeling of accomplishment when you finally reach that last hold, but that’s not what the climb is all about. It’s more about overcoming the struggles between the beginning and end and deciding to keep pressing on nevertheless. Those feats along the way are what really make the last hold an achievement at all.

ugh...a major

First off, let me tell you that I am one that likes to have a plan. I like to know what I'm doing, where I'm going, ect. So to not know my major... tends to make me uptight from time to time. Not only do I not know what major I'd like to study but I'm also ALL OVER THE BOARD. Seriously... everywhere. haha So I thought I'd walk through the possibilities. Here we go:

Middle School Education: Right now this is the one I'm leaning towards the most (note that it changes every month or so). My first draw back about this one is it seems like EVERYONE is an education major. Will I seriously have a job when I'm out of school? I feel like so many use this major as a fall back plan or just choose it cause it sounds easy (summers off!). But I'm definitely not like that. Of course I love kids so that is a plus. I'd like to teach 5th grade, I know, crazy. But the reason is 5th grade is an intense year! My whole purpose for becoming a teacher is because I want to make an impact, and 5th grade is gonna be one of the best years to do that. I mean, think about it, 5th grade is when puberty starts... well for most. You start to like guys/girls, whatever. I know for me it was when I realized that not everyone else's life is like mine. "Divorce? What's that?" Before 5th grade most make A's and B's but when this year comes the long division hits and the division between who's going to be a good student and who isn't starts to form. It's just an intense year that I think I would love to be apart of.

Civil Engineering: I don't even know why I consider this a choice anymore. It was my number one pick all through senior year of high school. But sense I've had to start out in College Algebra instead of Calculus this year I'm already behind. I'm a good student and I'll even dare to call myself smart, but I have to work for it. It doesn't come easy. When I think of all the engineering majors I think of the people who had school easy through High School. Any engineering major has an insane amount of hours... so, yes I'm scared out of my mind. I love solving problems though. I do have an A in College Algebra. I really feel like I could use this career in the mission field (yeah, I'd also like to a "part time" missionary... but I figured that could tag along with any career I decide). But I've also ALWAYS wanted to have kids. I knew that since I was young and this kind of career doesn't easily allow for that.

Marketing: This would be my current major, even though all my classes are general ed. For 2 years in High School I was in this club called DECA (distributive education clubs of america aka marketing club) The first year I was in a individual division of business services. I went to state that year, but the trip ended there. My second year I was in a team division of travel and tourism marketing with my best friend. We rocked and made it all the way to Internationals. I'm pretty creative and like I said before I enjoy problem solving, but I just don't know if I wanna deal with modern marketing techniques. "Sex Sells" Yes, I suppose I could market kids cereal and wouldn't have to deal with that... but that doesn't sound like what I want to do with the rest of life. I think the main problem with this major is that it's broad and I'm sure what I'd want to do with it career wise when I was done.

Marriage and Family Therapist/Counseling: The reasons this is appealing is a lot of the same reasons I'd like to being a teacher. I want to help people, I want to make a difference, especially for my God. There is a program here at school called the MFT program (Marriage and Family therapy), it's a two year program of full classes (including summers) that you take after you have your undergrad. Once done with the program you have so many hours of supervised counseling (aka working for someone else) and then you are free to even open up your own counseling center. Another appealing thing about this, is that it doesn't matter what your undergrad is. None of those intense psychology degrees. I could even do a 3 year general ed. degree in something awesome like....ART! And then do this and have a masters degree after 5 years. :D The only scary thing about that is if i get very far into my general ed. study and decided I don't wanna do the MFT program I'm stuck with a General Art Degree that will get me NO WHERE. I suppose there's the possibility of doing this program after any of the above majors... but I'm poor and don't really wanna be in debt for the rest of my life.

The OTHERs: I'm also open to the fact that the major God had planned for me could be nothing that I've even thought of yet.

When I present this problem to friends and family I usually get the just pray reply. I know prayer is powerful. I have prayed about it, and I feel like I've gotten mixed signals. Maybe God's trying to teach me that patience I'm always asking for or teaching me to rely on Him despite not knowing what lies ahead. So God, when you do decide to fill me in... could you make it a big flashing neon sign so I don't miss it?

Divine Heartbreak

If only I could put into words the love God has for you. The love that I don’t and never will fully understand. You would WANT to serve him. Reading your Bible would be a joy. Chapel would always have something for you. The way we view God is skewed. He is so wonderful, so beautiful. Beyond anything in our earthly lives. And for Him to love me? meeee? I never deserved such love. The way Rob Bell describes it in Sex God is that when we love someone we are putting ourselves out there for them to either accept or reject our love. Bell gives us a nice flashback to what it was like in middle school to ask your crush to dance or sending them that circle “yes” or “no” note in class. And it doesn’t end in middle school. Through our relationships before marriage and into them. Not only with a spouse but with friends, family, and co-workers. We hand over our hearts to be accepted or denied. Will we be accepted? Will they be willing to love us back? When you put it like that it’s not wonder it hurts so much when we’re denied. But that’s what God has done. Creates us, loves all with undying love, and with that true love comes our decision to either accept or deny it. It wouldn’t be love it was any other way. And if we deny… He comes again! And AGAIN! It’s the divine heartbreak. So why don’t we say yes?!?! Say yes to the ultimate lover of your soul.