Songs.

Every morning I wake up singing a song, not out loud, but in my head. I rarely remember my dreams but I always remember a song. Lately its been "99 red balloons" and quite often its "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. I don't even like that song but I don't have any control over that, so it's always a little hilarious to me. But this morning I woke up with this refrain from the hymn "'tis so sweet to trust in Jesus" in my head:

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
 How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er; 
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
 Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

I can't even remember the last time that I sang that song in church, or even heard that song. But I'd like to believe, unlike 99 red ballons or some random Miley Cyrus song, that this wasn't random. I'd like to believe that the Holy Spirit put this little refrain into my head, because these lyrics have been such a gift to me today.

Here's the rest of the lyrics to the song:

’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, 
Just to take Him at His Word; 
Just to rest upon His promise,
 And to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”

Refrain:
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! 
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
 Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus, 
Just to trust His cleansing blood;
 And in simple faith to plunge me
 ’Neath the healing, cleansing flood!

Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
 Just from sin and self to cease; 
Just from Jesus simply taking
 Life and rest, and joy and peace.

I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
 Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend; 
And I know that Thou art with me,
 Wilt be with me to the end.

I am finding such comfort in these words. Love that third verse. Right now I am really resonating with the line "just from Jesus simply taking life and rest, and joy and peace." So simple, not always so simply lived out however, but has such profound meaning for our lives.

This is such a blessing and a challenge and a comfort for me.

Thank you Jesus for always waking me up with songs, especially today.

The Call of God

Ok, I totally ripped this entire blog post from Oswald Chambers. My Utmost for His Highest is, more often than not, one of those books that when I read the entries I feel like he is writing directly to me. Today is one of those days and I wanted to share.

"Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel..." (1 Corinthians 1:17)

Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by "the gospel", namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification - we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (John 12:32 -"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."). It is an injustice to say that Jesus Christ labored in redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ labored in redemption to redeem the whole world and to place it perfectly whole and restored before the throne of God. The fact that we can experience redemption illustrates the power of its reality, but that experience is a byproduct and not the goal of redemption. If God were human, how sick and tired He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation and for our sanctification. We burden his energies from morning till night asking for things for ourselves or for something from which we want to be delivered! When we finally touch the underlying foundation of the reality of the gospel of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.

The one passion of Paul's life was to proclaim the gospel of God. He welcomed heartbreak, disillusionment, and tribulation for only one reason - these things kept him unmovable for his devotion to the gospel of God.

This speaks so deeply to my soul. I've been selfish in my prayer life. And I've been narrow minded. I'm encouraged and challenged by this today.

Retreat!

Today we leave for our fall retreat. This is my first retreat as a co-director. Big time.

I'll let you know how it goes :)

Storytime.

I've been thinking a lot about stories lately. And I guess by lately I mean in the past year. Since my last semester at Moody I've been learning how important people's stories really are. How everyone is coming from a different point of view. How everyone's backgrounds contribute to the way that they think, feel and process things. That's so beautiful to me. And there's so much redemption in hearing people's stories and telling your story. It restores relationships, breaks down categories, allows us to bear one another's burdens, brings people closer to the Jesus. List goes on.

Last night at Lighthouse, Cliff (I think his name is?) in a super passionate way went through the story of the Bible. He focused on salvation history (which really is the pinnacle of the Bible anyway). But how about that for a story! The metanarrative - the story which encompasses all stories. When all stories, since the beginning of time are working towards/contributing to the story and person of Jesus Christ. And we get to be a part of that story.

It's always interesting when people from your past show up in your life. I had a little run in today with someone that I maybe wouldn't have been super pumped about seeing in recent history. It's been years since we've seen each other. There was definitely a great deal of hurt in that relationship, and it came from both sides. This run in was totally unexpected - you don't even have to know me well to know that my face always says it all, so I don't always handle unexpected situations with ease. But we laughed. We picked right back up. My face was totally regular (!) by the grace of God. Because of the story that God is writing in my life and the story that he is writing in her life, it was a moment of redemption.

You can know that I will always love to hear your story.

I'm back! and Newspring Leadership Conference

Well it has been a very long time. I thought about starting an entirely new blog, but Uganda has been such an important part of my story, so even though there is an incredible gap of time it felt right to pick up and keep going. I've been feeling like I should start back up for some time now, so now is as good of time ever. I pray that God will be glorified through the words that I write.

This past week I did probably one of the most spontaneous things I’ve ever done – Wednesday morning Brian came into the office and said that we could go to the Newspring Leadership Conference. We were pumped. But then he dropped the bomb that it was the next day. And then he dropped an atomic bomb when he told us it was in South Carolina! 12 hours away! There were things that we had to work out to make this possible, especially me (thank you Sara for being so flexible), because it wasn’t until 4:00pm that afternoon that I finally decided that I needed to go. And this is Wednesday night, mind you, so we all still had to do church that night. Even though these past few days have been such a whirlwind, it is so clear to me that attending this conference was no surprise to God unlike it was to me. He has been preparing my heart and working on my thoughts for months leading up to Newspring, and I heard what I needed to hear at the exact time I needed to hear it. He makes all things work together for our good, and I don’t even know why! What do I have to offer?! But I am so grateful that he does.

Let me just give you some highlights:

Perry Noble reminded us of the importance of getting alone with God. One thing he said that really resonated with me is that “If you are always accessible to people you’re hardly ever accessible to God.” That got me right in the heart.

Francis Chan… what didn’t he say?!? His passion for Jesus Christ was made so clear as he spoke for an hour. He was all over the place, but it was so encouraging and convicting! He spoke about boldness and faith. We need to live our lives knowing, really knowing, that we are living for MORE than this world has to offer. When has it ever been about us and what we can and cannot do? We can’t do anything apart from Jesus Christ, but we can have boldness (and boast!) in the fact that we know Him.

Mark Driscoll blew my mind. When he walked off the stage my mouth was literally hanging open. He began by saying, “For those whom God greatly uses he will first wound deeply” – suffering is not a punishment for our sins but a correction from our Father who loves us deeply. Suffering is painful and it costs us so much, so we cannot waste it. We have to embrace it and use it in our lives for the purpose that God intended. He walked us through 6 ways in which suffering can be used for God’s glory. I literally could write pages and pages on my thoughts from this session. If you want to hear more about it, let’s go out to coffee, because I’d love to have further conversations about it. But I’ll end with saying that I think one of the biggest things I took away from his talk was that we NEED (bold, caps lock and italics – this is the real deal) to talk about our suffering because it brings about humility, repentance and faith. If we can’t talk about our suffering/shame/sin then that says we’re living in a religious culture. It’s not about what we do, it’s not about behavior modification, its about life transformation. And suffering is a huge part of that transformation. Oh boy… suffer well!

Steven Furtick called us to action! We just have to do it! We have to live it. When we feel the Spirit’s leading in whatever he tells us to do, we just have to do it. And he kept saying over and over “Jesus told me to!” And I loved that. Sometimes things don’t make sense, but when we know that we are to do something, we are to respond with immediate obedience. Nothing is insignificant when done for the most significant purpose on the earth, which is the advancement of the Gospel. So, just do it! Let’s go!

Judah Smith was something else. He brought it, and that was an unexpected blessing. I hadn’t ever heard of him, but I’ll never forget him. He talked about what we are to do in the “Matters of the meantime.” I think this talk, along with Driscolls’, was the most influential in my personal life. He used Mark 5:35-5:1 and the story of Jesus calming the storm. We have to remain faithful when we’ve floated off shore, but are sitting in the middle of the lake waiting to get to the other side. And sometimes we can’t even see the other side; this is the meantime. Our culture is so highlight orientated, and it was helpful for me that he pointed this out. We never glorify the meantime, but Paul after his conversion was living in the meantime with 3 years in silence and Jesus lived in the meantime from age 12 to 30! In the meantime, we are to trust and rest because God is preparing us – and while we rest, there is One who never sleeps. We have to stay in the boat – this plays out several different ways in my life. I’ve been feeling the meantime, but was approaching it in a very different way. We can talk about that over coffee too :).

And lastly, Andy Stanley. Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about this talk – there was too much! I was hanging on every word he said. He talked about 4 gravitational pulls every church leader feels (gravitational pulls meaning things church wrestles with). He hit every nail square on the head. He gave us a lot to think about and incredibly tangible things that we will bring back to our church. He began his talk by saying that we as the next generation of church leaders have been handed “the baton”, that we are joining saints throughout history in the ministry and for the advancement of the Gospel and we have to be good stewards of that. I am confident that God will use his message to change the way I am involved with ministry.

After the last session, the four of us were able to sit down over a meal and debrief and process with one another. It was encouraging to me that we already began to apply some of the things that we had learned throughout the day even in our conversation, and then wrote down specific ways in which we can implement into our ministries the things that God taught us. I know He is doing a mighty work. I know he has laid things on my heart that He is calling me to do and he prepared my heart to hear those things yesterday.

I am refreshed, I am challenged, I am excited, I am hopeful, I am grateful, I am convicted. By the grace of God I am forever changed.

...

Also, I'm not sure if I will be able to get internet access for the next few days. So if that is the case, I will write my next post from my little living room on Secluded Lane. Just saying. 

Beginning of the End

Well, time for the "goodbyes".

The first one took place this morning as I attended my last church service at UCF. It was hard to hold back the tears, and every now and then, one slipped down my cheek. I have loved worshipping there, it has been a pure joy to be apart of the fellowship. I did not have to say goodbye to the staff, as I decided that I am going to go in on Tuesday for a couple hours to visit and give gifts and take pictures. Not pumped for that. On my way home today from church, I stopped at the grocery store and had an African meal. I mean, my own version of African meal - the stuff I like. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I haven't been a fan of the Ugandan food. I think the biggest reason is because its like a million degrees and then they give you this piping hot food. I'm just a lightweight, and I hate to sweat, and this is a recipe for perspiration. It's really left me and Ugandan food on bad terms. So anyway... today I bought passion fruit juice, which is the best, baby bananas, dried mango, and a rolex. When I first came to Uganda I was so confused because people were always talking about getting rolexes, and I thought it was just a joke they thought was funny. And then, I mean after like one time, its not funny anymore. But then I found out it was food. Its basically an omelette rolled into a chapatti (which is kind of like naan bread, or a more pastry like pita). It's so good, and so filling, and so cheap - 1,500 shillings and its about a foot long. 1,500 is equivalent to about $1.50. Beat that subway. And then the other thing I need to mention is that Uganda has made me a believer in bananas. I absolutely love them here, I eat them whenever I can get my hands on one. But they're baby, they're like half the size of regular bananas, and they are so sweet. All the missionaries have told me that the bananas are so much sweeter than they are in the states, and way better here - so I don't anticipate eating any at home. But here's hoping that this love carries over because there so convenient and delicious.

Ok, back to goodbyes.

The second one is to our beloved Kololo house. Maybe one of the hardest goodbyes... I absolutely love this house. Right now, as I am writing this, there is a major thunderstorm taking place. All the windows are just screens, so everything is open and I can smell the rain and feel the earth cooling down as the wind is brought through the windows. I love that; it's so cozy. This place has been a refuge, and I feel at home here.

And then, as I already said, Tuesday is the big church staff goodbye day. That will be so hard.

And then of course to the Davis'... and that will be real hard as well.

But of course, at the end of the goodbyes come the hellos. Which is the sweet side of it all. And here comes the chance for me to bring back what I have learned, and how I have grown here, and how to apply that to my day to day life. And honestly, I am nervous for that transition. And I am praying earnestly, and maybe you can too, that God would be faithful in showing me ways to transition well and that I would continue to grow on this path that God has set me on. And I'm scared that I am going to forget - to forget all that God has taught me, the experiences I have had, things I know about myself, about God, about His Word. There's just so much! Maybe that's a silly fear, but I'm praying that I won't forget.

Tonight is USA vs. Brazil. So pumped about watching the game. A win for the US would be a great last memory in Kololo 1. Holler.