community.

We really can't do this alone.

We can't walk through this life thinking we are okay in our self-sufficiency.

Yes, as a believer we need Christ in every step along the way, whether we choose to call up on the gift of the Holy Spirit or not, but let's take this on a little bit of a different route. Community with other believers, through Christ, is a deep longing and necessity felt by even the most secluded and alienated of us Christians. Even our brothers and sisters that would consider themselves more on the "loner" end of the social spectrum need the occasional reassurance and physical outpouring of Christ's love that can only be brought on by someone who has themselves felt it.

I'm currently reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Life Together". I went in looking for "Cost of Discipleship", and when I couldn't find it I asked the guy at the desk for help. I was slightly annoyed that not only did they not have the book, but that the cashier had never heard the name Bonhoeffer before [and to you guys reading this thinking "I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to pronounce that word for the last five minutes, much less do I know who he is…", I urge you to get out and change that. He lived an incredibly rich life for the sake of the gospel and his writings will move you]. Anyways, after spelling his name for the guy about 5 times, this sweet old man in Carhartt overalls and a John Deere hat [thank you God for Tennessee] walks up to me with "Life Together" in his hand and says "I think this is what you were looking for…and if it wasn't, then let it be" and then winked. God bless him he was cute and I have not stopped being thankful for his recommendation.

"It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians." -Bonhoeffer

How often do we look upon the GIFT of Christian community and fellowship as our right as a believer rather than a privilege of knowing Christ? Especially those of us who call the "Bible Belt" home…we're surrounded. I have a hard time reading long quotes sometimes, especially ones that are typed out in blogs, so I skip ahead and wait for the blogger to elaborate…but I urge you to really read the quotes that come below. He says it so perfectly and eloquently that me trying to put it in my own simple words will do nothing but take some of the richness out…so here goes…

"So between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God's Word and sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible fellowship is a blessing…But they remain alone in far countries, a scattered seed according to God's will. Yet what is denied them as an actual experience they seize upon more fervently in faith."

Jesus had his disciples...Paul had Timothy…and this was during a time where the early church was being built and its followers were scattered; not able to have a weekly meeting ground, a congregation, a Facebook group dedicated to prayer requests of a group of believers. Any interaction with a brother or sister whether that be a letter from across the known world, a brief prayer in passing, or actual visit was of greatest comfort to those who were scattered for the sake of the Gospel…

"But if there is so much blessing and joy even in a single encounter of brother with brother, how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God's will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship of life with other Christians!"

"The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer."

I have been undeniably blessed, especially in my college years, with the community that surrounds me. While in college for my first degree, the community that I was a part of was without a doubt, an anomaly. I was a girl who went from maybe having one friend that I considered even slightly trustworthy in high school to a girl in the middle of something special. Something that only made sense because of Christ. There were about twenty of us who held tight to the foundation of love that bound us all…we all had our seasons of doubt, rebellion, loneliness, and misunderstandings, but no matter what happened we knew we had each other. We knew that we were bound together by something much bigger than we could understand. We loved each other…and still do. There are some of us that should have never been friends by the world's standards. Such different backgrounds, upbringings, views on theology and the world, and desires, but we shared a common love of Christ and a common need to see it played out among believers. Still even now we talk about how we love the fact that we can be separated by states, countries, and years and our reunions feel like we are never out of each other's presence. It's seriously beautiful.

The only common ground we need with other believers is Jesus Himself. Not sports teams, not music, not anything other than the fact that we both know the redeeming nature that Christ's love provides. Wanting and desiring this fellowship doesn't show you as weak, needy, or even that you can't find what you need in Christ alone. It's a natural longing of the Holy Spirit that indwells in you to be connected with itself in someone else.

"It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden under foot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed. Therefore, let him who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God's grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren." 

Do not let a moment pass you by with a brother or sister where you aren't letting them know how much they are loved and praising God for letting you have the opportunity to do so.

Thank you Jesus for your innumerable blessings, and especially the unity that comes from knowing you.

in the harvest.

This is my prayer in the harvest,
Where favor and providence flow,
I know I'm filled to be emptied again
This seed I've received, I will sow.

I'll just get right to the point, I am really bad at remembering to praise Him when things are good. It's like a need a downward spiral, an obvious attack from the enemy, or a moment of weakness to remind me of His sustaining power. In fact, at even the first inkling of persecution, trial, or tribulation my heart immediately turns to Him, never asking why things are the way they are or why must I suffer. My heart already knows I deserve way worse than what He throws at me and that He is the only remedy to my sinfulness.

Forgetting Him when things are easy does not stem from me thinking I have a handle on things either. I know it's nothing that I've done to get me into a place where the harvest seems abundant. For some reason, the Father looks on me with love and gives me an easy path...and then I go on auto-pilot. After a few days, I'm almost expecting things to stay running on course and not realizing that I'm forgetting to praise the Giver of the "easiness" in the absence of current hardships.

I was leaving church the other night, and after a really long and busy week [probably the busiest I've had in a very long time], I just needed to drive. A moment to myself to enjoy not having to move on to the next precisely timed task, but to do something spontaneous, just because I could. I didn't even have the radio on, and for those of you who know my music-loving self, that's a veeeery rare occurrence. I just needed the silence. I just needed to rest my mind. I just "needed" to be on auto-pilot...

That's when the above lyrics popped into my head...[see, I can't go long without music one way or another]. I looked back at the past week and everything that had taken place. School is going insanely well, and this is the semester of nursing school that we were warned about when we were accepted into the program. I'm making A's [and taking names ;) ] and am loving an aspect of nursing that I was NOT looking forward to. My brother and his wife got to move into a new place, which may seem like it's their blessing only, but I was wanting it for them so badly that it was like my own victory when we moved them in on Friday. I'm now singing and leading worship for my new church family, which is INSANE in itself because of how much confidence I lack in that area of my life. I am reconnecting with some people who were once such a huge part of my life and seeing how the Lord is using them and growing them. And the Lord is guiding me through the process of figuring out post-graduation plans so I'm not completely blindsided when that day comes.

...and that was just the last week. I knew last Monday that I had quite the challenge ahead of me. So, I prayed for energy, patience, a good attitude, and good time management [I had three 13+ hour days coming up and a lot of stuff to prepare before going into those days]. So, when the busyness hit...I went into "classic Katie" mode, with the attitude of "just get it done...with a smile on. You can sleep when you're dead."

I had thrown away the attitude of prayer and focused on the tasks at hand. So, when my Sunday night drive rolled around and I thought I needed the silence to drown out the craziness in my head and not think about anything for just a minute, I soon realized I really needed the silence so I could drown out the world and hear from Him, the only reason I made it through this week.

That was the moment I realized how selfish I was. I spent a good amount of time praying for God to get me through, and as soon as He did, I forgot Him and focused on patting myself on the back and giving myself "the alone time I deserved". My immediate thought was not to praise Him for sustaining me just like I prayed for Him to, but instead it was to disconnect from everything and not have to answer to anything for a tiny moment. I was living off the adrenaline of my spiritual high and not thanking Him for my cup that was beyond overflowing. I'm currently living in the middle of a harvesting time [not intended to be punny since it's fall, but I'll take a joke anytime, no matter the cheesiness]. I don't just have good things happening to me, but I know from the bottom of my heart that He is doing a HUGE work in my soul. He's shaping me, He's molding me, He's building me, He's sustaining me. All in ways that I never imagined. I've prayed for a very long time to be taken away from some inner demons I was struggling with, not thinking they would ever be remedied, and here I am safely on the other side and able to see clearly the work He was doing in me when I was blinded by my own desires and self pity.

I pray that I remember Him when favor and providence flow. And that I remember that going into auto-pilot is not an option. I must remember Him at every hour and that He fills me in order for all of me to be poured out again. In both of those moments do I learn, in both of those moments do I grow, in both of those moments is He glorified. And His glorification is why we live.

lies.

Here's my heart, Lord
speak what is true.

When life gets crazy, I find myself praying [and even begging] for this. Yes, technically I know truth already. I know ultimate truth because I know Christ, but this is where that whole "personal relationship" idea comes in. In order to defeat the lies constantly fed to us by the enemy, we can't just know of Christ, we must reflect on His promises, His character revealed to us through scripture, and most importantly, how He looks upon us as children of God.

It's really easy to let your mind get the best of you, especially when things seem to start spiraling, and especially when even I consider myself "Miss Overanalyze". Now, I don't want you to think as you read this that I am some girl who is in constant torment within my mind and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sometimes, I think these entries come across a lot sadder than I am. I am a girl with a lot of joy, a lot of laughter, and a smile at even my weakest moments [something that is not of myself, but because I know a Hope bigger than my struggles.]

But don't let my quirkiness and occasional snort when I laugh fool you. I believe the lies of the enemy constantly. They find their way in even the smallest of holes. When it comes to Satan, you gotta give it to the guy, he's an opportunist...and a really good one at that.

When it comes to the lies I believe, there seemed to be a fairly long list. But one night a few months ago, my best friend, Angela, and I realized wherein these fallacies lie. It wasn't all these little lies that were the problem; it was one huge lie that all the little ones fit into:

YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH.

I'm NOT skinny ENOUGH.
I'm NOT pretty ENOUGH.
I'm NOT trendy ENOUGH.
I'm NOT funny ENOUGH.
I'm NOT smart ENOUGH.

...and the list goes on.
I must be more of these things in order for people to love me, right?

I'll make it easy for you...NO. The answer is a big, fat NO.

Even if you got better at any of the above things, there will always be someone a step [or maybe 10 steps] ahead of you.

So, here's the part where I give you the "you're perfect just the way you are" pep talk...except, I'm not going to do that because all that does is give you a false hope and security in yourself. Instead, I give you truth:

YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH.

"Wait, what? But I thought you said that was a lie...?"

Yeah, well it is...but it also isn't.

You see, our strivings will never be enough. Our flesh will never be enough. Our work will never be enough.

So how do we keep ourselves from feeling completely worthless and inadequate? We chase after and surrender ourselves to the One who is always enough.

One who looks on us with love:
"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are..." -I John 3:1

One who knows us intimately:
"O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether." -Psalm 139:1-4

One who is our constant friend:
"No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." -John 15:15

One who chose us and views us as holy and blameless through Christ's sacrifice:
"Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will" -Ephesians 1:4-5
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." -1 Peter 2:9

One who has makes us new:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." -2 Corinthians 5:17
" And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." -Colossians 2:13-14

One who is completely sufficient in our inadequacy:
"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" -2 Corinthians 3:5
"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." -John 15:5
" But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." -2 Corinthians 12:9
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God..." -Ephesians 2:8

I am found, I am Yours
I am loved, I'm made pure
I have life, I can breathe
I am healed, I am free
Here's my heart, Lord
Speak what is true.

‘Cause You are strong, You are sure
You are life, You endure
You are good, always true
You are light breaking through

You are more than enough
You are here, You are love
You are hope, You are grace
You're all I have, You're everything

The enemy and his lies have been defeated. Our hope and worth are secure. We have an advocate even in our failures and shortcomings and we can find rest in His sufficiency. Praise God for that.

 

refuge.

You sit down to pray with your Bible in your lap, & within ten seconds your mind is somewhere else, unable to focus on the task at hand. I find myself having to stop & pray for clarity & focus quite a bit...
Especially today when I woke up with my mind racing. Sometimes I still surprise myself with how much I worry with & analyze, but the last week has presented a few incomprehensible situations, leaving me with a lot of questions, fear, and cloudy moments.
So, this morning when I sat down to read scripture & I couldn't focus long enough to make it to the third word, I immediately put my Bible aside in order to attack the spiritual warfare at its core & to ask for sanity & clarity. No sooner did those words come out of my mouth did the song "Mystery" by Charlie Hall come through my headphones:

Sweet Jesus Christ, my sanity
Sweet Jesus Christ, my clarity
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

That's when I realized that the three truths of Christ's death, resurrection, & coming redemption of a broken world are the only clarity & refuge I need. 

It's not that I had never realized this before, but today He needed me to see how I was trying to make sense of things & answer tough questions on my own, when in actuality all I need to do is rest on these truths. No questions asked.

We serve a God who is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever. Even when our fear is crippling, our faith is weak, our hope is waning, & our strength is gone, we have a God with an unfathomable capacity to see past our sin, our hopelessness, our depravity, & pick us up, covered by the blood of a risen & perfect Savior & love us perfectly through it.

I also found myself bringing before the Lord lots of phrases that started with "I'm scared of..." or "I'm scared for...". Coming from a girl who isn't scared of much in this world, these were hard to admit. But Christ never fails to meet us where we are.

He knows my inability to admit my fears & insecurities better than I do myself. It was like He shook me & said, "Look, you know that unfathomable, perfect love that I possess & pointed out to you minutes ago? Yeah, it covers those fears, too, Katie. I never tire of hearing your heart, but know you have no reason to worry..."

Hallelujah to the King!

He has brought me so far. He has helped me make sense of this wrecked heart of mine & replaced it with hope & healing, & I pray for the strength to take these truths into areas of my life that are hard. I believe them too much & rest in them too much to let them be in vain.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. His ways are oh so good.

a broken heart.

I found written in an old journal of mine a phrase that hit me harder than I've been hit in a while. At the end of some sermon notes from Feb. 2010, I had written:
"repent, Katie, of all the gospel that remains unpreached in your life."

The last few days I've really been trying to reflect on the sin in my life. I've just been so bogged down with it all; my strivings to make everyone around me happy, my incessant need to seem like I have it all together even when I'm completely wrecked on the inside, putting relationships in my life way before my relationship with Christ, and not to mention your everyday "looking like the rest of the world" sins with my actions, thoughts, and words.

When you ask God to reveal your sin, be prepared for Him to do so...

It's an incredibly painful process but it's a refining one...one where you are made better, stronger, sanctified...

But tonight, finding that line where I commanded myself in an old journal to stop taking the gospel so lightly, that's where I realized just how disgustingly sinful I am.

It's the gospel.

People's lives are at stake. Even more so, their eternities are being overlooked for the sake of our comfortable conversations.

I'm big on lyrics and my favorite line in a popular worship song is: break my heart for what breaks yours...
It's a plea for His will and to know Him more. It's asking to better understand the heart and mind of God. As a 24 year old female, I've most definitely had my heart broken. It's not something I would wish on my worst enemy and definitely not something I would pray for...unless it means breaking my heart to better know His.

When's the last time you truly asked God to break your heart? Ever?
To hate sin in the same way He does...
To not laugh at or overlook others in their sin but for your heart to ache as you advocate for them before Jesus...
For true conviction at the sin in your own life...

It's a journey I'm currently trying to take. To stop being comfortable and complacent with decisions I make and to be heart broken & completely wrecked for the sake of the gospel. To be so overcome with the gravity of my sin, but overflowing with a joy because the God who gave me these convictions has also saved me from them.

How can we rest in His grace, love, and mercy if we never reach into the depths of our wretchedness to understand what we've been saved from?

We must also tell the world of this saving grace. It's too sweet to keep to ourselves.

and as a sidenote: I don't claim to have it all together...I just claim to be a girl with an unshakeable Hope.

a little transparency.

I've grown up always knowing who Jesus was. Ever since I can remember our weeks revolved around what was going on at the church, bible studies, revivals on the weekends, etc. So why is it that I still struggle with such an integral aspect of my faith: prayer. I even get incredibly embarrassed that I struggle so badly with it. Ask me to pray over a friend going through a difficult time, I'm good. I can do that. Same for praying in front of a crowd before a service starts or before dinner. Those are topics. I can always take a topic & talk...that's never been an issue. 

But prayer is way more than that. Prayer is about being transparent. In fact, it's about completely taking away even the transparency & opening your heart completely [something I've never been able to do]. It's about admitting the ugly & accepting the consequences. It's about finally being real with what eats at you & tears aways at your soul. And it's about having open communication & dialogue with the Creator of the universe, the one true God. 

I struggle with doing this regularly. I use busyness as an excuse. I get lazy. And even worse, I pray about it once, flippantly, and use that as reason to not bring it up again. And as terrible as that sounds, it's not so I can just check it off my "I prayed for this" list, it's because I don't want to continue "bothering" God with it. 

It's like I don't even know the God I pray to.

He never tires of hearing our voices or requests. We are told to "continue steadfastly in prayer" (Col. 4:2). We must never grow weary in being open & bringing repeated needs to Him. 

Even though this is most definitely a struggle of mine, there's yet another that I still grapple with. One that I can't seem to find a balance for. It's praying for what I actually want. Doesn't sound too difficult right? But it is my biggest struggle in my prayer life. Asking God to supply my needs is one thing, but to ask an omnipotent, sovereign king to give me what I want just seems almost disrespectful. I'll start laying out my prayers before Him & catch myself as I start being open about certain aspects of my life. I find myself stopping & instead saying "Thy will be done". Now, I know there is nothing wrong with this & it sounds like I'm not making any sense, but I think I've almost hindered myself from being completely open & broken before my God. I try & ignore the desires of my heart & the things I want because (and this is totally the Calvinist in me) I know He is in control & what He wills to happen will happen, no matter what my wants & desires are. And I know I truly want His will to be done in my life. I know without a shadow of a doubt that His ways are always better than mine. My issue is not one of what's going to happen in my life, but it's an issue of thinking my transparency is too petty for Him to hear. I literally put a road block on that aspect of my life; letting myself not really be honest or make excuses for what I feel, & try to push it away. 

There are things in my life that I really do want to happen. For instance, (and I can't believe I'm saying this, but we're giving this transparency thing a try, right?) I can't think of anything I want more than to be a wife & a mother. And my reasons for wanting them are not even your typical ones. In a marriage, I want to experience a relationship that completely reflects Christ & His love for the Church. I want to see that played out in a human relationship for myself. And for kids, I want to adopt. I want to experience yet another beautiful example of what Christ does for us when we are called into His family. I want to give someone a second chance, or a chance they never had to begin with. I want all this to play out in my life to reflect Christ & to experience more fully what He does for us. Now, I want this a little down the road of course (or whenever the Lord wills it) but this is the biggest thing I struggle with bringing before God. Because what if it isn't in the cards or His plan for my life? I hate praying for that as my future if it might not happen. I feel like me asking for it makes me sound like I know what's better for me more than He does.

I, above all else, just want His will for my life. But I must also learn to be more open with a God who gave me these desires. He knows my heart because He created it. And He knows how much I over think everything because He made me that way.

I should never be ashamed of that. 

Here's to me trying to let down just one of the many walls I have up. A little transparency.

But the temporary pain of the demolition is worth it because He makes beautiful things out of the dust.

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us- whatever we ask- we know that we have what we asked of him." 1 John 5:14-15

simple things.

As I sit down in a Nashville coffee shop with my headphones in and pen ready, I think my thoughts are headed towards my usual prayer-type journaling. That's all that seems to come out when I write anymore. Not that it's a bad thing; it had just been awhile since the "inspiration bug" hit me to really journal again. It was a line in a song by Elevation Worship that gave me the itch.

"Show the world that Mercy is alive."

How incredible is it that we worship & praise our God by using seemingly simple nouns...?
Sounds silly when put that way, but how many songs do we sing that regard Him as "love", "mercy", etc. These words, these nouns that we use on a daily basis, are not ones that we use without meaning. We use them because what they stand for, what they mean, fully encompass who He is.

I can't count how many times I've been in situations where I've written off someone's actions as "Oh, that's just ___________." There's no telling how many times my friends have had to explain my choices, my weirdness, and my outspokenness as "Well, that's just Katie." My name encompasses my personality, my actions, my thought processes...everything about me. Now, think about how we were using those "simple" words interchangeably with the name of our God.

It doesn't belittle Him into some easy-to-understand, one-word version of God that we can pick out of our pocket when we need said "love", "mercy", "grace". We would be completely missing the point; misunderstanding the God we claim to know & forming Him into a slightly more holy version of ourselves due to our understandings & definitions of these words. Worse yet, we would depreciate the Almighty Creator of the universe by placing Him in our selfish lives when we deem it convenient, instead of understanding that He needs nothing from us. And never has.

Plainly said, "This is His world, [& strictly by His grace alone] we are just living in it."

We use these words to speak His name because He is the epitome of each of them. His true & unchanging character gives them their definition; not the other way around. That is, if we can separate the world's standards of these words from what He claims. We must use Him as the plumb line to define what these four & five letter words mean. Words that have themselves been belittled in our culture when we claim to "love coffee" (which I most definitely do on a daily basis). But now, in order to understand in full our Father, we must look to His character, His actions, & His promises. We must dig deep into His word so that it reveals who He is in relation to our misconstrued version of Him we see in our world. All of the things we as humans crave in this world: love, hope, refuge, grace, & even the physical like water, bread, shelter; it's not a coincidence that these are all names that even He gives to Himself.

He knows our needs. He sees our struggles.

...and He wants us. Seek & you shall find Him. He promises that.

And praise God that His promises can be trusted.

the chase.

God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives. -Oswald Chambers

I've always wandered why I seem to go in this ridiculous, never ending cycle of being completely complacent and insanely thirty for the Word. I let my own self-interest and laziness get in the way, and fall so far behind in my walk that it's almost like I'm walking backwards. Then other times, I look around and realize that my surroundings and I look so much alike that I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. So, I start running. Hard. Sprinting into territory where His love is blatant and unhindered by my feelings of being too sinful to handle. But then, a few days, months, weeks later...I am a chamelion again.

The greatest thing is...He never tires of chasing after me. He is infinitely patient and infinitely loving. He wants me, and even though I am horrible at showing it...I want Him too. Even though I am so insanely scared of actually getting what I ask for, I want to live a life that is according to His plan. What that will be...only He knows, and only He is in control.