puppies dressed as cats!!

this made my week!

Brain Dump, Summer 2009 edition - Warning: I can be a stream of consciousness... but bear with me!

This summer has been very spiritually stretching so far. It’s been great to study Esther with 12 amazing women, all in New York for this time. Most of the time when you commit to one of Beth Moore’s study workbooks, the group starts big, but by the last week it’s usually about half the size. It’s been amazing to see the hunger and commitment to God’s word that has been in this group and how finishing the study was never even a question for anyone. We go to different churches in the city, so it’s been refreshing to see God bring us together, not through a church small group, but just because we all had the desire to learn alongside other women dealing with the same issues… i.e. what am I supposed to do with my future, and why do you have me here in NYC, and why do I have this job that doesn’t seem like the right fit, and why am I single and in NYC where there seems to be a huge deficit in men who would even claim to be a Christian, much less be a Godly leader that we’d all like to marry? (After all we are a group of single, wonderful, successful women who dive into the Bible each week together, and I’m hesitant to believe that there is a group of 13 single men doing the same here… please someone read this and prove me wrong!) these are just a few examples, nothing too specific! :)

So, in His timing he brought us together to study Esther, the perfect picture of God’s timing and sovereignty. It teaches us to trust Him even when we don’t understand. It shows us that God’s timing is usually not ours—sometimes he wants us to wait, and sometimes we are to act fast in obedience. It’s been the most freeing thing to re-learn that it’s not ALL my responsibility to figure it out! I only have the responsibility to grow in my knowledge of Him and life will happen, just as he has appointed, in his sovereign will.

We had our first ever gallery church retreat in the Poconos in PA last weekend, and the theme was God’s Sovereignty. There were so many good moments and teachings that came out of the weekend, but one specific thing comes to mind now. Freddy T was speaking and had us write down a list of what would be the best things that could happen for us right now in life, in any area we wanted. So I hesitantly wrote down a few things, having been in church all my life knowing that there was gonna be a catch, but not clued in yet what it was gonna be. Then the duh moment came. He said, you know I hope those things happen for you, they may or may not, but there is one thing that without question will be the best thing that will happen for you, begin to become more like Jesus every day. Well duh, there it is. So simple, what I’ve heard all my life, but for some reason it hit me a little differently this time. I think it was because I had written down in front of me all the things I think need to happen – then in black and white below, the only thing that really needs to happen.

Yes, continue to pursue the God given dreams you have, and even plan for them, but always make the first priority becoming more like Christ. That’s His end plan for you, not whatever thing you’re trying to accomplish.

You see, in New York City it seems everyone is out for themselves, to get the bigger and better whatever, to make all the money, to have the cool job, and no matter how long you’re here, it rubs off on you a little. You start to worry about your plans, a lot.

I’m so thankful that these things rattling in my brain and heart have intersected here: Studying Esther, learning about God’s sovereignty, and worrying about my future. I don’t have the answers, but I have learned a lot of truths that point me in the right direction. There’s also that one thing to strive for everyday, become more like Jesus.

My old friend Drew (who is not actually old, cause he’s not as old as Becky or Josh, but an old friend cause I’ve known him for 12 years) who is at Asbury Seminary right now in Kentucky, wrote an entry yesterday on his blog that was themed around this sentence that he’d heard in a class recently:

"Lord, prepare me for what you have prepared for me."

Here’s part of the entry:

Being prepared and being well-planned are two different things in my head. Being well-planned implies a preparation for a specific line of travel, a certain path that one is heading down. Being prepared implies a readiness that may or may not know everything that's ahead. I think I find myself in the second of those categories, where I have ideas about what may be ahead, but overall I have no fat clue what's on the other side of today. So I tend to think in a preparation mindset rather than a well-planned one.

Not that I don't plan or think planning is wrong in some way... planning is essential and necessary in many avenues of all of our lives. However, and this may reveal flaws in my planning skills, I think planning alone has a lack of flexibility that life often requires. (I know, I'm splitting hairs over these two words...)

In the above quote, there is a prayer for preparation as well as the yielding to the preparation God is doing for us. The idea is that the Father is not only preparing the road in front of us, but preparing us for that road. One is His sovereign work over all things, and the other is His sanctifying work over all of His people. And sadly, we can often lose sight of the fact that God is more concerned about preparing His people for their future than preparing the future for His people.

He's preparing us for the Kingdom, both already and not yet here, and this Kingdom breaks through into re-creative possibility, like a seed breaking into a harvest crop. I heard JD say (much more elegantly than this) that there is a different between seeing the seeds in the apple and the apples in the seed. We tend to think about the future as a specific path ahead, and that the way we prepare for that path is to get a game plan to see it accomplished and then give ourselves to the process of seeing it come to fruition. But that can't be the best method because it's primarily about the apple and not the seeds...primarily about the path and not the person I am in it.

The prayer to "prepare me" is the submission of the soul (and thus the whole person) to the work of becoming who God would require us to be for whatever lies ahead. It is open-handed about the destination ahead; it focuses only on being prepared for that place. If you are not who you need to be when you get where you're headed, what good is it to arrive there? And I don't mean what good for you, but what good is it for those around you? Your sanctification is about God's mission, not just your betterment...

If you think about the future through a "prepare me" attitude, you become far more concerned with a life of faithfulness than you do ending up at the right place. Your plans become a lot more flexible and able to endure trials and hard times of any sort because your life draws its strength and person from a shared communion with God (the only means of godly transformation) instead of your own effective planning and foresight. And ultimately, you will end up in that place, but as the person you are called to be, which was the point all along.

Lord, prepare us for what you are preparing us for. Amen.

Go check out the entire posting here: www.exchangedliving.com And if you’re in the NY/NJ area and read it, don’t be offended about his Jersey comment, one day he’ll see the light!

I loved this look at preparedness and planning, and yet again God’s timing is perfect. This came up on google reader last night just as God has been teaching me about these things. Thanks Drew, for the wisdom!

I’m excited about the future and I have no idea what it holds, but I’ve been promised that God’s purposes are always for my good, so that works for me!

And whilst I’m giving blog shout outs, I loved this one recently too!
Michael and Meg Sanks www.theothermalachi2.blogspot.com



I have so many friends in new york that would give an arm and a leg for there to be a chick-fil-a in manhattan (or even brooklyn)!