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The Kind of Friend I Want to Be

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I get it. I’m an idealist at heart. I have good motives (most of the time), but lousy execution (some of the time). On the way home from Movies in the Park, I got to thinking again what kind of friend I want to be. I apologize in advance if some or all of this is a repeat.

I want to be that friend who never gives up on you. I want to extend forgiveness and second chances to you as many times as God did for me. Which is quite a lot, I can tell you.

I want to be that friend who believes the best in you even when you can’t see it yourself. I’ve had those friends who did that for me. I have a God who does that better than anyone else.

I want you to be better because of me. I want to do everything in my power to help you become every part of who God made you to be. I want to see you realize all of God’s dreams for you. And believe me, His dreams for you are bigger and more amazing than anything you or I could come up with.

Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I do this out of my own need. These are all things I long for in my friends, so maybe the first step is me becoming all of those things to the people I call friends.

Obviously, the most healthy relationships are built out of wholeness and completeness, not neediness. But I do think we help each other to become whole and healthy and complete by friendships based on forgiveness and unconditional sacrificial love.

If I try too hard sometimes and get a bit Steve Urkel on you, I apologize. Like I said, my good motives are sometimes executed poorly. Sometimes, I get carried away with the posts and texts and messages. But it’s from a good place of wanting to encourage and bless you, so just remind me to take a pill and give me grace, ’cause I always stand in need of it.

I’m getting better. I am learning that you can’t fill my needs and validate me as a human being. Only God can do that. Once you learn that, you are free to be the kind of friend you always wanted.

As my friend and fellow blogger always says, “You think about that.”

Signs You’re Finally Growning Up

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I am not the most mature person you’ve ever met. Sometimes, I feel like a 10-year old trapped in a 40-year old body, kinda like Tom Hank’s character in the movie Big. But God has been growing me up a lot in the last few years. Along the way, I’ve come to be able to discern and recognize some of the signs of maturity.

1) For us singles: It’s when that girl or that guy you’ve been interested in and secretly hoped was interested in you is not. They’re not interested in you as anything more than a friend. But you find that you can still cherish that person as a friend and be the best friend in return that you can possibly be.

Best of all, you find you’ve come to the place where you can celebrate and rejoice when that person finally finds true love and be genuinely happy for the two of them.

2) For parents: It’s when you can release your children to be what God is calling them to be, even if it’s not what you wanted or had planned for them. It’s when you do everything in your power to find their purpose, even if that purpose leads them halfway around the globe.

3) For all of us: It’s when you can live with unaswered questions and unfulfilled longings and desires. You are able to trust God and keep holding on in faith, even when everything in you and around you tells you not to. You are able to pray the prayer, “Lord, if all I have from You today is You and the next breath, that will be enough.”

4) It’s when you stop praying so much for blessings and start praying to be a blessing. You begin to see people as hurting and broken and needy and you see yourself as a channel through which God can pour out healing and wholeness and love to those around you.

5) It’s when you’re need to be acknowledged and approved of and commended gets less and less and you can be okay with not getting the credit for something you did. You can echo with the words of John the Baptist about Jesus that “I must decrease, that He may increase.”

6) It’s about being okay with being in the process. Being okay with not knowing the answers or even the next step in life because even though you may not know where you’re being led, you know the One leading you. It’s when you can like yourself for who you are, not who you aren’t but want to be.

These are some of the signs that I recognize as part of God’s work in me. He’s maturing me into the man of God and vessel through which He can transform the world. It’s about Jesus reaching out and touching people through your hands and speaking to them with your voice. It’s a very long process, but as I have found, it is so much more than worth it.

Two Hearts Beat as One

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I was getting ready to mow the back yard when God brought an image to my mind. I thought of an article I read online a few months back about an elderly couple who died holding hands. This doesn’t happen often, but I literally dropped everything and got to my laptop to get this all down while it’s still fresh in my head.

The couple was Gordon and Norma Yeager, married for 72 years when they were both involved in a car accident. When they got to the ER, they were both more concerned about the other than themselves. Finally, they got moved to a room with side-by-side hospital beds where they could hold hands.

He died first. But that’s where it gets interesting. I’ll quote a bit of the article.

“Someone in there said, ‘Why, then, when we look at the monitor is the heart still beating?'” Sheets recalled. “The nurse said Dad was picking up Mom’s heartbeat through Mom’s hand.”

“And we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, Mom’s heart is beating through him,'” Dennis Yeager said.

That to me is what a Godly marriage looks like. That is also a beautiful picture of fellowship and community in the body of Christ. That’s a perfect picture of divine love shown in it’s fullest and most complete expression.

We should be so connected and intertwined as believers that I cry when you hurt and I suffer when you are in pain. That your sorrows are my sorrows and your joys my joys. I think the Bible calls that carrying each other’s burdens.

Most of all, I want to be that way with Jesus. I want to be so close to Him that people can feel His heart beating through mine. I want to be so intimate with Him that His heartbeat literally becomes mine and I can see people through His eyes and reach out to them with His hands and love them with His heart.

I want my heart to be broken over what breaks the heart of God. No just when I’m serving in missions or when I’m in a church service, but all the time, everywhere I go for everyone I meet.

May that be your heartbeat also. May that be the one desire of your heart.

By the way, if you want to read more about the Yeagers, you can go here. http://abcnews.go.com/US/iowa-couple-married-72-years-dies-holding-hands/story?id=14771029

From one beggar who has found the Bread of Life and is trying to tell everyone else how to find it, too.

Good Conversations

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I had a really good conversation with a good friend I’ve known for a while today. It was at Starbucks, so of course quality beverages were involved. In this case, it was two chai frappachinos with caramel on top. I highly recommend one if you ever get the chance.

It was one of those conversations that makes you a better person. It was one where I realized again just how blessed I am to have friends like this. I truly believe that I will look back 50 years from now and see that I am more like Jesus because of conversations like this one.

What will you remember about your conversations 50 years from now? Will you remember anything worthwhile that you said or heard? Will you be able to point to those times where you changed for the better because of the healing and encouragement and blessing spoken into your life?

I know I am who I am because of God speaking life into me through so many friends and family members. Not all the words were easy to hear, but every word carried the power of God to transform and renew me.

Thank you, friend, for blessing me every time I see you. It’s because of you and others like you that I am finally able to see myself and love myself the way God does and love others the same way.

May you be blessed a thousand times over for your words of comfort and kindness to me. May you never forget how fond your Abba is of you and always feel His smile of approval over you in everything you say and do.

The same goes for all of you reading this right now.

 

Sometimes

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I really, really hate to admit this after all my talk of how God has healed me in the past. It feels like I’m pulling a fast one on you after I’ve announced to everyone how God has been delivering me from my fears. But here it is.

Sometimes at night when I’m tired, I get overwhelmed for a moment by fears.

I fear that this time I really have said or done the absolute stupid and wrong thing and a particular friend is gone for good. He or she has un-friended me and taped a picture of me to a dartboard for target practice.

I fear that I will always be single because no girl will ever find me attractive or desirable and I will always be left with this unfulfilled longing inside of me.

I fear that I’m really not good at anything and really won’t ever find a career that really makes me come alive to who God created me to be.

I think the difference this time is that I can name these thoughts as lies. It may not completely take away the panic and the pain, but it helps when I see these thoughts for what they are and their true origin from the father of lies.

I know now that most of the time a good night’s sleep will help these fears go away. Sometimes, it’s a glass of warm milk. Sometimes, it’s just practicing deep breathing. Sometimes, it’s saying, “Abba Father” over and over. Sometimes, it’s resting in the eternal Arms of my Abba Father and listening as He sings over me to calm my anxiety.

It’s okay for me to have setbacks and regressions, because they keep me grateful and thankful for the times when I am living out of faith and not fear. And those times are more and more prevalent.

There will always be something to fear. There will always be those moments when you give in to that fear. The question is: Can you name that fear for what it is and claim the promises of Jesus over it? Sometimes, you have to claim them out loud, but even when you don’t have a voice to speak them out, they are still powerful and true and for you.

Perfect love casts out all fear. In my case, perfect Love is casting out all fears, one at a time. I hope you find this to be true for you. Because the freedom is so much more than worth it.

FEAR

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I heard something really awesome in a sermon I was listening to a few days ago. It was about fear.

I have lived a lot of my life controlled and dominated by fear. I played it safe and didn’t take risks because of fear.

But the preacher spelled out fear for me in a way that really helped me to understand it.

Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

In other words, what I’m so very afraid of isn’t reality. Most of the anticipated futures that keep me up at night never come to pass. Most of the times when I fear I’ve messed up and blown another relationship, it turns out it was all in my head.

The Bible says that perfect Love casts out all fear. I am learning that slowly.

It’s hard to live out of love when you’re so used to living in fear, but it is so much more freeing. It’s how God meant for us to live.

Greater is He that is in me than what I’m afraid of. Greater is He who lives in me that what I’m facing.

Greater is He who calls me Beloved and knows my name than all of sin and hell and the world put together and thrown at me.

Because God is with me and for me and in me, I know that I have nothing to be afraid of anymore. That is freedom.

May you find the freedom of the Love of your Abba Father overcoming all your fears, so that you can step out boldly in faith into the future that God has for you right now.

Amen.

Speaking Life into Each Other

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Have you ever posted something on facebook with one specific person in mind, just hoping that person would read it and comment on it? I have. . . I mean, a friend of mine has. . . . ok, I’m so busted. That was me.

Maybe if you’ve done it, too, you were like me and felt crushed and ignored when said person didn’t comment or even like the post.

I realize now how co-dependent and passive-agressive that was (not to mention somewhat OCD). Looking back, I see just how silly and juvenile that was.

The thing with co-dependency is that you always need to be liked and affirmed and acknowledged. The sad part is no matter how people do, it will never be enough. It’s kinda like a drug, where you need more and more to feel normal.

What I need are friends who will tell me the truth in love.

As I have mentioned before, I am in the healing process. I am finally learning to like me. I can finally stand to look at myself in the mirror. I can finally like being around me.

It’s because I have people around me who speak life and healing and wisdom into me. I have people who see me the way God sees me and help me to see myself that way.

In a conversation with a friend at Starbucks, I had an interesting revelation. My friend said that Hebrews speaks of Jesus as putting a human face on God. Then I got to thinking afterward, maybe you and I put hands and feet to Jesus when we serve each other and those around us in need. When we speak the words of Jesus into each others’ lives.

I am a lot better at not wigging out when people don’t respond to my posts or texts. I get that people have lives and issues other than me and that I can’t realistically demand to be the center of everybody’s attention all the time. That’s not healthy.

But I know that I have God’s full attention 24/7 and that He is speaking to me all the time. Sometimes when I’m alone with my Bible open or sometimes when I’m in a one-on-one conversation with a friend or sometimes through random posts or texts or sightings around town.

I am coming to the point where it’s not about me, but helping people to find their YES in Jesus and come to know and believe about themselves what God says about them and sees in them. That’s my ministry and calling.

May you be as comfortable in silence and solitude as you are in a crowd and learn to love yourself as God does. It is so very freeing.

Footprints in My Heart

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I’ll give you a bit of insight into my blogging process. Often, I will have no idea what to write about until I hear a line from a movie or a song, or hear a sermon, or see or hear something random.

Many times, I still have no clue even as I begin the blog. I just start writing and the words come out and I am more amazed than anybody and what comes out. I bet that’s what some of the writers of the Bible felt like. And no, I don’t think my blog is anwhere close to being inspired on the same level as the Bible.

Tonight, it was a quote I read a while back and have posted on my facebook page more than once. It’s about people that come into your life and change you for the better. You are never the same after.

I know I have several sets of footprints in my own heart. Family members and friends have touched the deepest part of my heart and blessed me in ways that they will never even know.

People who have seen the worst in me and still believe the best of me. People who have seen my dorkier moments and have stuck around. People who have shown me Jesus time after time and have helped me be more like Him.

Even seemingly small things like getting invited to volleyball games and pizza have meant the world to me. And if you’re reading this, you know who you are and you should know that I am honored and privileged to call you friend,

I am who I am because of these people. I have found healing and freedom and release to be me because of the words spoken over me that I finally had the courage to receive and believe.

I know I’ve probably said this too many times, but I am grateful for all of you. I am blessed way more than I deserve and way more than I can begin to repay. The only way that I know to even try to pay it forward is to be the best me I can and try to be a blessing as much as I have been blessed.

May each of you know the joy of having footprints in your own hearts that you will carry with you until you die. And after.

Voices

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I heard a provoking question tonight at Kairos. What does your voice tell you?

I’ve never thought about it this way, but usually those kinds of voices never tell me anything good or positive.

Things like “You’ll never amount to anything,” or “You really are a nobody.”

If you try to take steps to make your life better, the voice will say both “Who are you to do that?” and “If you’re gonna try, it has to be perfect or it’s no good.”

My voice that stuck with me for the longest was “If people really knew the real you, they wouldn’t want anything to do with you,” with the close second being “No girl will ever find you attractive so don’t even think about dating.”

Those voices don’t ever go away by you ignoring them. They only get louder that way.

The best way to get rid of those voices is to drown them out with another Voice. The Voice of Truth.

This Voice says, “You are my beloved. I love you just as you are right now where you are.”

The Voice says, “You are good enough and smart enough and beautiful enough because you are My masterpiece.”

The Voice says, “I am your Abba Father and I am very fond of you.”

Sometimes when you can’t hear that Voice, you need someone who will remind you. Sometimes, you will be the one to remind someone else.

I have family and friends who remind me daily of what God sees in me and what He says about me. I try to help people see themselves the way God sees them and hear what God says about them.

This is a repeat, but it it is also my mantra (or one of them): What you think and what you feel will lie to you, so you go with what you know. You go with the promises that God has spoken over you and what He has said about you being wonderfully and fearfully made.

You recognize that voice in your head for what it is and renounce it as the mouthpiece of the father of lies.

May you have ears to hear the good things your Abba Father is saying about you tonight and every day after.

Wheat and Weeds

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I keep thinking about wheat and weeds a lot. Not because I’m in need of medication (and yes, they do make pills for this), but because I’m still thinking about a particular sermon I heard Sunday. It was that good.

I’m wheat. Just go with it and it will make sense further on (I hope). I am planted in a field where wheat and weeds are mixed together and sometimes are hard to tell apart.

My job is not to try to decide which is which.

I could make a list of top ten most dangerous weeds– that is, the people I’d most like God to take out and smite. The problem with that is that I am most likely on someone else’s List of Folks for God to Smite Tomorrow.

Or I could just be the best wheat I can be and love people.

Oh yeah, I forgot one thing. I was once a weed.

In other words, I once was purpose-less and no good for anybody or anything. I once had no hope at all and was headed for a grim ending.

But God made me wheat. Is that anymore hard to believe than God changing me from dead to alive, from sinner to saint, from stanger to family, from alienated to beloved? No.

If God can to that in me, He can do it in anyone. Trust me on that.

From this moment on, I am believing the best about everyone I meet. I believe God can change anyone, make broken and dead people whole and alive, take your mess and make it your message, and help you find your YES, the reason you were born.

I choose to see you not as you are, but what you will look like when God gets through with you (and trust me, what I’m seeing is absolutely stunning!) I’m praying to see you with God’s eyes and love you with God’s heart and be God’s hands and feet to help you get to where God designed for you to shine.

Cause that’s just what wheat does.