100% God.

Every morning for the last few weeks, (except Tuesdays, which I have claimed as a personal "Sabbath") I go to LifePoint for a 4-hour class (MTS: Missions Training School) which covers topics ranging from personality types, conflict resolution, theology, the purpose of missions, worship, Old and New Testament surveys, and prayer to spiritual warfare. Yes, all that, and then some, crammed into two weeks (with four more to go!). My head and heart have been in overload trying to process, internalize and apply the flood of new information... as Pastor David prayed for us last week, God has been "sharpening my mind and softening my heart."

This morning in my quiet time at MTS, I read Acts 12. The two headers are: "Peter's Miraculous Escape From Prison" and "Herod's Death."

Here are the cliff notes:

Peter is in jail for preaching the Gospel... and Herod's planning to have him killed. The church is praying for him. An angel appears in the prison, wakes Peter up, frees him, and escorts him out of the prison to safety. Peter's response is, "Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent His angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating." He then goes to Mary's house and his friends are (understandably) shocked to see him. Peter then described "how the Lord had brought him out of prison." 

Crazy story, right? Here Peter is in shackles, with no ability to free himself, help himself, or do anything... and God rescues him! God sends the angel. God releases his shackles. God (through His angel) leads him out of prison and into safety. All God. And when Peter is released, he has one response: tell people what God did. 

Then there's part two. Herod is delivering a public address to the people and they begin to murmur that, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man." And, instead of giving credit and glory to God (where it was do... because God created Herod with his speaking gifts and abilities), Herod is silent. And, "immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms and died."

What the heck. That is a terrifying mental image. And also a great juxtaposition of two men. One who understood that when God does the work, He gets the glory and one who... didn't.

Through that passage, God reminded me of this:

I was in bondage to sin. I was bound with no hope of escape or release. My verdict had been declared, and it was death. There was nothing to be done, nothing I could do, and nothing the ones I loved could do for me. But God made a way. He sent His Son, to live, die and be resurrected... not because I'm awesome and deserve to be saved, but because through rescuing me from sin, the Father would be glorified. My salvation was a wonderful side effect of Christ's mission: to make much of His Father.

[At the Klong Toey slums. Photo Credit: Brandon Tomlin]

And so I was freed from my shackles and from slavery to sin, and given a new life, new hope and grafted into the family of God. Then, though the Holy Spirit, God gave me the ability to understand the Scriptures. He gave me the knowledge and wisdom I needed to grow in the process of sanctification. He was the One who instructed my heart with the Truth. Then, He gave me a mission to share with others about His greatness, His grace, and His desire for reconciliation... with the end result being: Him creating more worshippers of Himself. He sent me out with His words, to share with people that He made, whose hearts He has been preparing to receive His message. Then, I share His Word with them, and as He promises, it does not return void. He convicts them, instructs them, and woos them to Himself. Then, as they admit their sin and repent and confess Him as Lord... He saves them. Oh, and those spiritual gifts that I'm able to use to build up and encourage my church? God gave them to me. And my talents? Yup, got those from God too. Do you see in this story what I can take credit for? Absolutely nothing. He has done everything.

Doug often mentions that being a pastor is "humiliating" because the words he speaks are not his own, and the work those words do in the lives of people are not his work. At the end of the day, he can take credit for nothing... He can only thank God that he was used, and praise God that He was faithful in pursuing and convicting and redeeming the hearts of His people.

I think it's not just pastors, though, it's all believers. We cannot take credit for anything, because God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, has accomplished it all already! When I get to share with someone about the Gospel... it's not, "Yay me! I had an opportunity to share, and maybe I helped convince them to accept Christ!" Instead, it's, "Wow. God loves this person so much that He put me in their path and gave me the opportunity to share the truth about our Creator with one of His creation.*" My response to sharing the Gospel stops being me patting myself on the back, and instead becomes yet another opportunity and reason to worship God.

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* Loosely quoted from Pastor David

where i want to be.

I want to get more comfortable being uncomfortable. I want to get more confident being uncertain. I don't want to shrink back just because something isn't easy. I want to push back, and make more room in the area between I can't and I can. Maybe that spot is called I will.  -Kristin Armstrong

Except, I would change the ending to read, "Maybe that spot is called faith." Because the last four weeks has shown me, that despite all that God has taught me in the last year, I still feel uncomfortable with a lot of things. I still feel very uncertain about "my future" and "the direction of my life" and "God's specific vocational calling" for me... I still tend to shrink back from hard things (perhaps less than I used to, but I still prefer to shrink...) There are still a plethora of things that intimidate and scare me... as well as countless areas of my life where God is flashing his pruning shears.

And that's okay. That's where faith grows. Faith grows in the rub between where we are and where God wants us. Between how we are and who we were created to be. The fact that I can't answer the most frequently asked question since I returned ("What are you going to do when you return in December?") freaks me out.

This past Sunday at our college big group, Pastor Doug stated that, "When facing trials in this life we must not avoid the sanctification God wants to bring through them." And I'd just like to chime in and add that waiting is a trial. (In the words of The Karate Kid, "Being still and doing nothing are two very different things.") As much as waiting on the Lord and learning to hear His voice through the chaos and distraction of life is a discipline, it is also a huge trial... waiting is a test. A test of our faithfulness in face of the unknown... to see if we will be steadfast: "loyal under stress" (definition Doug's).

There are dozens of unknowns in my life right now... big unknowns. Scary unknowns. And to look at them daily and dwell on them would send me cowering under my covers catatonic. So instead of that (because really, that's no viable option at all), I am trying to remind myself of the truth. And my Dad, being the good Dad that He is, gave me this timely reminder in small group from James 1:

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

These verses don't say that I should pray to be mature and complete and then whine when it's time to pay the piper (with the price tag reading: trials)... but rather, that I should consider it pure joy because the waiting and the faithing is producing something of value in my life: maturity and completeness. I'm not completely there yet, but it is where I want to be moving towards.

growth.

Everyone told me before I came to Thailand that being here would change me, but slow growth sometimes feels hard to mark, doesn't it? When I was training for the Half-Marathon, every long run felt like the hardest run... ever. I would run 5 miles and think "That's it. That's my max. Can't go further." But then the next week I would run 6. And then 7. And I'd think the same thing, that I'd reached my limit. But the more that I pushed, the more I was able to stretch myself. I think that faith is like that.

God asks us to step out in faith, and if we choose to be obedient, it stretches us. Our obedience often feels like we're maxing our faith out. Like, "Okay, God, I did that for you. But that's it. I can't go any further than that." But then the next time, that same act of obedience becomes a little easier, and we are able to do something that requires a little more faith.

If we don't stop to look back, it would be easy to become discouraged. After all, every act of faith feels just as stretching and just as difficult as the one before. But when we look back we see that 5 miles doesn't wind us anymore. That 8 miles has become refreshing instead of making us feel like death-warmed-over. He stretches us in our faith so that we will have a greater capacity for faith.

So, this post is about me looking back. Because as much as being here is about giving/putting-out for others, it has also been a time for the Lord to teach me, both in spiritual and practical ways. I wanted to share a few of those things with you for your encouragement and also for your continued prayer for these areas of my life.

Being in Thailand…

…Is allowing me space to grow.  Maybe it has more to do with the fact that I’m alone in an unfamiliar place, but it has forced me to confront a lot of ugly places in my heart. How often do I put off heart-checks because I am distracted? Ummm… yeah.

…Is keeping me an active learner. I didn’t learn a lot of things growing up because there were always more capable people around to do them for me (shout-out to my parents, who can do pretty much everything, excellently). Of course, that’s an immature way to approach life, but it’s hard to intrinsically motivate yourself to do/learn hard things. Let’s blame it on human nature. But here, no one is doing anything for me. If something needs to be done, there is no “honey-do” list. There is only a “Liz to-do list.” This both wears me down and excites me. Some days it's fun to learn things and slop my way through new experiences, but after a while, it does get wearisome. Perhaps because we weren’t designed to live our lives alone... Regardless, I am very much looking forward to the day when I can hand over the paintbrush, caulk and pliers. :)

…Is helping me learn wisdom, boundaries and balance in relationships. This, of course, is something people learn all the time, but Thailand is so relationally oriented I feel like I'm getting a lot of practice!  I'm always confronting heart questions like: How do I respond to criticism? How swiftly do I forgive? Am I a grudge-holder? Am I disciplined in dying to self? Do I seek ways to serve others? Do I give without expectations of repayment? Living in community quickly reveals these answers. I’m thankful that God has given me relationships where I can practice extending and receiving grace from others, and opportunities to see it modeled biblically.

…Is teaching me discipline. There’s no one to tell me what to do, remind me, or follow up. There’s only me. It’s so easy to blame people, circumstances, finances, etc. for a million and one things… but being single and abroad has stripped away a lot of those excuses. This is how it feels: If I don’t cook, no one cares. If I don’t exercise, no one cares. If I don’t clean, no one cares. If I don’t do my laundry, no one cares. There is a lot of freedom in that, being able to do what I want. But the reality is, as Dodson put it in Gospel-Centered Discipleship, "God's forgiveness frees us from judgement, not from obedience." I am accountable for my freedom; I am responsible for the trajectory and management of the life that God's given me. And the pressure of that is much greater than simply trying to meet the expectations of man. The questions that have surfaced for me are twofold: What kind of person do I want to be? And what kind of person has God made me to be? And the answer to those questions force me to confront the frequent incongruities with what I say I want and my actual choices.

There’s still much I don’t know and a lot more growing to do… And honestly, it's a constant battle to be still stop striving and to let God do the working and the growing in me. But I am thankful for friends, family, a church and small group who challenge and push me to keep reflecting on Christ and the cross. 

Disqualified

Why is it that so many of us struggle to share our testimony/faith/the Gospel?

One thing I consistently hear people say is that they don't feel qualified to share the Gospel. And usually this is not meant in a "I'm not educated enough" sort of context. Rather, we allow previous sin or personal insecurities to "disqualify" us from being vocal about our faith. (I use " " marks, because I do not actually believe that the privilege to share the Gospel is earned and it, therefore, cannot be disqualified)

However, while reading through Exodus, I noticed two very interesting parallels between Moses' life and our own (ref: Exodus 4).

(1) After being told his upcoming mission, Moses tells God, "O LORD, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." To which God replies, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." This however, is not enough for Moses. He is so human here. So identifiable.  "But Moses said, 'O LORD, please send someone else to do it.'"

Maybe he had trouble articulating the things he wanted to say. Maybe when he was put on the spot he faltered. Stuttered. Sounded silly. Maybe he felt awkward, insecure and inadequate. We've all been there, right?

(2) Then there was this little blurb between the burning bush and Moses' trek to Egypt:

At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the LORD let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.) -Ex. 4:24-26

And then it picks up with Aaron meeting Moses like nothing happened the night before. Isn't that strange? It was an odd read at face value even without going into all the things the footnotes said... But here's what I gathered as being the bottom line:

Moses sinned.

Moses was supposed to circumcise his son (per Gen 17:9-14), and for whatever reason, he was disobedient and didn't.

And this is the man God used as His mouthpiece to Egypt-- the awkward, self-conscious, sinful Moses. Who, also, by the way, was a murderer. This man was sent back to the place (and people) of his greatest failure to announce the onset of their greatest deliverance. God did not disqualify him because of his sin and insecurities, He used him.

I don't think I'll ever fully understand why God loves using broken things so much. Why He delights in those that society overlooks. Why He not only uses the lowly things, and the weak things, and the things which are not... but also, years later, would choose to enter His creation as one of these things.

So, next time you feel insecure and weak and like a sinner... good. You are one. Salvation never depended on our effort or quality, neither does the process of our sanctification. Tullian states that:

"If God has saved you—if he’s given you the faith to believe, and you’re now a Christian; if you’ve transferred trust from your own accomplishments and abilities to Christ’s accomplishment on behalf of sinners—then here’s the good news. In the phraseology of Colossians 1, it’s simply this: You’ve already been qualified, you’ve already been delivered, you’ve already been transferred, you’ve already been redeemed, you’ve already been forgiven.

The everything we need and long for, Paul says, we already possess if we are in Christ. He has already sweepingly secured all that our hearts deeply crave."

Praise God that He uses broken people as His vessels to take the Good News to the world. Don't disqualify yourself from receiving the blessing of being a part of His plan.

1 Cor 1:26-31

"Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.'"