Yesterday when I got home from work, I found my mom had made some delicious looking cheese ravioli on the stove, and some sauce to go with it. I really wanted to have some but alas I resisted and went on my daily run instead. When I got back I took a nice hot shower, and then headed back to the kitchen to have some ravioli. To my dismay my mom had already put the left-overs in the fridge. “You can warm it”, she said. I didn’t really want to warm up food, but that was a small price to pay to have some. So I grabbed the bowl of ravioli out of the fridge and uncovered the plastic wrap. I grabbed a fork out of the drawer and began dishing out some ravioli onto my plate. But unfortunately the ravioli had started to stick together, so as I was trying to pick them up with the fork, they were just tearing and falling apart. So I ended up with a pile of torn apart ravioli and cheese on my plate. Then I tried to pour on the sauce from another bowl, and the sauce, as it was pouring out, stuck to the side of the bowl. That got messy fast. Somewhere between the ravioli falling apart and the sauce not pouring right I thought to myself, “…Man, this is not how I had planned this to go.”

Although this is a pretty small case, it can be related to big plans in our everyday lives. We plan to go places, do things, see people, and it doesn’t always go how we planned. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” We may have an idea of what we want to do, but in the end God ultimately determines the steps we will take. But take heart, the Bible also says, “If the Lord delights in a man’s ways, He makes his steps firm.” - Psalm 37:23. So keep pressing after Him, and He will make your steps firm, and hopefully even your ravioli.

I am going to tell you a secret.

There is something more important than us. We let things get to us and take control of us, both big and little things. Why is it that when a guy cuts you off or things don’t go your way, we seem to get bitter and mad or think things are unfair? Think for a second about the cliche of “Be positive.” I am here to tell you that these words saved my father’s life. Well, maybe not the words - it was more of a being.

My Dad has cancer. He lives with it, but for a while it didn’t look so good. We look at our lives and sometimes the blues just get to us. It may be the weather. It may be something we are facing. Life isn’t always easy, but no matter what, we are lucky to be part of this world and God’s will. Because of my Dad’s cancer I got a chance to see and experience U of M Hospital. In my opinion, what effected me the most wasn’t the hospital but its patents. The Mott hospital, which is the children’s hospital, can truly break your heart.

These kids are dealing with more then most of us have ever had to deal with in our lives. Yet the majority of the kids have smiles on their faces. They broke through my heart. They are the true heroes and true Christlike beings. They are hope! They show the positive attitude we all wish we could have. Some of these children don’t even make it to their teens yet they get it more than most of us get it.

There is something more important. Faith, Hope, and Love, but the greatest is LOVE. This positive attitude shows me that no matter what may come in my life, we have the hope in our Savior that can keep us smiling. If you want to see some stories, here is the link. www.med.umich.edu/mott/touch/stories.html

I have so many dreams,
It wears me out.
I want to save the world,
But I don’t know how.

My dreams become chaos in my mind.
I search for ways
to make it clear
and to find
peace.

Peace… knowing you saved the world.
That was Your call
Show me mine.
My dreams are so many,
I’m losing time.

I’m so scared
I’ll give up
if I face opposition
Accomplish Your dreams
through me.

Oh God!
I’ll do anything.
Give You everything.

Written in the journal from the Prayer Room during 40.

I sit here at 3:00 am in the morning still in awe of what God did today. I have been going to Lighthouse since 2006, and I can’t remember a more emotion-filled, heartfelt night. This was more than a service. My friends I felt like we were reaching toward the heavens. I was overwhelmed with the power of the one voice of our collective seeking GOD. The emotions that filled my soul were not of this earth. It is amazing what one story can do. The pain of person and willingness of that person to share and literally open a heart to us into places not normally invited into. The rawness of this heart that yearns for God. Today I was amazed at us all and most importantly, OUR GOD!

The words, OH HOW HE LOVES US…..OH HOW HE LOVES US!!! It’s amazing to think that our God could love us like no one else. We are broken, a lot of us wanting to feel more love. To know that our Savior loves us. It’s so simple yet so powerful that it can bring tears to our eyes and break down our walls and hearts. I am truly blessed to get a opportunity to be with you all. This is not the end all, by any means. It is our beginning and our end. We are so lucky to be able to worship like this. We, as a collective, have no idea how much it impacted many of us. I am in awe of so many of you just singing with your hearts and soul. My heart is raw because, as one of my friends would say, “I went under the knife.” I was there thinking about my life and seeing how powerful our stories are and how we can be powerful to each other. I encourage you to listen to the podcast of Scott Crosby’s story or Angela Holdridge’s story if you haven’t already.

I leave this to you, my brothers and sisters: please realize how powerful and how big our God is. He calms the seas. He places the stars how he wants them. He knows us. He loves us. OH HOW HE LOVES US!

As far as I know, none of us has truly been a Christian our entire life. Sure, maybe some of us grew up in Christian families and went to Church all of our lives, but we all have a dark past; things we wish we never did and wish we could have changed.

Romans 6:20-22 says, “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”

At first I thought, “What does he mean, free in regard to righteousness?” Then I realized that he was simply making a reference to the fact that we cannot serve two masters. If we are slaves to sin, we are free in regard to righteousness. We do what sins says, yet we are free to ignore the callings of righteousness.

After this Paul asks us to take a look back at our dark past and ask ourselves: “What did I get from that?” He doesn’t say, “Well, when you did this you caused suffering to those around you, and when you did that, you only ended up hurting yourself more.” No, in fact he gets straight to the point. He says, “For the end of those things is DEATH.” Someone could easily argue the instant gratification of many of those things we’ve done that we are ashamed of, but Paul skips right past that and talks about the end game.

He continues in the same manner, speaking about being slaves of God. The fruit we get leads to sanctification and it’s end, which is eternal life. Again Paul jumps to the end! Notice he didn’t say, “The fruit you get will always be satisfying and happy, and then you’ll get eternal life.” I think the case is quite the contrary a lot of the time. When chasing a life after Christ, how often is the fruit we produce hard to swallow? How often does God choose to give us trials that are hard, but will bring us out stronger on the other end? When I say stronger, I mean they sanctify us and bring us closer to Him. The fruit we get from being slaves of God is not always satisfying to our human nature, but it will sanctify us.

Our lives are guaranteed to be a roller coaster of good times and bad; no one one has a flat line life. But what comes at the end? Will it be death, or eternal life? I pray that you are all slaves to God, and you recognize the sanctification that His fruit is producing in you.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- Romans 6:23

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

I will never understand why You are so great. We deserve nothing. We deserve death - we deserve more than death. But You love us anyway. Thank you so much!

Jesus, I want to be madly in love with You. I want my heart to be so close to Yours that I can tell when You are going to move. You are so great and awesome. Please remove and heal my wounds so that I can live freely for You forever and always. Help me to seek Your face and be a young woman after Your heart and Your will. You are truly a great God.

Amen

Written in the journal from the Prayer Room during 40.

I wish I could say that my faith never waivers, but that would be a bold faced lie. It’s hard for me to realize that I waiver more than I trust. We all do. Don’t get me wrong; my faith is strong, yet at times I feel as if I am Peter wanting to run to the Lord but being afraid that i will sink. I want to fix my eyes toward him but my own shortcomings create a barrier for me to have a faith that never waivers.

If you look at the story of Jesus walking on water and Peter running after him, it is so easy for us to understand and put ourselves in Peter’s shoes. There are some of us that would jump out of the boat and others that would stay and watch to see what would happen. The ones that would jump would do the same thing that Peter did. But even with that, God doesn’t waiver. He sticks his arm out welcoming, helping, and loving us like no other. If our faith could ever hope to be secure, it can be secure in Jesus. He knows us and knows our shortcomings. He tells us to come as we are, which gives me goosebumps - that he wants me with all this sin, all this pain. Some of us have more than others, but He wants me. He sticks his arm out, helping me up from the bottoms that I may go through in my life.

I was listening to a song yesterday by Lifehouse called “Storm”. It reminds me of different times in our lives and how much we do have ups and downs, how it truly does feel like a storm.

Lean on God and he will give you the faith that never waivers.

“Storm”

How long have I
Been in this storm
So overwhelmed by the ocean’s shapeless form
Water’s getting harder to tread
With these waves crashing over my head

If I could just see you
Everything will be alright
If I’d see you
The storminess will turn to light

And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
And everything will be alright
And everything will be alright

I know you didn’t
Bring me out here to drown
So why am I 10 feet under and upside down
Barely surviving has become my purpose
Cause I’m so used to living underneath the surface

If I could just see you
Everything will be alright
If I see you
The storminess will turn to light

And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
And everything will be alright

And I will walk on water
You will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
And everything will be alright
I know everything is alright
Everything’s alright

My dad considers himself to be an avid historian. He loves the history channel, battlefield reenactments, and Abraham Lincoln. Even our family vacations were tinged with American history; I remember touring Gettysburg as a small child, getting lost (literally) in Arlington National Cemetery, and stopping at random battlefields on our yearly drive to Florida.

Perhaps one of his favorite pastimes involves the study of genealogy. His basement office is littered with family artifacts – a soldier’s dining set from World War II, the journal of relative with a lot of “greats” in front of his name, other memorabilia dating back to the Civil War. We have tons of dog-eared pictures, the people in most of them only partially identified.

But for my dad, it isn’t just aimless collection. He studies our family ancestry intently, seeking out connections via email so that he might better be able to understand our family line. He has traveled to Indiana to view the public record of our ancestors that first came from Germany. He’s even created a website to map our genealogy and create an avenue of communication between relatives – some of which we didn’t know existed until recently.

My dad makes it a point to look to those that went before us, to understand part of their stories so that we might better understand our own. In Isaiah 51:1-2, God reminds us to look to our spiritual ancestors for guidance and encouragement.

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the LORD:
look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
2Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah who bore you;
for he was but one when I called him,
that I might bless him and multiply him.”

God understands that there will be times in our life that we feel like we’re walking a solitary path, times where our faithfulness to Him will segregate us from the world. Still, we’re commanded to remember the history of our Christian family – to be encouraged by the living testimony of those that went before us. Verse two specifically calls to mind Abraham and Sarah – the seed of hope and faith that gave birth to an entire nation and the coming Christ.

Both Abraham and Sarah walked a solitary road. Abraham consciously chose to forgo a life of safety and security the moment he followed God into the unknown away from his country, his people and his father’s household. Sarah remained barren for most of her adult life, no doubt facing different levels of exclusion in a culture that so highly regarded fertility and heirs. But though both of them faced times of loneliness and rejection, God also promised an entire nation through them.

God called Abraham and his family alone to help begin the process of Israel’s restoration – a huge calling that they only had shades of awareness about. Yet, they followed obediently. The people around him must have thought he was crazy, leaving everything he had ever known to follow a voice that was imperceptible to most.

How many of you feel exactly like this - as if you’re on a journey all by yourself, forsaken by everybody except God? Maybe you even feel a little bit distant from God sometimes, too. It’s ok. He knows, and He wants to draw us back to Him. We’ll always encounter these seasons in life, wondering what’s next for us, wondering why God has us where we’re at, wondering if life will ever seem less complicated. Most likely they won’t. But God still rewards the faithful, those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6).

Are you choosing to be faithful, choosing to cast off the shackles of fear, not knowing what God has in store for you ahead? I pray that you would. We are commanded as Christians to live lives worthy of the calling we have each received (Ephesians 4:1-6). Commanded to follow after that imperceptible voice like Abraham did, not knowing of the calling or blessing ahead, but praying for the faith every day to step into it.

“What is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?”
?Psalm 8:4

When you imagine the thought process behind a statement like this, it may involve recognizing the things God has put your life, how He has taken care of you, or even helped you in your time of need. It probably also includes recognizing that Christ, being God Himself, died on the cross for our sins. But the more I think about it, I believe the implications of this thought, though written before the time of Christ, go even further.

Paul writes in the 5th Chapter of Romans, verses 11-12: “More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned–”

The story of Adam is well known. The disobedience of one man caused sin to enter this world, and that sin has spread to all, because all have sinned.

Verses 16-19: “And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”

We see the difference between the disobedience of Adam and the sacrifice of Christ. One act caused condemnation for all men, and the other leads to justification and life for all men.

Now, knowing that man is not God, I don’t think it is difficult for us to wrap our heads around the idea of a man screwing up and thus causing sin to enter this world. But for a man to do something that has the power of righteousness and justification for all men? We know that Christ was fully God yet also fully MAN! Philippians 2 says He existed in the form of God, but was also made in the likeness of men. So we can conclude here that although through man sin entered the world, God rescued us - through man!

There is an age old argument we’ve all heard where a question is asked: “Why doesn’t God just wave His hand and make everything better?” First off, we know God is a just God, so by making everything better, He’d probably be wiping us out pretty quickly. Second, could God have somehow come to earth in simply a divine form, and somehow made a sacrifice to cover over our sins? Is there some other sort of deal or other act He could have pulled to fix this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into? Honestly I can’t answer that question, I do not know the vast power of an almighty God nearly well enough.

What I do know is that first God created us in His image. Right off the bat we’ve got a special connection with Him that not even the angels have. Then after the fall, He didn’t just push us aside and say, “Stand back, I’ll clean this up myself.” He created a relationship with us through a nation. Through that nation He brought Himself down to earth, as one of us. He became one of US. He experienced everything we did, He knew us at our level. Finally, through one of us He created a way to Him.

Who am I that you are mindful of me?

What I mean by that is, who am I that you would reduce yourself down to my level, and through my own kind, save me; that you would leave your heavens and become like me? Who am I that you would even bother to relate to me on my own level and desire to be so close to my kind?

I am man, and I’m so glad You mind this much.