I recently had a good conversation at Kairos regarding the ways that God was manifesting Himself in our lives. What gifts has He given us that we’re simply overlooking?

When I was still in college, there was this dip in the ground towards the outskirts of campus. Anytime it rained or snowed or did anything meteorologically, a pool of water would collect between the trees like an impromptu sort of lake. Only then would the ducks come.

You guys have to understand something first. I have this “thing” about ducks. A motif in my life, if you will. We had a neighbor when I was really young that used to call my sisters and I my mom’s little ducklings- we followed her everywhere. And ever since then, ducks always seem to show up in my life- at my grandparent’s house when I was young, on someone’s lawn on my way to work, at the park down the street.

There’s one time that I remember specifically. During my last semester in college, I always saw these ducks each time I drove by on my way to class. It came to the point that I would look forward to seeing them in the evening, comforted by the consistency in that routine.

I know it sounds silly, but God used those ducks to make me smile, to reassure me of the fact that sometimes the conditions in my life and my heart have to be “just right” before the beauty God intends for me can fully unfold. At a time in my life when things were uncertain, He showed me that He was unchangeable.

So I ask you- how conscious are you of God’s presence in your life? How does God manifest Himself to you, and what does He long to show you?

I’ve begun to realize lately how transient these slivers of life are. I feel like life as a twenty something provides nothing but change. Different job opportunities, new friendships, lost friendships, new apartments, beginnings and ends that just keep coming quicker and quicker. The anticipation is exciting; the unknown, a little bit scary.

I like change to a certain degree. I don’t ever want to feel rooted so strongly in something that I rebel against what the Spirit may call me to do. But these past few months certainly haven’t found me in my comfort zone. It’s strange to see friends all around me moving on, moving forward, and feeling so… stationary. To realize that God is working in my life and not be able to see any fruit from it just yet.

I find myself wondering what’s yet to come. How can I be preparing my heart for the journey that God has me on? I know that a good portion of that question is genuinely God honoring. I want my life to be the most fragrant and pleasing offering that I can give for Him. But what portion of this question is impatience with my God and His timing? Where is the line between preparing for the future and living in the future?

He’s been convicting me of this lately. But our God is so good. His voice is gentle; His embrace, comforting. The rebuke of our Father is often spoken with a soft tongue, and I smile because I know He’s right.

I want to be here now. Rather than anticipating change, I want to live it. What good is planning and anticipating the future when I’m missing out on the opportunities He’s laid at my feet today?

I want to be his living body- hands that wipe away tears, feet that reach lost friends. I want to be completely and wholly satisfied by my beautiful Jesus and nothing else. I could make all the plans in the world, but if my mind isn’t captivated by my Savior, I have nothing.

And so I take a step. It’s all that I can do.

Whether we want to admit it or not, our perceptions shift with the culture. Country to country, state to state, decade to decade- we risk having our thoughts and actions defined by the norm. Sometimes the norm is attainable, sometimes it isn’t.

I’m talking about appearances. We live in an image-saturated society- billboards, television commercials, and magazine ads try to show us who to be, what should make us happy.

I speak as a woman who used to be especially susceptible to this insecurity. A woman who grew up sometimes feeling not enough of one thing or too much of something else. But God has shown me in the last couple of years that such thinking is exhausting and futile.

Instead of always thinking we should be something more, God wants us to step into who we are. He wants us to focus on letting Him refine our hearts, giving Him room to let the fruits of His Spirit grow.

1 Peter 3:3-4 says that “your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

I don’t think it’s sinful to be conscious of one’s appearance or to desire to feel and look beautiful. I believe that women in particular were created with this innate desire. But it is sinful when we focus more on our outward beauty than on the beauty God longs to cultivate inside each one of us. When we put our worth in body image instead of Godly character.

Meditate on those words. Our beauty should glow from inside of us. The beauty of our inner self is unfading. The beauty of our inner self is defined by a gentle and quiet spirit. What billboard is going to tell us that?

Peter goes on to talk about the holy women of the past in verse five. Women like Sarah and Hannah and Deborah and Ruth. These women let their hope in God define their character and their interactions with those around them.

They carried a holy beauty. By delighting in God, He delighted in them. By finding security in God, He granted them peace within their souls.

Will we allow Him to do the same with us?

No matter how many times I read the story, I’m always a little bit surprised when I realize that the Lord spoke with Moses face to face, the way one would speak to a friend.

There are days that I forget this. I forget that He delights in me. That He wants to show me His glory, and grant me rest. That He desires to speak to me, and wants me to trust His voice. I forget that He is already dwelling in my future. And that He has a perfect path set out for me.

I resort to my timeline, succumb to my anxieties and let myself forget.

It hurts me to even acknowledge this truth. I want to always trust Him as my best friend, to put my heart willingly into His hands without trying to grab it back. I really want to walk by faith. Sometimes I’m successful and sometimes I’m not. But where is the line drawn between desiring these things and actually accomplishing them?

I think about this a lot. Is the desire of wanting to depend solely on God with the day-to-day stuff enough to make me actually do it? Or does it take more than that?

Maybe that line is blurred, and it’s a little bit of both. Desiring unfaltering faith and trust in God should bring us to our knees in prayer. It should make us realize that we’ll never get there on our own, that we need to pray for God to provide the faith and trust before we can truly see Him as our friend.

It’s through this prayer that we are able to lay our lives down at His feet, and seek His will instead of our own. I pray that we be so intertwined with our Saviour that we won’t be able to distinguish our will from His.

There is beauty in the ashes,
moments of surrender loosely draping
my weary frame.

You chased me.
Fought for me.
Pursued me and pulled me
from the wreckage.
My rescuer. My healer.
Lover of my soul.

You took my heart and broke it
to put me back together.
You sought my hand and
refused to ever let go.
You touched my lips and breathed
life into my shattered frame,
Your lips dripping with myrrh.

You saved my life.
All I am, all I have, is Yours.

I love the idea of expressing protest through prayer- the saints are rising up in prayer to fight the injustices of the world. We’re praying alongside each other without ever fully grasping it. Whispered words rumble through the streets at night after the last desk light has dimmed; God’s people are still praying.

We are part of a greater movement, a moment in time unlike any other, voices of every nation awakening a sleeping giant. We are a peaceful insurgency. We remain still, as God fights for us. I hope we’re ready.

We are the sons and daughters of the prophets of old. Fearlessly, Amos continued to reveal the visions God had given him despite opposition from within the church. Hosea obeyed God’s command to marry a prostitute, wooing her back to him as an illustration of God’s love for His idolatrous people. Daniel continued to pray to God even under the threat of his life, exemplifying incomprehensible and unfaltering faith. Micah rails against social injustice, calling Israel back to God.

We know the story. The Israelites were wicked. They worshiped other gods. They lacked faith, disregarded God’s promises, blatantly turned their backs on Him. They were dishonest, and consistently dissatisfied. So why save them, undeserving as they were?

Is our story really so different today? Think globally for a second about the brokenness of our world. We’re in the middle of a global water crisis. The AIDS pandemic has killed more than 25 million people since the early 1980s, and orphaned more than 15 million children worldwide. Six-year-old children are sold as sex slaves, never knowing any better.

Daily we must battle against greed and materialism, widening class gaps and a health care system that isn’t a right, but a privilege. We fight depression, abuse, eating disorders, and addictions. We battle jealousy, lust, gluttony, and reckless individualism.

The world is full of sin. It’s sick. So then why does God call us to intercede for this bleeding world, undeserving as we are?

We serve the God of compassion and mercy. The God who looked down on Ninevah and relented. We serve the God who held back His wrath for the many to honor the prayers of the few. Our God called Amos and Hosea and Daniel and Micah before us to intercede on behalf of His lost. Now He’s calling us to do the same.

Where will we fit into this? I want to pick up the torch that those prophets handed off to us. I pray that after FORTY our fervor for God isn’t quenched, that our appetite isn’t even whetted. I pray that we can feel the brokenness of this world with genuine compassion and lift up cries of protest to heaven, knowing that our God is a God who hears and saves.

I’ve found that splinters of enlightenment have been coming to me at strange moments lately- insights revealed in supermarket aisles, thoughts puncturing that hazy time between sleep and reality, moments of clarity marked amidst cans of paint and cleaning solvent.

God does that, though. The more simple and mundane the circumstances, the more clearly His voice seems to shine through. Perhaps it’s because my mind is least cluttered at those times. Or maybe my guard is down just low enough to welcome those moments of submission.

I’ve been thinking about plans lately. Plans of which city I want to visit next. Plans of starting a professional writing career. Weekend plans. Five year plans. Floor plans of a new apartment. Plans of growing up.

The book of Proverbs talks all about making plans. It isn’t just about searching our hearts and defining our desires. It’s one step beyond that. Making Godly plans requires a level of commitment. Proverbs 16:3 states, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” A commitment is a vow, a pledge before God, something to be taken seriously. A commitment is letting go and giving our desires and plans to God, knowing that we can’t control them. A commitment is surrender.

The human heart is wily and not to be trusted. We can plan all we want to, but ultimately the Lord’s purpose will prevail (Proverbs 19:21). So how do we even get to the point of recognizing the path that God has established for each of us?

We pray. We seek the character of God. We try to find contentment in knowing that God is more than enough for us. “The purposes of the human heart are deep waters, but those who have insight draw them out” (Proverbs 20:5). God wants to provide us with this insight. He’s waiting for us to trust Him, and look to Him for wisdom and guidance. Once we get to that point, He’ll fill in the rest of the blanks for us.

By human standards, this is almost impossible. I’m the first to tell you that I’m impatient. I’m headstrong. I struggle to discern my own heart at times, to understand which plan will bring God the most glory. I want things to happen in my timing.

But there are three truths that I cling to, a mantra for my life, if you will.
1.    God is in control.
2.    His timing is perfect.
3.    His plan is amazing.

And it’s as simple and complicated as that.

God’s heart is breaking for our hearts.

The depth of His love for us struck me in a different way today. God, the Creator and Master of the universe, loves us- madly, intensely, crazily. He feels our brokenness, mourns with us over lost dreams, and weeps with us when we’re hopeless. He reaches out to draw us in, even when we turn away. And He loves us all the same.

We’re not crying out to a distant, aloof God when we pray. He’s beside us, feeling our heartbreak more intensely than I ever gave Him credit for. Like a protective father, He wants to fix us, and this fractured world we live in.

But do we let Him?

Sometimes I find myself shrinking from Him, as though I think it’s possible to hide. On days like that I’ll pray for anything but what’s going on inside my own heart. I’m afraid to be vulnerable with Him, afraid to speak those “heart cries” into being. I know that once those words leave my lips, I can’t take them back. And they’re just out there- suspended between God and I. No longer can they be protected from disappointment within the walls of my own heart.

It’s on days like these that prayer makes me feel raw and vulnerable and exposed. And it’s uncomfortable. But strangely, since Forty has begun I’ve been embracing this discomfort. Welcoming it, almost. Because I know that once I admit these prayers to God, we’ve reached a new level of intimacy.

I want to be like Nehemiah. He wasn’t afraid to show his “sadness of heart” in the courts of the king. Nehemiah laid his desires out there to King Artaxerxes. And God honored Nehemiah for the honesty and courage, prompting Artaxerxes to grant him favor beyond what Nehemiah could have ever expected.

Our heavenly King desires this same yielding and submissive attitude from us. He wants us to lay our hearts at the foot of his throne, to cry out to Him with our deeply hidden longings. He wants our walls to come down.

And He’ll meet us there, in the midst of all the rubble.

I don’t know a lot when it comes to the technicalities of music. I learned to play the flute as a fifth grade band student and continued on with it into high school, though with some mediocrity. I still can’t play my scales from memory, nor do I remember what an arpeggio is or why I allowed myself to be subjected to those horrible marching band costumes in the first place.

But I do remember buying my first album- the Temptations Greatest Hits- and listening to it repeatedly on my headphones, feeling the music swell around me. Nothing on earth is quite equivalent to the sensation, the soul of those notes captured in song- an unexplainable, universal language of sorts.

So I might not always understand the mechanics, but I do recognize music that speaks to the body, the music that brings new truths and realities to an otherwise (sometimes) “figured out” life. I crave music that challenges, comforts, and provokes- and I’d venture to say that each of you feels some of the same.

When I look back on my walk as a Christian, there are certain landmark songs and albums that stand out in my mind. “Resuce,” by the Desperation Band. “Come Awake,” by David Crowder Band. “Vito’s Ordination Song,” by Sufjan Stevens. Derek Webb’s “Mockingbird” album and Phil Wickham’s entire self-titled release, namely “Always Forever” and “I Will Wait For You There.”

The very first worship song that I ever connected to was “You Are My Joy,” by David Crowder Band. I remember sitting at the end of the aisle by myself before I really knew anybody and being blown away by the words—

“And He set me on fire, and I am burning alive.
With His breath in my lungs I am coming undone.
And I cannot hold it in and remain composed.
Love’s taken over me
So I propose the letting myself go.
I am letting myself go.”

As I sat there with the words and the notes washing over me, I just had to laugh. At the time, I couldn’t even place where it was coming from. But there it was- deep, bubbling, uncontainable laughter. I remember being surrounded by strangers on both sides of me and just laughing, knowing God was doing something to my heart, but not quite sure yet of what it was.

Now, I know. It was in that moment of laughter that He really spurred me to let go. I started to let go of what I thought I should be and embrace who He made me to be. I began to let go of the worldly things that I depended on for my joy and started to search for it in my Savior.

Such a simple moment, but one that I keep tucked away. I never want to forget how it felt in that moment to let everything go and know that I was created to bring God joy. I was created to laugh and smile and revel in the fact that He’s got it all under control.

And when I laugh, He laughs. So I try to do it as often as I can.

A few summers ago I spent just under two months in the central part of China with a missions team. On one of the afternoons we took a short bus trip to the Ta’er Lamasery, a prominent Tibetan Buddhist monastery just outside of Xining, the city where we were living. I read somewhere that the name literally translates to ‘10,000 figures of Buddha’. That would not be an exaggeration.

These idols were everywhere, from small simple figures tucked into stone alcoves to the larger free-standing statues along the sides of the rooms. In one room alone, there were over 5,000 small golden statues. Silks and gems ornately covered the walls of these rooms, their colors rich in intensity: teals, navy blues, oranges. Dim candles draped the room in a yellow pallor.

My friends and I wandered from room to room silently, my heart sick. With thousands of rooms in the compound, these places of worship flowed right into each other. Men and women crowded the kneelers in front of the larger figures. Others stood still, their heads tilted to the side, eyes closed, and lips moving wordlessly in prayer.

I remember walking out into the thick air, my arm linked with a friend’s. That was when I felt my chest constrict. Around the perimeter of the monastery were prayer rugs set back a few feet from the wall. A single elderly woman stood at the edge of the rug, bent down, and threw herself prostrate on the ground, her face in the dust. After about thirty seconds she got up and did it all over again. And again and again. Her face was crumpled with shame; her slight body, heavy with the lines of submission. It was her act of atonement.

Strangely, I found a tragic beauty in watching her repeatedly bury her face in the dust. The beauty certainly wasn’t in watching her try (and fail) to appease the thousands of gods she served. I found it instead in the lines of her face, her knit eyebrows, the sorrow that hung over her body like a cloak. I found beauty in her ability to recognize her sins and feel such distress over them that she would choose to repeatedly throw her body to the ground.

Here’s the tragic part of it. I live in a country where I can practice my faith freely, without discrimination. But I can’t remember the last time where I mourned and wept over my sin as that woman had done.

Please don’t misunderstand me- I’m not laying this out as a dogmatic argument on the differences between Christianity and Buddhism, and their means of salvation. I write this because of the significance of the moment. Thankfully, Jesus already atoned for any sin that we have or will ever commit in our lives. But that shouldn’t make us any less inclined to feel deep sorrow or conviction from our sins. I want to feel that sorrow on a deeper level, that gratefulness that Jesus’ death gave me new life and freedom– so much so that I would throw myself on the ground as an act of worship. How radical would that be?