I realize the first time finding my own name on an autographed CD was bizarre. But finding it two times? What are the odds? I mean we have better chances of having someone normal run for President in our lifetimes.
But I’m starting to wonder if it’s another God-wink where God shows up and speaks to me in what seems like an insignificant way. Maybe that’s why I miss what God is saying to me because I keep looking for earthquakes and tornadoes and thunderclouds while God is whispering in a still small voice. I look for pillars of fire when God uses autographed CDs with messages for me on them.
I also never expected Goodwill to be the place where God spoke to me. I figured it would more likely be in a church or a historic building but never in a thrift store. But I suppose people have met God in stranger and far more unlikely places than that.
Maybe my job isn’t to figure out the best places where God can speak to me but to keep my ears and eyes open wherever I am so that I can actually hear God speaking. Hopefully, the lesson will stick this time.
I can’t remember who said it, but I can relate to the saying that when God made His plan for my life, He figured in my stupidity.
I’m not saying I’m stupid. I have done a few stupid things. Looking back in hindsight, I can recall a few “what was I thinking” moments as well as a few “what in the actual ham sandwich” times when I really must have lost my mind.
God factored in my poor choices and my mistakes when He planned out the course my life would take. He factored in my anxiety and my hesitation and all my fun little quirks.
Thankfully, God’s promises aren’t based on my obedience or faithfulness. Charles Spurgeon said that God’s covenant is secure because God is the one who remembers and acts. In God’s economy, remembering isn’t recalling facts or memories, but a recalling that always leads to a response, i.e. God remembered the Hebrew children in slavery in Egypt and sent a deliverer.
So like the character Matthew in The Chosen, I only have one thing to take care of today: follow Jesus. The rest will take care of itself.
When I first started as a Kairos greeter back in 2006, I never dreamed it would last this long. 18 years later, I made the painful but necessary decision to step away from Kairos/Rally as a greeter. I figured I would know when the time was right to leave, and I believe God showed me that was tonight.
I got the chance to express my thanks and say a few words during the service along with two others who spoke about how this ministry has impacted their lives. My prayer is that someone else will pick up where I left off and carry on the greeter tradition for another 18 years.
I met some amazing people who have inspired my walk with Jesus. I have memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I’ve seen God work across two decades changing peoples’ lives and destinies.
Who knows what’s next? I know the old saying is that when God closes a door, He opens another one. I know there’s another place for me to serve. Actually, I love serving at Ave South, so maybe that’s where I focus next.
In the mean time, I will always remember those retreats at Camp Widjiwagan and Willow Pond. I will remember those after Kairos dinners at Chik-fil-A, Chuy’s, and so many other places that I can’t keep up with them all. I will remember all those greeters I’ve served with over those 18 years and how each one made me a little more like Jesus.
Thank you, Mike Glenn, Chris Brooks, Mike Harder, Cameron Russell, Brentwood Baptist Church (and so many others) for making a safe place for young adults to find and learn about and love and worship Jesus. That’s the true legacy that will live on even after I’m gone.
One of the main reasons I frequent Goodwill is that you never know what you’ll find. Many times, it’s nothing. Sometimes, I go in there and it looks like the place got robbed because there’s nothing in there.
But today, I found this vintage Christian artist that I know next to nothing about. I also know the CD cover had my name on it. Literally.
Spoiler alert: whoever the Greg is that Renee signed the CD for back in the day is not me. I can’t name one of her songs (except now the ones on the back of the CD, obviously) and have never been to a single one of her concerts or met her in any capacity.
Still, it’s fun finding something with your name on it, especially signed.
And no, there’s no deeper spiritual meaning behind this post. There’s no allegory or metaphor about God writing my name on His heart (although that’s true). This is just me randomly finding something cool on a Monday. That’s all.
I wonder what the odds are that a used signed CD would find its way into the hands of someone else with the same name. Now all I need is a convincing story about how she signed it for me but it got away from me — some kind of “we were secretly in love but knew it could never be” kind of story. Or maybe I could just say that she thought my t-shirt was cool. Yeah, that.
Am I absolutely where I want to be in my life? Not really. I’m still praying for God’s perfect provision and timing on a job.
But then I see a meme like this, and it’s almost like a punch to the gut (in a good way).
Did I sleep last night in a comfortable bed with a roof over my head? Yes.
Did I wake up to good health and a sound mind? Yes.
Did I have a shower this morning and a second change of clothes to put on? Yes.
Did I have at least one good meal today as well as access to clean water? Yes.
Do I have reliable transportation? Absolutely yes.
I remember reading that somewhere out there someone is wishing and praying for one of your bad days because your bad day (to you) is better than one of their best days. My bad day is losing my job. Their bad day is going to bed hungry yet again and getting sick from drinking dirty water because there’s no clean water anywhere around.
Then there’s the meme with a man wearing plastic Coke bottles strapped to his feet for shoes. The meme goes something like this: to the man with shoes, all he wants is a better pair of shoes. To the man with no shoes, all he wants is a pair of shoes. To the man with no feet, all he wants is to be able to walk (or something like that). The point is that having shoes (and having feet to put them on) is a blessing that I can easily take for granted.
As much as I want to not be complacent with my life and strive to do better and be better, I also want to remain grateful and mindful that so many do not have what I have. It helps most of all to remember that every good gift is from above from the Father of lights. Everything that I have in my life that’s worth anything is God’s gracious gift to me that I didn’t deserve and couldn’t earn.
So I think that qualifies for an “oof” and an “amen!”
Sometimes, I post stuff that’s not necessarily funny or overly insightful, but more as an encouragement. I know I need it, so I figure other people do, too.
What’s funny (and not so much in a haha way) is when I see one of those posts from a few years ago and it’s me who ends up encouraged by something I posted back in the day. Something from 10 or so years ago will speak to me right where I am.
All that to say that it’s funny (again not so much in a chuckling kind of way) how God works. That’s all.
I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get when it comes to prayer. I’ve read several books, listened to many sermons, and attended many nights of prayer and worship. Obviously, nothing is better to teach me prayer than the Bible, and the best way to learn how to pray is simply to pray early and often every day.
Here are some helpful words about prayer from a wise old saint from yesteryear, Oswald Chambers. Again, there’s something about the old books of faith that speaks in ways a lot of the new books just don’t. Maybe they were more direct and honest. Maybe they cared less about selling books than communicating God’s unvarnished truth.
“The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking, ‘This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.’ Enter into ‘the secret place,’ and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day. Swing the door of your life fully open and ‘pray to your Father who is in the secret place’ and every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God” (Oswald Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest).
Pray all the time. That means to keep your mind in an attitude of prayer at every possible moment, and when you feel your mind slipping into carnal or otherwise non-spiritual thoughts, practice the discipline of bringing your mind back to God through short prayers, reminding yourself of your need and God’s provision. Or you could just do what Oswald Chambers said.
I recently subscribed to a daily email that contains a prayer and short devotional from the one and only Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers from the 19th century.
I love daily encouragements. I love reading classic books of the faith by saints from bygone days whose legacy lives on long after they have entered into glory. People such as Oswald Chambers, C. S. Lewis, Amy Carmichael, and Charles Spurgeon had such a huge influence on my spiritual development and still speak louder to me than many of the more contemporary voices.
Here’s a sample of the goodness I read just about every single day:
DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Oh God, help us. We are very weak. If we get a little strength, it only adds to our weakness. We grow more and more dependent upon an almighty arm. If we did not have God, we would have nothing. Bless your servants who preach the gospel. May they never dream that they can save a soul. May they leave salvation with the savior whose work it is. May we be instruments in the hands of God, and be content to give him all the praise when we have the largest success.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)
Let us pick up our tools and go to our work rejoicing, feeling, “Well, I may be weaker, or I may be stronger in myself, but my strength is in my God.” If I should ever become stronger, then I must pray for a deeper sense of weakness, lest I become weak through my strength. And if I should ever become weaker than I am, then I must hope and believe that I am really becoming stronger in the Lord. Whether I am weak or strong, what does it matter? He who never fails and never changes, will perfect his strength in my weakness, and this is glory to me.
If you want, you can subscribe by going to the link and submitting your email address. It’s well worth the 15 seconds and will bless you daily.
Confession: I wrote all these posts primarily for me. I love that people read what I write, but if it was just me (and my Mom) reading them, it would be just as therapeutic and beneficial for me to get stuff out of my head and on to paper (or technically, into cyberspace, but it doesn’t sound as artsy).
I do hope that someone else will recognize their story in what I write. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to a song or read a portion of a book or heard a movie quote that is telling my own story back to me. It’s like, “yeah, I feel that way. I would never have thought of putting it that way, but that’s me. That’s my story.”
As I was reminded tonight, God’s Word is the only writing that’s living and active. Other books may give you the nostalgic vibes if you revisit them after a number of years, but they’re basically the same. The Bible will hit differently as you get older with verses you may have read over multiple times almost screaming out at you because they’re telling your current story.
I believe the Bible has one meaning that the author, guided by the Holy Spirit, intended for his original readers. I also think that there can be several different applications that will change over the course of your lifetime from childhood to adulthood to old age.
Basically, your testimony is just you telling your story about who you were, how God met you and changed your life, and who you are now . . . or better yet, who you are becoming. A true testimony shouldn’t end with “and now that I know Jesus, everything is perfect and I am suddenly free of temptations and struggles.”
But as I continue to learn, the specifics of our stories may be different, but the themes are the same. The feelings are the same. When we share that part of our story that we swore we’d never tell a living soul, that’s when we find our own healing and someone listening will also find healing.
The point isn’t to tell your story perfectly, but to tell it. I think I heard once that something that is done imperfectly is better than the perfect that never actually gets done. A story or a song or a poem or a picture that’s messy and raw that goes out to the world is better than something that stays in your head because you think it’s not good enough.
Tell your story. No one else can tell it better than you. No one else has a story exactly like yours because it only happened to you. But other people need to hear their stories told through you. So tell it.
Side note: I may have to read (or listen to) this sooner rather than later.
To become real is to look a lot like Jesus. But how did Jesus look? Was there anything physically about Him that drew people to Him? Not really.
What was it? What draws us to Jesus even after all this time? Why is He so impactful that His name is still spoken more than any other name 2,000 years later — either in prayer or in cursing?
Because no one has ever loved us sacrificially like that. No one ever went through that much torture and shame and death for us. The one who deserved it least volunteered to take the place of the ones who deserved it most. And without Jesus, we still do.
It’s not the kind of love that affirms us as we are and leaves us in the mess we’re in, but the kind that makes us not just better, but brand new. The kind that transforms us into something like Jesus.
I want to be real like that. I want to be so used up at the end of my life that I might not look pretty but people can say that they have seen Jesus. If I ever get there, it won’t be due to my perfect faith or my super spiritual living or my holy countenance (all of which I seriously lack), but it will all be the grace of God that didn’t quit on me when I wanted to quit on God and everything else.
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