"Where's Waldo" or "God's Plan for my Life"

Sometimes I feel like I'm the Waldo in the pictures, one face in the sea of faces, one little insignificant person in the crowd of millions. Make that billions. One person, one soul, just one lost sinner looking for my role, waiting on God to reveal...what's that Jesus?
What am I waiting for?
I've been floundering around for my whole life, trying to figure out what God's big plan for my life is. But I'm still waiting. I even go to church almost every Sunday and toss a couple bucks in the offering plate, but nothing's changed. My life isn't anything like it will be once God's plan is revealed. I'm still waiting for God to show me...what did you say Jesus?

Good works? Good news?
Yep, I go to work everyday, but its not cool to talk about God there. My coworkers might make fun of me if they knew I was a Christian. And I don't know if any of them go to church, and I sure don't want to talk about the Bible to anyone that doesn't go to church. That would be really uncomfortable. So that's why I'm just waiting for God to reveal...what do you mean Jesus?
What do you mean God already showed me His plan?
Its in the Bible?
But I read the Bible, the whole thing, and I never found anything where God wrote about what He was going to do with my life. He doesn't even mention me in the Bible, Jesus.

He did mention me in the Bible?
Oh, yeah, child of God...
Yeah, I know, I'm a child of God, and that's all great, but I'm waiting for MY big day, when God shows me what He's calling me to do with my life. When He calls my name loud like thunder and says"This is what you were meant to do!" And then He gives me a bunch of money and I can go do whatever easy job He's created me for. I can't wait to do God's work! Its going to be so great... What did you say Jesus?

What do you mean "Feed my sheep"?
Who are "the least of these"?
Love my neighbors? Well, I hardly know them, how can I love them?
Besides, wouldn't that be weird?
But those people live on the other side of the planet, how can they be my neighbors?
I've never even been to Samaria, how would I know a good one if I met one?
I just don't understand your riddles Jesus!
What's that about parables Jesus?
Don't waste my what, Jesus?

Love Never Fails

Love Never Fails.
The verses printed inside the cross are 1 Corinthians 13: verses 1-8. I have pretty much bet my salvation on this way of thinking. When I am before the Lord, my God, and He asks me what I did with my life, I will tell Him that I loved: that when I was in doubt, I did what I thought Jesus would do, and I loved.

As you judge, you will be judged.

I know that I, the sinner that I am, will need alot of mercy, so I make sure to offer it as much as I can. But I know in my heart, that God wants us all to think this way. He said it so many times, it amazes me that people are still out there, judging away. In my journey to know God, I have had to change some of my ways of thinking. I have had to completely change my point of view on some things. Its hard, but when the Bible says...when JESUS says... we need to listen. We need to stop assuming we know what HE meant. Stop assuming we understand what HE wants us to do.
To enter heaven we must become like small children.
Read that Bible again, with the soft heart of a child, and see what it really says. Our hardened hearts will never know the truth unless we can do this.

Luke 16: 26

My depiction of the great chasm.

I gave up my soda habit, my chiropractor has been telling me for years that diet Coke is evil for one's body, and to celebrate I sponsored a little girl from Guatemala.

(I have thought about it many times, its funny how God does these things. But I really felt that this was what I was supposed to do, and maybe its why God made me buy the book "Radical" by David Platt. Ever since I've read it, I've felt convicted to do more for God, and to listen to that still small voice in my heart. You know that voice? That small voice, the one that's barely audible because of all the commercials and pleas for you to spend your money on material things to make your life of ease even more comfortable. The small voice, that you almost need to meditate to hear, to go into a quiet place so you can hear it.)

I was on the Childfund website trying to pick a child, which is so difficult, all their beautiful little faces! Everytime I picked one, they had already been picked by someone else.

(That in itself is wonderful because it means many people have been sponsoring children recently. I wish we could all see how truly rich we are, compared to the rest of the world. For years I ignored the call to sponsor a child because I just didn't know if I could afford it, or I just didn't know if I really should, or I just didn't know which one of the sponsorship companies to pick. "You really want to me sacrifice some of my money for what??" )

So I just told God to pick for me, and started clicking until I got one that up for sponsorship. When I got the info about her this morning, it showed me that she and my son have the same birthday.

I thought, "That was pretty cool God! ", and in my brain I could hear, "See, I picked her out just for you."

So thank you God, thank you for your patience with me, and your never-ending love.
I love you too.

Where Am I Going?

Please excuse my previous absence, and the possible absence to follow.

God has been working in huge major ways in my life, and I've been feeling a little overwhelmed. I just haven't had any extra time to write, or even think about things of which to write.

I'll tell you all about it once it gets going beyond the point that it is. But for now all I can say is: Its huge, its crazy, and my life is never going to be the same.
I can't sleep at night, my stomach is fluttery, and its all I can think about.

Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

Its a big hope, but it means a big future too. A future for generations.
As I leave you hanging, with my heart full of optimism and the love of the LORD, I bid you this: Pray unceasingly that the LORD will reveal His will for your life to you. Because when He does, its pretty dang amazing!

Supersheep!

This is an excerpt from a sermon I wrote, and had the chance to deliver to my church in June 2010.

We sometimes need to change our attitudes. Philippians 2 verses 3-5 says "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus"
I think that's a tall order for a regular human being. I think that we do tend to think of ourselves first. We've all heard the phrase, "looking out for number 1!" And by saying that we mean ourselves, and our families, and its usually said with an angry tone, or an arrogant one. Face it, sometimes, we don't want to be the sheep. Sometimes I don't want to be a timid, submissive sheep that can't take care of myself, walking around, being told what to do.
I want to be a warrior sheep!
A sheep that can tell you the way it is!
The way its going to be!
I want to be a Supersheep!
With a sword, and a cape, and a big letter "S" on my chest!
But God says NO. God says be humble. God says in Hebrews 10:30 "For we know him who said, 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' and again, 'The Lord will judge his people'." I don't get the sword, it's God's sword. I don't get to judge. That's God's job. I don't even get a cape. I just get instructions:
"Feed my sheep."
"Do unto others"
"Love thy neighbor"
"Love one another"

No sword, no cape, just love.
But its such an important job! And once you let love break down the boundaries in your heart, once you let God's love wash over you, taking away your sin, even the sins you don't think or know are sins, that's when God's light can really shine. That's when Jesus takes over your life and then, it can be lived for the will of God, and not yourself. When you give it up, is when you will live. That's what God tells us in Luke 9:24, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." This doesn't mean necessarily dying a physical death, but a spiritual one. You have to let go of yourself to make room for God. You have to trust in Him completely, and give yourself to Him completely.
'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
When you give yourself up to God, you allow Him to use you as He used Elijah, and so many other notable people in the Bible. It’s the people who did surrender their lives to Jesus, who gave themselves up, who were able to bring God glory.
And that's what its all about.

Being Used

As my 16 year old son and I were leaving Best Buy yesterday, we saw a young Asian woman lugging a dorm sized refrigerator by the packing straps across the sidewalk. She was tiny, and was struggling just to drag her purchase across the sidewalk. A young man in front of us asked if he could help her carry her item, she politely declined. I'm not sure why I asked when she had declined his offer, but I did anyway.
"Can we help you with that?"
I strained to make out what she said with her quiet voice, the accent was hard to understand. But she had accepted our offer to help.
I thought we'd help her carry it to her car. Turns out, she wanted us to help her get it to the bus stop.
We knew that the bus, if busy, would never take the fridge, and then what? She obviously wasn't "from around here".
I asked where she lived, NDSU, and offered to drive her there instead, We packed the fridge in my car and off we went.
We chatted a bit on the way. She is from China and is here to get her Ph.D. in something to do with molecular biology, anyway I think that's what she said. We talked about Fargo, and the United States, and how she thought it was strange that she could buy things that had been made in China cheaper here than she could back home, in China.
We carried her fridge into her dorm room for her. She thanked us and we left.
It was a fun experience. My son and I got to do the Lord's work, and it was great. She had commented about how nice people, including us, are in this part of the world. I made sure I told her that God always puts us in the right place at the right time. That's all I really said about God, but I knew He was there, and I knew that's the reason that we had left the store at the exact right time to help her.

She thanked us and we left.
But we left revived.
We left renewed.
We left with a smile in our hearts and a skip in our steps.
We had gotten to be the hands and feet of Jesus.