Living ‘Plan B’

We’ve all done it.

Expected God to work on our timetable.  Anticipated how our lives would unfold.  ‘Known’ our future career, life plans, how many kids we would have, who we’d marry.

Then life rudely interrupts.  How dare you, life!  This is my story, and you’re wrecking it.  Dr. Del Tackett (Focus on the Family) describes this as “Someone stepping on our script”.  Life is all about me, so whoever stands in the way is the enemy.  Right?

Have you ever had this experience?  Our response to these detours, delayed dreams, disappointments, and every other ‘D’ word says a lot about who we are… and what we put our hope in.

The reality is that sometimes, following God is HARD.  He does not give us the blueprint for our lives, the road map we will travel, the extreme disappointments or detours we sometimes face, the failures we encounter (our own and others).

This doesn’t sit well with our Inner Control Freak–the OCD one that wants to figure out life and keep it under our thumb.  We want to call the shots.  The American Dream after all is about realizing your plan for your life–Higher Powers not included.

But I’m learning that the sooner we surrender the American Dream and follow God’s dream for us, the better off we will be.

Blasphemy?  For diehard Patriots, it seems to be.

God is — if you haven’t figured it out yet — unpredictable.  Yet He’s still in control.  He knows ahead of time what you’ll face, good/bad/and ugly-ugly.

This weekend I read where Jesus tells His followers that our Father knows what we need before we ask.  Good news!  He sees beyond our finite timeline and already knows our life’s twists and turns–some exhilarating, some terrifying, and some crushingly painful.

I had this very experience 2 years ago when I moved to Atlanta.  I moved there with the highest of hopes–believing God had told me to go.  I jumped at the chance, in faith.  I didn’t foresee that in the months to follow, every hope and dream in my heart would be dashed.  (Sad story?  No way–God has turned me in a brand-new direction that is much better than the plans I’d had in this city!)

My time there wasn’t without purpose, but the wandering and deep pain was brutal, at the time.  I wondered if God forgot me or if He just never intended to bless me.  Every faith-filled promise was challenged at my core.  At some point, I stopped believing God was for me and assumed life was bitterly hard.  I’m a little sad to say I gave up hope.

During my time there, two Scriptures continuously “popped up” everywhere I turned:

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are Mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.”
-Isaiah 43:1-2

And then this one, a promise I HATED (truthfully!).  When I came across it, I rolled my eyes, scoffed and quickly flipped the page–or tuned the speaker out.  Just a little telling of my heart’s condition, huh?  Eep.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” -Jeremiah 29:11

The truth is, I didn’t believe Him.  Hope?  I didn’t want hope–it had gotten me nowhere except heartbreak.  So I glossed over this verse whenever it came up.  Plans to prosper me?  Yea, right.  I’ve heard that one before honey.  I’m in the digging-in-your-heels-and-fighting-like-hell stage.  Hope-filled futures and prosperity weren’t even on my radar.  I was just trying to survive.

I wonder if you’re experiencing this right now, or if you may someday.  I hope not, but if this happens in your life, you are hearing ahead of time that God cares for you and that you aren’t alone in walking this difficult path.

9 months into my Atlanta venture, He let me know something else, too.  Out of nowhere, as if trying to get a message across to me, this thought kept resonating in my heart:

You are living Plan B. 

……….

Hold the phone.  Say what?  HOW?  I’ve been following ‘Your’ voice this whole time.  Right?

Then a week or two later, my roomie told me about a little book titled Plan B.  At its mention, something jumped within me.  Suddenly I knew I was living Plan B.  I didn’t know how or why, but I realized I was missing God’s “divine will” for me somehow.

In retrospect I see the truth in this.  I was pursuing the wrong dream, one manufactured in my own heart, not His.  That’s what I followed when moving to Atlanta–myself.  I didn’t know that then.  I was fully [and wrongly] convinced that God Himself said to go, but as months and then a year dragged on, that Voice spoke the truth that I was living outside His ideal for me.

You see, months before moving, God warned me not to spite someone I knew (an Atlantan)–that if I did, I would delay my future.  Then He repeated Himself.  He warned me that my disobedience would cost me precious time and delay a huge blessing in my life.  Per (my old) usual, I strongheadedly forged ahead anyway.  Never a good idea.  I believe my tough time in this city was the price I paid.

So that painful journey wasn’t God’s “Plan A” for me?  Nope–I really don’t think so.  He graciously walked me through it, true to His word, but it wasn’t without severe repercussions.  I don’t recommend taking your own road for this reason :)  But sometimes our stubborn wills won’t learn any other way.

Atlanta turned out to be exactly that: a detour keeping me focused on the wrong dream, and taking me away from the right man and the right city–Plan A.

I’m so thankful to say that towards the end of my Atlanta experience, God rapidly brought the puzzle pieces of my life together for marriage and relocation to Austin, TX.

Oh Lord, thank You for speaking to me there.  Thank You for encouraging me ahead of time, letting me know You’d walk through the waters with me and not let the fire set me ablaze.  You are so kind and merciful to tell us what we need to hear before we walk through it!!  Even if we don’t recognize You in our midst, thank You for being there anyway.   

So now, ‘without further adieu’, here’s the message I needed to hear so desperately last year–the central message of this Plan B book I’d heard about.  I only wish I’d read this then!

Have you ever felt like you stepped out on faith and smashed it to pieces?

Maybe you honestly felt like God was calling you to do something or go somewhere, but once you did it everything seemed to begin to fall apart. Now you’re trying to pick up the pieces and get your life back on track, while wondering how you could have felt so sure about something that ended up being so wrong.

They say every cloud has a silver lining, but does it ever feel like the silver linings of all the clouds are tarnished?

You are desperately searching for a ray of hope in the midst of the storm that is your life, but it seems like every time you see a light shining down from the clouds, it turns out to be a bolt of lightning that knocks you back down. You know that storms are inevitable and rain is necessary if fruit is to be produced, but you are wondering if the storm is ever going to end.

Do you ever feel like you are asleep and can’t wake up?

You are drifting in and out of consciousness, knowing that you need to wake up and get going because there is so much more to life than where you are at and what you have done, but you can’t figure out how to snap out of the funk and get things moving in the right direction. You know that for things to get better, you have to stand up and get moving, but it would be so much easier to pull the covers up over your head, shut out the rest of the world, and let yourself fall into a deep sleep.

“What do you do when God doesn’t show up the way you thought He would?”
“What do you do when your life isn’t turning out the way you thought it would? “
“What do you do when your dreams are shattered? “

Pete Wilson is pastor of Cross Point Church in the Nashville, TN area and he addresses these three questions, among others, in Plan B: What Do You Do When God Doesn’t Show Up The Way You Thought He Would.

Have you ever read a book that seemed like the whole purpose of it being written was so that you could read it at the exact time and situation you are in? This was that book for me. At a time when I was feeling beat down, hopeless, and searching for answers, this book was a God-send. Literally. As I was reading it, I felt like God was using the words of Pete Wilson to communicate a message of hope and comfort at the time I needed it most.

Thank you, Pete Wilson, for writing this book and for your willingness to allow God to speak through you.  Find out more about the book: planbbook.com.

And now, my earnest question for you: Have you ever lived Plan B?  What did you learn thru this experience?

Breakdown to Breakthrough: Joseph’s Story

This is one of the best posts I’ve read in a long time–about biblical Joseph’s breakthrough in Egypt.  Very well-written, great insight!  Read read read!  :)

xoxox Summer

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Breakdown to Breakthrough to Breakout
Mary DeMuth

It’s an interesting pattern we find in Scripture. First folks break down, then God breaks through. This leads to breakout. Look at Joseph. His breakdown happened slowly (but painfully) over many years as he suffered rejection by his brothers, was sold into slavery, framed by Mrs. Potiphar, and landed in jail. His breakthrough came when he learned to be obedient to God when no one was watching, when he entrusted his reputation to God. Only then did Pharah nab him and begged for dream interpretation. The breakout happened when Pharaoh promoted him in an instant, and Joseph was able to save the very family that rejected him.

Breakdown.

Breakthrough.

Breakout.

I’m in the breakdown phase right now. How about you? I’m the fishermen on Galilee, trusting far too much in my empty, unsatisfying nets. Nothing seems to be working. I place my nets over the edge of my boat’s precipice, hoping, hoping, hoping.

But something my friend Mike said in a prayer group sticks to me now. He said, “The disciples followed Jesus at the pinnacle of their livelihood.”

The disciples did have breakdown, then breakthrough when Jesus filled their nets with the biggest catch of their ENTIRE LIVES. Then He asked them to follow Him. They could’ve stayed. But they didn’t. They followed Jesus. And then the breakout, in terms of the kingdom of God and changed lives, exploded.

I wonder what would happen if I found success in this writing gig if I’d be willing to drop it all and follow Jesus no matter what. I’d like to say that I would, but I’m not sure. I’ve been working so hard at this for so long. The sweet reward of success is intoxicating. I pray I’ll be able to leave it all, if He asks.

You may be wondering why I have this particular picture on my post. It’s the church I walked by every day bringing my kids to school in France. In that moment, as my career was in its infancy, God asked me to follow Him to France. And I did (oh by His strength). So, perhaps it’s in my DNA to drop my nets. I pray so.

I want to follow.

q4u:

What about you? Where are you? Breakdown? Breakthrough? Breakout? Share your story.

Leading to Love or Be Loved?

“If you wanna lead the orchestra, you gotta turn your back to the crowd.”

I’m a big fan of Pete Wilson.

He pastors Cross Point Church in Nashville.  He wrote a great post Friday titled “My Biggest Mistake in Ministry”.  O Lord is this ever one I need to keep in perspective!  Mind you, I’m no senior-pastor-of-a-megachurch (nor do I have such aspirations)… but I do believe God has given me a heart to help and serve people, build relationships and encourage community wherever He places me.

I want to remember his words.  I bet you will, too.

Leading with a desire to be loved is dangerous.  Parenting with a desire to be loved can be destructive.  And if you spend your life trying to be loved instead of being loving,it’s going  to lead you to all kinds of unhealthy extremes.

Part of learning humility for me is to understand I simply can’t  please everyone.  Not everyone is going to like me, love me, or think I’m great.  They’re just not.

I feel like I’m growing in this area.  I’m learning the freedom that comes along with seeking to love, instead of always desiring to be loved.  The first leads to meaning and significance while the latter is an emotional black hole that can never be filled.

I pray you will learn to live in the Kingdom and be freed from the  sheer stupidity and vanity of going through life trying to make sure other people think the right things about you.  If you depend on other people loving everything you say or do, you will end up doing and saying nothing.  I pray you’ll receive the  fact that you are loved in the eyes of God in such a way that you can then go out to lead and live, seeking to truly love the people around you.

Wow, can I relate.  Can you?

My struggle with wanting people’s approval came in utero!  I love people. I’ve always gravitated towards them and certainly basked in their good graces.

Five years ago, God shone a spotlight on me in this area.  He revealed that people were my idol.  Ouch!  But I sheepishly agreed.

He didn’t stop there.  He prepared me, whispering to my heart: This is gonna be a season with just you and Me.  And then months later He spoke the following: You’re about to go through something very painful. 

Uh oh.  God had never spoken that to my heart before.

He knows I’m wired to put people first, even above my needs (not as holy as it sounds haha), and He knew I didn’t have the strength to dethrone the place people occupied in my heart.  His place.

So He did it for me.

Systematically, He removed person after person from my life.  Within a span of months, 7 or 8 girl friends stopped talking to me for no apparent reason.  Individually.

Okay, no big deal.  There are always guys right?

Yeah, no.  I had guy friends, but they don’t get us like ladies do (this is good).  Add to that family misunderstandings, and you have a people-pleaser’s full-blown identity crisis!

That season in my life hurt, a ton.  I tried connecting with new people, but for the first time it didn’t work!  Small groups fell flat.  Revisiting old places with old friends proved short and bittersweet.  Relationships were suddenly hit-or-miss.  It was the strangest experience.  It was like I was wearing an invisible cloak — like Hosea’s wife when God hemmed her in with thorns so she had no other choice but to seek Him (a beautiful story–take a moment to read!).

God “hemmed me in” by allowing crises in every area of my life.  Yes, aloneness was a major crisis, but the series of events that followed magnified my aloneness.  Being alone can be stressful.  Being alone while going through the ringer is another story.  I wonder if anyone reading this can relate.

It started with shin splints–that hung on over 2 years.  An avid runner, exercise was my release, the way I dealt with stress/anxiety, the pressure of ‘not measuring up’, and persistent body image issues (essentially everything our culture says a woman can ‘hang her hat on’).  Without this to lean on, my confidence crumbled overnight (some crutch huh?).

Then the pressure to perform my job became over-the-top.  I so wanted to prove my “fresh outta college” self.  About this same time I started having ‘night terrors’ that lasted a few years, allowing just 2-3 hours of precious sleep and PANIC the rest of the night, while having to perform at work the next day.

This set me up for burnout.  My health deteriorated, ushering in extreme fatigue, minimal energy to accomplish my daily work, and little emotional/mental capacity to handle life’s stresses.  Dating disappointments and a few heartaches were no help.

My Type-A, people-pleasing self was in overdrive… but I could no longer perform.  In my eyes (and theirs), I became a failure.

I lived with family then, another personal failure to me (at the time) because I wasn’t “making it on my own”.  Financial obligations forced me to live there and deal with family challenges.  Issues I’d never noticed came tumbling out of my family’s closet, issues I had to deal with.  I tried so hard to connect with my family, but they didn’t ‘get’ me (I didn’t ‘get’ me!).  This last crisis took a tremendous toll on me.  I felt utterly alone and misunderstood.

In short, I went through the refiner’s fire.  It was good for me, I see now, but at the time it felt like all hell broke loose in my life.

So I dove into Him.  I began reading Scripture every day (following a friend’s example!), and attending home churches and worship meetings zealously.  I was desperate for hope and God’s nearness.

When you don’t have people’s approval for years in a row, you learn to lean on something else.  I’m very thankful God helped me choose Him.  He’d been on the backburner (or not even in the kitchen!) for most of my life.  It was time.

That season taught me big lessons.  It took a five-year period of time for God to remove people as my focus and for me to give Him rightful place in my heart!  I am thankful I walked that journey with God and realized He is my sufficiency and all I need.  I’m so glad He showed me how fickle people and their affections can be and that they make a crappy leg to stand on.

Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in Him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.

-Jeremiah 17

He wanted me to learn that people can never fill me, that I can’t live for them.  I can live to love others, but not at the expense of my love for my Father.   People will never sustain me–no–and I can never truly love them when I’m seeking a handout from them: their approval.

Now He’s bringing loving people back into my life, and I’m appreciating them in a new way: devoid of my need to be significant in their eyes, and instead replaced with a pure need for godly fellowship.  Without losing myself.  Without co-dependent, unhealthy, enmeshed relationships.

I’m free to be healthy and whole, and to bring God’s love with me.  I am free to help people in ways they need most–because I don’t need to be liked by them anymore.

Have I conquered this battle?  I’ve learned it’s unwise to say “I’ll never…”.  Instead, I can say with confidence that I’ve learned a valuable lesson, one I’ll take with me into each new season.  Lives will be richer because I’ve learned this lesson now.  As God calls me into leadership, He continues to check my motives and ask Are you leading to love?  Or be loved? 

Should I stumble in this area, I believe the fall won’t be nearly as painful than had I never learned to live with only God’s approval!

Have you struggled with pleasing people instead of God?  How have you overcome it?

Life in CommUNITY :)

These last two weeks, I’ve been thinking continuously about living in community.

My husband and I are blessed to live on 300 acres in central Texas.  It’s a beautiful ranch with cows, thousands of oak and cedar trees, fruit & pecan trees, and God’s peaceful creation.

The issue is: nature walls us in!  There’s not a person in sight, for over a mile.

Please understand–I love the ranch and relish the simple life.  It’s just that I value people more.  I L-O-V-E my bi-weekly runs with a nearby church lady, just 10 minutes away!  I jump at the chance for impromptu meetings with the girls or dinners out with my husband and friends.

Should we be surprised?  Community is vital! 

The issue is — in our ‘Commuter Culture’ — people rely heavily on personal vehicles to get from A to B.  But when you don’t live near others, you’re much less likely to interact with them regularly.  Consider this recent blog blurb written by Pastor Randy Frazee (Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, TX):

We were all designed by God for community. We all need support and to offer support to our fellow man. The farmer learned this wise principle from Proverbs 27:10,

“…better a neighbor nearby, than a brother far away.”

It is okay to own a large plot of God’s beautiful land, just don’t isolate yourself from the community you need to live. It is okay to take a break from humanity for a few weeks at a time, just don’t make it a way of life. When your “heart attack” strikes, make sure you have positioned yourself to survive it.

So convicting!

For much of my life, I’ve lived a solid 30 minutes from family and good friends.  The distance is taxing.  Every outing is an all-day affair, structuring your calendar around it.  With each added hindrance, cutting out social meetings altogether becomes much easier to do.  After all, we have to ‘get our stuff done’ more than chit-chatting with friends!

Or do we?

Community is built on proximity and can’t happen tens of miles apart.  The physical distance changes everything.  Yes, we’re in the age of Skype, free nationwide calls, and of course the ever-expanding social media.  But how social can it truly be if we haven’t seen friends for weeks because we’re so tech-tied?

In my life, this must change.

Nothing can replace seeing your girlfriend’s new ring over coffee — especially not clicking through pics on Facebook!  Hearing her tell her engagement story start-to-finish, seeing every excited facial expression, and bonding over life-changing moments like these… these moments are priceless.  Nothing will ever replace face-to-face.  We need to treat them like the treasures they are, but this involves getting off the computer, the Droid, or the iPad.

At work, reach across desks.  Shake hands in person.

After church, enjoy lunch with new friends or share a poolside barbecue together.

In your family life, unplug (!) the PC, TV, DVR, PS3 — all those acronyms — and have conversations.  Enjoy dinner together, nightly, no distractions allowed!  Do your best to sync your family’s schedules so this is a priority.  Most importantly: let each family member know why.  Tell them it’s because relationships always trump activities. 

Even better?  Enjoy activities with other people.  If you have a special hobby, recruit others to join you or devote time to teaching them about it.  You never know what could happen from there.  Organize a running club in your neighborhood.  Start a Bible study, or learn about a shared interest together!  Build a car with the mechanically-inclined gentleman down the road (if you’re single and he’s cute, hello bonus!).  Learning together equals more fun, more retention, and more discovery potential than learning alone (or through Wikipedia).

It’s not simply “nice” to live in community, it’s essential.  You’ll live longer.  You’ll experience better health.  You’ll be happier.  You’ll have support in tough times, and extra hands to help during crises.

The Word says that together, we can defeat strongholds and struggles (“Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed”).

How will the world see God on earth?  Not with their eyes, but through us: “By this they will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another”!  If they don’t see us together, how can they witness our love for each other?

And the coolest story of all–When did the largest recorded biblical conversions take place?  In the book of Acts, when Peter and the gang and their followers were in one accord, breaking bread together, enjoying daily fellowship, learning alongside each other, sharing their belongings with whoever had need among them!  CAN YOU IMAGINE?  Everyone wants to join such a crowd.

That is God’s picture of true community.  Does yours look like this–and does mine?  Which “Level of Community” are you on?:

So…

What can you and I do today to open lines of communication with our neighbors? 

What step can we take NOW to encourage true community around us?

I believe my husband and I need to move, soon, to a neighborhood–a place I can reach-out-and-touch people, invite them over, share daily stories and situations with them.  This decision has everything to do with giving people more access to our lives!  I am soo excited — thrilled even — at the prospect!  Living together is what our lives were designed for.

What have I missed all these years because I haven’t been in community?  I’ve decided I’m not waiting to find out and watch another year pass by, full of missed opportunities with people.

Let’s do this community thing.  Together.

Lessons from the Other Side

Hey Younger Self,

I know you won’t get this in time.  That’s too bad.  It would’ve saved you tremendously, and how I wish that for you!

I’ve learned a TREASURED nugget of wisdom along this journey tens years down the road, one that has the power to change your life.  Indeed, it will change yours, radically.  But you’ll learn these lessons through experience, and as they say — experience is a cruel (but effective!) teacher.

Oh precious, stubborn girl.

Sit still, but for a moment.  There’s something you need to learn.  Breathe deep.  Here goes.

The truth will set you free! 

Profound huh?

O, not what you were expecting?  It seems trite, minor, not worth your time?  I know.  I remember that fiesty know-it-all attitude you’re carrying with you.  It’s part of your spunk, your charm.  But it doesn’t always serve you well.

You’ll soon learn that the time you failed to invest in this nugget of advice would’ve saved you years of backtracking in the wilderness of life.  Years of stumbling in the darkness, in the mess you (halfway) created.

The truth will set you free.  No – not YOUR version of the truth (wouldn’t that be nice?!), but one universal truth system that, when you begin to employ it, will result in the best imaginable outcome for your life.

So why are you running from it, headlong in the opposite direction?  Because you’re convinced that these fairytales you cling to hold the key to your destiny.  But that, my young friend, is a lie! 

There’s a great quote you haven’t yet heard.  It says, Ignoring the rules doesn’t change the rules.

Life has rules, laws of nature and laws of a higher dimension.  You’ve broken many; you don’t need me to tell you this.  The thing with rules is, there are two sides: the “benefits” when you follow them.  And the fallout when you rebel.

You’ll choose poorly.

Deep-down you know that only one truth can exist at any given time.  Gravity can’t simultaneously govern the earth and yet not.  It either does or it doesn’t — and your recent bridge jumping adventures convince you to respect this rule.

Likewise, you can’t illegally ‘borrow’ a parking space, then rant and rave to a policeman when your car’s burglarized that very night (which, you’ll soon discover, is a trick you’ll pull!).  The truth is that theft is always wrong.  You don’t get a free pass to supercede this law whenever it benefits you.  You’ll agree with me when this hits close to home.

Luckily you don’t get caught for illegal parking (or underage drinking, driving WHILE drinking, or your other soon-to-be antics).  You’ll ‘get away with it’, or so you think.  You have much to learn.  I so wish you’d heed this letter, written in your own handwriting.  Are you that full of youthful arrogance that you believe you have nothing to learn from others… even yourself, and those who have gone before you?

Consequences ensue when you ignore hard-and-fast rules!  I know you ‘know’ that, but do you believe it?  Because you act as if laws are suspended for you.  Sweet girl, whether you wanna swallow this pill or not, the fact is that Truth will hunt you down and haunt you til you acknowledge it.  The more you run, the faster it pursues.  It breathes down your neck.  You’ll learn this lesson in the hardest way.  It will, indeed, cost you five years of your peace and well-being as you elude reality, chasing fantasies.

I’m not painting a pretty picture, I know.  But you need to grasp this sooner than later — that there’s no such thing as ‘getting away with it’. 

For many years now, you’ve wanted to live life your way.  You didn’t want an invisible Higher Being dictating the rules.  So you called the shots.  Yes, you’ve broken many rules, and up until this point they haven’t amounted to more than a slap on the wrist :)  Sure, you were grounded a third of your junior year.  True, he broke your heart.  And yes, you got sick those nights after drinking too much.

Here’s what you can’t see yet, Miss Sweet Eighteen.  You think your choices will bring you freedom … peace … happiness!  You still believe that taking whatever you want and bucking all the rules (or the ones that stirred your curiosity) will satisfy you.

Well, I have good news and bad news.

You are finding happiness.  Euphoria!  You’ve ‘escaped’ home and all those oppressive rules and are doing whatever you want!  No one, no authority, no parent, no religion can blow the whistle and rain on your parade.  You’re living carefree and riding the ride of life.  You’re partying, dating (a lot!), staying up all night with friends, frat guys and sorority girls.  You’ve met tons of people and dabbled in various things.  You’re having FUN!

This life has everything you think you need.  You’re calling the shots.  ‘You’ are in control.  Yes, sweet freedom!

Or so you think.  But you’ve been duped, dear girl.  They’re gonna make a fool outta you, and you’ll let them.

Here’s what you can’t see yet.

Not too far into this joyride, life will feel funny.  You’ll become disoriented.  You’ll lose yourself, the confident girl who believed in herself and rose above challenges.

Your fun-loving life and poor decisions will catch up with you.  Deep-down you’ve known they would eventually, you just didn’t realize how soon.  Nor to what extent.  You don’t wanna believe what others have told you will happen.

You’ve been reckless — with your life and others’.  You’ve been irresponsible — with your body and theirs.  You’ve broken hearts, yours and his.

And girl, I have to let you know this.  You’ll pay for it.  Oh man will you pay.

Is it worth it?

I can’t describe to you the unraveling of the “FUN LIFE” — living for friends, guys, laughs, and a good time.  You don’t yet understand cynics, pessimists, or naysayers.  In your eyes, they clearly need to lighten up, see more of the world, taste what you’ve tasted (the good life!), and mingle with who you’ve mingled with.  It’s not long now, young girl, til you’ll understand all-too-well the bitter taste they have in their mouths.

Jake English – your future pastor, who’ll encourage you as you’re leaving your destructive lifestyle – will say the most memorable quote one night, one you won’t forget a decade later: Sin will take you further than you wanna go, cost you more than you wanna pay, and keep you longer than you wanna stay. 

How true his words will prove in your life.

I wish you wouldn’t walk the path you’ll travel.  But I know your stubborn human nature wants to ‘taste and see it all!’  You don’t take anyone’s word for it.  Who are we kidding?

YOU HAVE TO LEARN THE HARD WAY.  You’ll have plenty of warnings, believe me.  But I wonder – if Curiosity kills cats (with nine lives!) – how could you so easily believe it wouldn’t kill you, too?  Why can’t you walk away before the pain catches up with you?

You don’t believe that the world will chew you up and spit you out.  You’ll learn once it’s too late.  Until then, you’ll freely deceive and manipulate your way to getting what you want.  But your shadyness will catch up with you — more quickly than you can imagine.

Rule #1: Truth Always Wins.  Every time.  So stay on the side of truth, will you?

Don’t buy the lie that you somehow trump the rules, that they don’t apply to you.  The only thing that stands the test of time is Truth — reality — no matter how hard you fight and beat and rail against it.

Seek the truth, not your own way of living life.  It will guard everything you treasure in the sweetest ways!  It will save you years of darkness and brokenness.

But I know you too well, girl.  You won’t, not til you come undone.

So when your life shatters before your eyes, know that your foolishness won’t kill you but it will cost you — immeasurably.  You’ll eventually grow stronger for what you experience.  And when you’ve learned your lesson, do this: Warn those teetering on the edge of the cliff you’re going over.  Tell them what you’ve learned, that truth is their best friend.  Tell them to cling to it as if their life depends on it.

Because it does.

xoxox Summer

The Grace to be Humble

I’m learning a lot about humility, and it’s been a wonderful experience lately (when you aren’t fighting the lessons He’s trying to teach you!).  Humility is a beautiful and very freeing way to look at the world – once you embrace it.  It’s the only true way to see the world around us because humility gives us eyes to see reality.

In Lisa Guest’s book “100 Favorite Bible Verses”, she defines what true humility is.  I hope you enjoy this excerpt:

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

-1 Peter 5

Godly humility brings freedom, hope, and a greater awareness of the Almighty’s very real love.

The word humility can bring to mind such negative associations as the unhealthy choice to be a doormat for others or the “I don’t care, whatever you want is fine with me” person.  But none of that is biblical, godly, or Christlike humility … Jesus’ choice of humility meant submitting to God’s authority and the eternal plan that involved …

Jesus’ willingness to submit to God’s plan–”Thy will be done”–is an example to us.  As Paula Rinehart says, “To humble yourself is to surrender to the authority of God in your life.  ‘Okay, Lord, I give in.  I take my place as Your well-loved child.  You know what is best for me.’  There is something enormously freeing about a humility that recognizes and surrenders to God . . . As I rest under the mighty hand of God, I let Him carry the weight of my life.  My hope is planted in the reality that He cares for me–pure and simple.”

Simple to understand, but not easy to live out.  Yet, God Himself will enable you to humble yourself under His authority and then to experience the freedom that comes with surrendering to Him.

Lord God… my humility can help my faith in You grow.  Show me, I ask, the way of humility and enable me to walk that path–by Your grace and according to Your kingdom plan.