Heart Lessons 8/18/11

I meant to post this a week ago but you know what they say, better late than never right? I wanted to post some lessons my heart has been learning. I know they’re in bullet point format but I hope at least one of them speaks to you!

Ø  Learning not to leverage my self-righteous/superiority against other people.

Ø  Praying for a heart that’s passionate about ministering to ALL people, both child and adult, Christian and non-Christian (even nominal Christians)

Ø  Learning to runs towards the Light—where sin loses its power on me. Dancing in a field of freedom

Ø  May I never forget that the blood of the lamb is upon me and power that comes in that

Ø  “we know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands”—1 john 2:3 (God doesn’t need anything but our faithfulness; all he wants is our devotion)

Ø  “This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did”—1 John 2:6 (Thankful that I GET to walk as Jesus did—that I even have the ability to attempt to do so!)

Ø  IN CHRIST—is where I want to be; not establishing my own kingdom. I’m praying for an invasion—for territory in my heart to be taken over and established with a new banner of identity (throughout history when countries overtook other cities, a symbol of their victory and dominance over another land was to raise their country’s flag. Praying that the banner over me would be God’s love!)

Ø  “But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure”—1 John 3:3 (is my hope really in getting to see Jesus as he really is?!)

Ø  Complacent Christians amuse me (including myself), often a lot of us grew up in church and have attempted to follow after Jesus with several years of our life, and yet we are still babies when it comes to the faith. We don’t have consistent prayer life, our devotion time is still weak even at its best, we aren’t passionate about the body and the beauty of the bride, we want to share our faith but many of us do a terrible job of even ATTEMPTING to do so and yet we look at some many “baby Christians” and feel superiority towards them because they don’t know as much as we do yet and that we’re “farther along in the spiritual journey” than them, WHEN REALLY, as much as we’d like to think we’re farther down the road than them we’re still just about a block a head. The difference between old nominal Christians and new Christians is quite marginal. If anything, the baby Christian is farther ahead due to his/her’s vibrant heart before the Lord that aware of their sinful condition and is in touch with the love of God in their life.

Ø  Flawed attitude: came here expecting everyone to be world changers; had a standard for everyone. If you’re at leadership college—you should be able to pray out loud, you should be able to read your Bible (judged/got disappointed when I saw that people weren’t meeting this standard and didn’t feel sorry for them) “anyone who does not do what is right is not of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother”—1 John 3:10

o   “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son,  Jesus Christ, and to love one another as  he commanded us”—1 John 3:23 (WOW)

Ø  When I pray and confess my sins I should always keep in the forefront of my mind that “the one who is in me is greater than the one who is in the world” so that I can understand the power/MAGNITUDE of what is indeed happening as Jesus is “faithful and just and forgives my sin and purifies me from all unrighteousness” WOW

o   Garments of mourning to garments of praise

o   He is the vine-dresser and is clothing me with life (compassion, humility, joy, love, peace, patience, kindness)

Wasted Effort that leads to Exhaustion

  This weekend I had a lot of down time to sit and relax (a lot of it consisted of me sitting on the couch all day watching Friends haha). In that downtime I began to reflect on the busyness of my life and how I often feel exhausted at many points throughout the week. Why is this? I am someone who enjoys being busy, I tend to go 150mph all the time and yet here I am completely wiped with everything I have to do in a week. Gosh If I’M tired, I can’t even imagine how other people feel who aren’t wired like me and don’t enjoy fast paced lives. In this bit of reflecting I began to pray about it; because honestly, if this was how the rest of my year was going to go, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it! And that’s when God revealed three major areas of my life that I often waste time and energy on resulting in exhaustion.

Our job in life is not to police the world, carry other people’s burdens, or impress people with how awesome we are; it is to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And yet, I often find myself busied with the three things I just mentioned.

1.       Policing the world: I’m often critical of other people’s decisions and behavior. I spend a lot of time making sure people are doing what they’re supposed to be doing (ex: chores, serving, meetings, jobs, morality, spiritually) and forget to show grace or even hold myself to the same standards that I hold others too (how many times have I forgotten to clean the bathroom when it was my turn or skipped out of a meeting that I was supposed to attend).  We judge ourselves by our motives and other by their behaviors.

2.       Carrying others burdens: I’m constantly wanting to help others, to pour into them, to make sure they’re ok (often at the expense of myself) What I’ve learned recently is that I love people more effectively and efficiently when I’m taking care of myself first. I have enough to work on let alone the shortcomings of others. As I find wholeness in the Lord, that wholeness is then poured out onto others. We are responsible TO people, not FOR them. It is not my responsibility to heal, cure, redeem, and restore other people. Those are areas of ownership that are not intended for me.

3.       Impressing others: I want people to see me in the right light; to see my gifts and abilities, to know my heart and see what a great value I am in a friend. The root of this is people pleasing. I want them to recognize my value and approve of my life. Maybe if they see this they’ll want to be my friend or do things for me. With this paradigm, I’ve created my own formula. Me +all the good things about myself = you wanting to be my friend. It literally is like an exchange: my value as a friend in return for your approval or recognition. The only problem with this equation is that there’s a downside to this formula. Me + my character faults and slip ups = abandonment from you as a friend. This is not real relationship. Instead of spending my time selling myself to others and maintaining the image of how I want people to recognize me—if I spent that time being vulnerable and humble I would develop real relationships that are strong, authentic and intimate. Everyone wants intimacy in life, and yet we try to take other routes besides vulnerability to get there. Eventually all routes go through vulnerability so why not try skipping all the shoots and ladders.

While these are ugly parts of my heart, the good news is—I serve a God who redeems. He’s able to take these twisted parts of me and restore them. What areas of your life need restoring? What areas of your life are you depending on your own strength? What are things that you are wasting time and energy on? (not sure, anything outside of pursuing God’s glory is a good place to start) I would encourage everyone this week to do a little soul searching themselves and create time in your life for the Lord to move because he wants to breathe life and freedom into your life, and yet often, we don’t put ourselves in a position to receive these things.

Security

 In the 24 years of my existence, I can count on one hand the number of times I have been homesick; and of those times, most of them, if not all of them, have occurred under the age of 11. With that said, if someone had told me that I was going to be homesick while in Australia I would have laughed. Preposterous! I am someone who lives very much in the moment and have been blessed to find friends wherever I go. And yet, in the 4 ½ weeks that I have been here, I have had two “freak out moments.” I call them “freak out moments” because that’s exactly what they are; my body literally freaks out. Out of nowhere, the realization that no one here knows me comes and hits me in the face like a ton of bricks. It truly is the weirdest sensation! Everything is foreign, there is no familiarity anywhere. Not only am I alienated from those who love me but I don’t even have access to them! I can’t just pick up a phone or go for a visit; I am literally thousands of miles and thousands of dollars away! Agh!

 It’s a scary realization to know that no one here knows my heart; that no one here has any obligation to be my friend.  If I were to offend someone, they have no reason to love me because that foundation of unconditional love (where someone chooses to love you even through your failures and character flaws) hasn’t been established yet. This is scary! You don’t realize where your emotional security lies until it is taken away from you. All of the places that I used to find security in are now gone. I’ve been stripped of all that is familiar.

It was during one of these “freak out moments” where I was crying in the bathroom (because I didn’t know who I could trust) that the Lord spoke tenderly to me. He gently reminded me that even though I can’t find security or trust in people right now, I can find security in Him. He is my refuge. He is my safe place. My downcast soul then rejoiced by my circumstances. How lucky am I to be in a position where everything that I find identity and security in, has been stripped; that I am in a place where I am being forced to depend on the Lord! (Otherwise I can’t survive!)Back at home it’s easy for me to desire these things, to want to be dependent on God and to trust him. But when I’m surrounded by things that define me, it’s hard to find security only in God, because I can easily create security for myself in other things.  

Finding security in the Lord and not in people is a quite a process; it’s not about who’s around you or what THEY say or think, but it’s about being identified by His presence and what He says about you. My motivations for my actions are not for myself or for others, but for the Lord. I am for HIS pleasure, HIS will alone. He is my sustainer. He brings me life. I am full in His presence and His presence alone. Hillsong College is special because it brings you to a place of servant-hood; the only reason you have to MOVE (not serve, teach, or sing but move!) the only reason you have to breathe is for His pleasure. Only in His presence can I find emotional security.

I’m also learning to live outside of my ability. Right now I can’t pursue kids (I don’t have a car), I can’t get a job, I can’t create intimacy within my relationships; I HAVE to depend on the Lord. To survive I need His strength; my own efforts will fail me. I’m learning how to trust God beyond my own thinking and allowing Him to make His grace abound in me. In a world where we are trained to be skeptical of absolute truths, God alone proves that He is trustworthy. He is TRUSTWORTHY! He is consistent. He is our refuge. He is our protector and source of direction………Do you trust him?

Criticism & Failure --8/20/11

  During the first week that I was in Australia, I had to meet the youth minister of the church, who was going to be my overseer for the year. As soon I walked into her office, I sat down and she goes “I have a prophecy for you.” My initial reaction was, “heck ya! I can’t wait to hear what she says!” In the past, many prophecies that I have seen or have been a part of have always been encouraging. It’s always exciting to watch them happen because they are tremendously inspiring, and extremely life-giving. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this term, basically when people prophecy over you, they are giving you a word from the Lord. Whether that is direction for your life, or wisdom for a specific circumstance (past or present) it’s always a word from God, and it is typically very powerful. With that said, Katie (the youth pastor), looks at me and says, “The Lord wants me to tell you that this is going to be a season of offense for you, that you are going to be really offended while you are here, and that he is going to work through this boundary in your life, so you that can handle criticism in the future.” Wait a second, did she just say offense!?! How is being offended anything BUT encouraging! I mean really, who enjoys being offended? Ugh! Frick, this would happen to me. The first prophecy I get is one telling me that I am about to be offended….grrreeeaattt.

While that prophecy wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, by the end of the day, I had already begun to appreciate it because it’s true, I suck at handling criticism or failure. Even though it wasn’t ideal, I knew that becoming stronger in this area was going to lead me in becoming a stronger/healthier person.  One of the reasons for why I came to Hillsong was to pursue emotional wholeness, so that by the time I got home, there would be no areas or footholds for the enemy to attack me in. Looks like handling criticism and offense was number one on God’s “to-do” list in Laura Browder.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and bam, my first lesson on criticism had already begun. During this past week I had a slip up that had caused me to break one of the rules at school. It was an accident and something that I could have easily kept hidden, but a prayer of mine (that I had prayed at the start of this journey) was that God would start to refine in me the areas of my integrity.  In the past, it’s been easy for me to get away with things due to my ability to do so. But something that has been on my heart, is that just because I CAN, doesn’t mean that I should. “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial”—1 Cor.10:23 That night I felt convicted on what had happened and ended up turning myself in the next morning to the person in authority over me. I literally cried as I confessed the details and was ready to take on any and all consequences that needed to happen. My instructor was gentle yet firm, and proceeded to tell me what needed to happen next and then that was that. While it sucked to have to admit something like that, ultimately I knew that this was the start of God developing my character which will make me a better leader and person in the future. During the day I began to pray about criticism and the lessons that needed to be learned about it; that night, God revealed a few ugly things about my heart.

How I deal with failure: I often want to control things and make things better. In this situation I needed to confess my heart to the Lord, recognize that it had been addressed and talked about, and move on. Earning credibility and trust is something that is out of my control and will happen in time; I need to be patient and remind myself that my worth and approval doesn’t come from the people around me or what they think/say about me, but the Lord. Clearly there’s an area of my flesh that needs to be redeemed by the Lord (confessed/repented) I’m here to seek restoration and want to find light in all areas of my life and not just the areas that everyone sees.

He then went on to show me that I have a tendency to control my image or perception of how I see myself in other people. Basically, I like to control the way people see me. Often I get away with things that have happened in my past, or choose not to remember things/alter them to fit an image of who I want to project onto other people. Being able to identify this control issue allowed me to understand why criticism was such a stumbling block for me. Obviously, if someone is mad at me, they’re not seeing the image of who I’m trying to project onto them.  This dilemma is the reason for why I have a tendency to want to correct hurt feelings really quickly because I want to fix the situation; I want to fix the way they’re seeing me so they can in return, see me in the way that I want them to see me as (laboring, I know). That’s a lot to maintain and if it’s not maintained, I find myself crippled by the lack of approval that I’m not receiving by that specific person or persons.  How draining! That takes a lot of effort and there is no freedom in that. Instead of figuring out who I want myself to be and how to go about making other people see that, I need to walk in the fullness of who the Lord wants me to be and seek to find approval from His will and not others. C.S. Lewis had a brilliant quote in his infamous novel “Mere Christianity”: “The relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy dress off—getting rid of the false self, with all its ‘Look at me’ and ‘Aren’t I a good boy?’ and all its POSING and POSTURING . To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert.”

Challenge for all of us: to do some self-reflecting and see if there are control issues in our lives specifically with how we present ourselves to people (looking for their approval of who we are)

Prayer: that we would be able to confess these revelations to the Lord and seek to find understanding in who HE created us to be, and that we would walk fully in that.

Personal Evangelism

Often a mix of negative emotions surround the idea of personal evangelism; words like awkward, scary, annoying, and fear are associated with sharing of your faith. For a lot of us, our perception of evangelism is flawed due to fire and brimstone street preachers or Bible beater friends at school that made you embarrassed to be a Christian. Because of this perception we have found it quite easy to become complacent with our evangelism amongst our friends, family, and community and find clever answers to justify our reasoning. But what we have failed to recognize is that Jesus’ last command to us was to go out into the world and make disciples. And yet if we’re honest with ourselves, most of us rarely participate in this command and shudder at the idea of being proactive about it. Recently at school our principle gave a talk on personal evangelism and I wanted to share some of my notes (not the whole talk but just some of the key points) in order to encourage you to step out and realize that we don’t evangelize because it’s a duty, but rather, we share our faith because we love people. We need to get to a place where we are willing to love people more than being afraid.

The Love of God

>  Love is the foundation of Evangelism because it is the foundation of our faith. It all begins and ends with Him (1 John 4:7) love springs from God. He is love (1 John 4:6)—not that he is loving, but that he is love. (we know him if we love)

o   Most people don’t change until they know that God loved them beyond what their mind can comprehend

o   God loved you enough to bleed for you

>   Great commission wasn’t get good at alter calls but rather go into the world and make disciples

>    Very rarely do people find Christ on their own (this is why Jesus commissioned the church)

The nature of God’s love

o   Passionate Acts 1:3

§  His passion was the joy set before him; his passion is people

o   Sacrificial John 3:16, John 15:13

§  Can’t understand the sacrifice unless we know that God is love

§  (prayer that we fall in love with our savior so we feel compelled to share our faith)

o   Covenanted Is. 54:10

§  Doesn’t matter how good/bad you are; God’s love is not removed

§  If you don’t understand God’s love then you won’t share it (you will only share it out of religious compulsion)

§  My faith is only as good as its practice; our theology has to be pedestrian (if it doesn’t walk among us then its only intellectual)

§  His love is unchanging, merciful, everlasting, can’t be diluted

§  As a Christian, if there’s every been a time where you feel that God’s judging you, imagine how hard it is to convince a non-Christian that God loved them unconditionally

§  We know the Christian way to lead people to Jesus, OR we can fall so in love with our Father that we feel compelled when we encounter non-Christians

§  Sometimes we don’t share our faith just because we’re insecure (perfect love drives out fear—it’s possible to live without insecurity)

·         Nothing to hide, nothing to prove

§  We can’t save anyone, God is the one who does the saving, all we’re called to do is deliver the message (be ambassadors)

§  The bible doesn’t say if we don’t share our faith that we’ll go to hell but it does say that if they don’t have faith they will go to hell

Ø  If you fall more in love with Jesus and allow his love to transform your life you WILL begin to share your faith

o   When you’re in love with someone, it’s not a secret—you can’t hide it. If you can, it’s not love