Chapter 28 – School!

I just started school on last Monday at Bible college, pursuing a degree in Elementary Education. I am really excited to start this new chapter of my life. My ultimate desire is to teach children. I have yet to decide the arena in which I will teach – secular or Christian. While I desire to teach theology to children, I desire to teach children period. I love when I get opportunities now to teach children, whatever the situation may be. With that said, I would like to request prayers as I start this journey. I am sure that it will not be easy or always loved. I know the excitement won’t always be there. But – prayers are welcomed, needed, and requested. Also, if you feel so inclined to help me, it would definitely be appreciated as I am going with no financial aid this semester (yikes!). If you’d like to donate, you can do so by clicking the donate button to the right. Please pray for my diligence, my steadfastness, my focus, and for God to provide all that I need this semester.

Grace and peace.

Captive

… and take every thought captive to obey Christ…
2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV

I am learning lately just how hard this is! This morning, as I laid in my bed, I fought HARD to take thoughts captive, and as I drove to work? Same thing. It takes much work, much prayer, much Scripture, and can be mad discouraging in light of the fact of indwelling sin. It can be VERY frustrating and heartbreaking.

Holy Spirit, help me!

As Real As It Gets

This is one of my favorite songs. It’s by my brothers, Everyday Process. It’s really encouraging, and although I know that rap is not everyone’s cup of tea, I believe the Lord is honored through their ministry.

[audio:RealAsItGets.mp3]

HOOK
Christian, this is real as it gets
Our faith is strengthened daily so endure the test
Renewing the mind of Christ to resist the flesh
With a will to live peculiar despite the rest
At the cross we find grace; the blood of Christ defines
Who we are as righteous men among sinful kind
Believer, we cross the line it’s but a few times
A just man get’s up with the right mind.

IZ-REAL:
I’ve said this before, won’t do it any more
I’m frontin’ with the world and my life is really Yours
Man it hurts like dancing on corns; the walk is sore
Flesh is in control when I claimed You as Lord
Philippians 4:13 through Christ I’ve got it beaten
But it seems now of days the only strength I got is leaving
Turned from Your way when Your face I should be seeking
Deny you at times like Peter my heart aches I’m reaching
Out because I have to, no doubt I need to
Realizing sin breaks the vibe with You; forgive me for the dirt I do
Thank You for being snatched from wrath
But deliver me oh God from my haunting past
It wants to take over my body like an allergic rash
And I’m bout to blow up like a smoker soaked in gas
I’ve tried the praying daily and a week long fast
I avoid a way of escape; I know I’m hurting You, Dad
Tired of dealing with the same sin, but it’s amazing
How your grace is sufficient and never changing
A safe haven
A dwelling place provided in You when my minds raging
As the flesh keeps chasing
Anything and everything unlike You; Lord You’re patient
Your strength’s made perfect in weakness regardless of weak men
Your Spirit sustains men ‘til the day of redemption.

HOOK
Christian, this is real as it gets
Our faith is strengthened daily so endure the test
Renewing the mind of Christ to resist the flesh
With a will to live peculiar despite the rest
At the cross we find grace; the blood of Christ defines
Who we are as righteous men among sinful kind
Believer, we cross the line it’s but a few times
A just man get’s up with the right mind.

MAC THE DOULOS:
Ay yo I know what the Word say
But I’m fessin’ up. I’m messin’ up livin’ the world’s way
And I know sin can’t control me or hold me
But I’m having difficulty livin’ holy
And that’s real,‘bout as real as it’s gonna get.
Sometimes, I feel like I just wanna quit
And to add insult to injury
I’m tryin’ to fight my flesh plus resist the enemy
And dying to self is harder than I thought
I faced even more temptation the harder that I fought
I’m learning to live this Christian life on my knees
You’re dead wrong if you think the Christian life is a breeze
But I know I got the victory
Cuz I repented when the comforter came and convicted me
God is into
Conforming us to His Son’s image
Until He finishes, the saga continues

IZ-REAL:
Have mercy, oh Lord, I feel the heat
Although the spirit is willing, the physique is weak
Please fill the void and restore my faith
Bring back the joy of me seeking Your face
I purposed in my heart to serve and trust You
Walk upright, live truth, obey You
But the more I try ,it seems the harder I fall
In a race of endurance, man, I tend to stall
Christian, this is as real as it gets
Your faith is strengthened daily so daily strive to carry
Out the plan God ordained for us
Before the world was framed, He arranged for us
To go thru knowing the outcome
So as you go thru, out comes everything that’s unlike Him
In salvation, you’re a work in progress
He will finish what he starts so endure the process
Ephesians chapter 2 you made alive in Christ
So in this chapter of life, you’re positioned right
You know a distinguished life don’t relinquish light
When your spirit gets weak, man, trust his might
Tell a friends if you’re anchored right
Be encouraged, walk upright live as the bride of Christ
God’s grace is sufficient, live in submission
His spirit sustains men till the day of redemption

HOOK
Christian this is real as it gets
Our faith is strengthened daily so endure the test
Renewing the mind of Christ to resist the flesh
With a will to live peculiar despite the rest
At the cross we find grace; the blood of Christ defines
Who we are as righteous men among sinful kind
Believer, we cross the line it’s but a few times
A just man get’s up with the right mind.

If you love God, trust that He loves you

“I once knew a good woman who was the subject of many doubts, and when I got to the bottom of her doubt, it was this: she knew she loved Christ, but she was afraid he did not love her. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘that is a doubt that will never trouble me; never, by any possibility, because I am sure of this, that the heart is so corrupt, naturally, that love to God never did get there without God putting it there.’ You may rest quite certain, that if you love God, it is a fruit, and not a root. It is the fruit of God’s love to you, and did not get there by the force of any goodness in you. You may conclude, with absolute certainty, that God loves you if you love God.” – Charles Spurgeon

seen at reform&revive

You Just Lost One…

Cause all that music was to glorify me / Yet the reason Christ came was to mortify me…

My God's enough…

After listening to a sermon by Joshua Harris, “Is He Enough?” , I reflected on Psalm 73, which was the basis of his sermon:

Psalms 73:1-28 ESV
1 A Psalm of Asaph. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.
11 And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

In it, asked, “Is God enough when my plans don’t work out?”… In essence, is God enough if circumstances don’t change? If I never get married?

He pointed out how Asaph didn’t start out the way that the Psalm ends. In the beginning, Asaph was mad envious. He looked at the wicked prospering. They had no fear of God. They were healthy, they had no worries or troubles, they were carefree, prideful, arrogant… He didn’t understand why they seemed so ‘free’ it seems. They mocked God, even! Yet here he was, keeping his heart clean, suffering for the Lord, and he wasn’t doing as well as they were. In the middle of the Psalm comes a change – verse 17… He envied them until he discerned their end. He realized the final destiny of the wicked.

Harris gives instructions as to how we get to the latter part of the Psalm, where Asaph realizes – He IS enough.

1) Stop thinking about them and start thinking about Him. Turn away from envy and comparison. All comparison is sinful. It’s either sinful pride or sinful comparison, craving what God hasn’t given YOU. God has us where we are right now on purpose, according to His plans. Fix your gaze on Him. Seek to live out James 4:8.

2) Consider the destiny that you have been rescued from. We deserve to fall to ruin, be destroyed in a moment, and swept away utterly by terrors. But – because of the cross, we don’t have this to look forward to. When we focus constantly on what we don’t have, we have turned away from realizing what we deserve.

3) Remember Who holds and guides you. God is not distant; He is near. The most important thing we can do is meditate on the Gospel and the destiny we’ve been saved from. God works through our imperfect stories, our disappointments, and our heartbreak… and He’s STILL faithful in the midst of those times.

He begins to conclude by saying the following:

Idols keep us from enjoying relationships. We can’t enjoy the relationships that God has planned for us if they are what we are living for.

Marriage is not the ultimate relationship we were created for; it has an end. All we’ve experienced on this earth is just a shdow of things to come. It’s a means for glorifying God, not the end.

When God is more than enough, we can live with unanswered questions.

Until He is your portion, no portion will be adequate. Til He’s your hope, hope will be elusive.

Ahh, my notes are not doing this sermon justice. It really served me. Thank you, Joshua. I definitely recommend this sermon to all brothers and sisters – no matter your age, status (social, relational, familial, etc.), or position. It was delicious food to a starving soul.

When the sermon was done, it brought to mind a song that I used to really like by BarlowGirl. It breathed new life into it, and after Harris’ breakdown of the passage, I feel like I am listening to it with new ears.

[audio:MyGodsEnough.mp3]

Uphold me…

Today, on my lunch break, I read chapter 2 of Paul Tripp’s book, “Whiter than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy”. While the entire book is on the 51st chapter of the book of Psalms, this particular chapter was over verse 12:

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Psalms 51:12 ESV

Tripp discusses what it means to be upheld with a willing spirit. He demonstrates how we’re created to be independent yet…

So, all fallen human beings tend to buy into two attractive but dangerous lies. These are the lies that were on the tongue of the serpent on that fateful day of manipulation and disobedience in the garden. The first lie is the lie of autonomy, which tells me that I am an independent human being with the right to invest my life however I choose. The second lie is the lie of self-sufficiency, which declares that I have everything I need within myself to be what I am supposed to be and do what I am supposed to do. Because we do not want to live for God, but for ourselves, we are easily seduced, at the mundane, everyday level, by these lies.

We cannot give ourselves that willing spirit… If we could have, we would have. However, this is not how we are made. As I read to the end, my heart was convicted and I was grieved. How many times do I act as though I can make it on my own, shown through my lack of study and prayer? Too many nights, exhausted, I rush through prayer as duty and not delight. I so hate this about myself. Although I’d NEVER say that I have the right to invest my life as I choose, or I have everything within myself to be and do what I am supposed to be and do, my actions state otherwise.

It’s only a willing spirit that seeks God and His mercy and grace. One that is unwilling is in a state of self-sufficiency, a thing that NO human being can EVER claim! Tripp ends the chapter with this:

It is a willing heart that causes us to seek the grace that has been promised. When we turn from our own way and recognize our inability to live his way, we begin to seek the full range of resources that he has promised us in his Son. Grace is for the willing and we only become willing when we confess not only the gravity of our sin, but our inability to deliver ourselves from it. Then our willingness opens to us all the sustenance of heart that can only be found in the Son.

David’s story gives me hope. I pray I will speak to my soul that there is comfort to be found in this passage in light of what I know about David from 2 Samuel 11 and Acts 13:22. It would probably do well for me to do a character study on David. Often, I feel great sadness over my sin, which is a work of the Holy Spirit, but I have to fight against the accuser telling me that it defines the authenticity of my salvation. As Shai said in a sermon a couple of weeks ago, surely my God is the God of failures… not that He fails, but He tenderly loves those of us that constantly do…

Hello Kitty from Japan!

DSCF5629, originally uploaded by Jenn: Lifeinreturn.com.

My coworker and his wife went to Japan for a week or so to visit her family and he brought this back for me.

I am not a fan of Hello Kitty but I love the authenticity of it, that it came from Japan. How cool!

Adventures with God

Monday morning, my new phone, which I have had for less than 3 weeks, decided to malfunction on me. As I was getting ready for work, I noticed it kept trying to hotsync; it was NOWHERE near a computer, nevertheless plugged into one. I turned it off, thinking to myself that surely – that would fix it, but nope – it didn’t! As I drove to work, my phone continued to attempt to hotsync. When I got to work, I hotsynced it to my computer, thinking that if I did that, maybe it would ‘get it out of its system’, but alas – The phone ended up turning off and never coming back on. Great! I called ATT to get a replacement sent out, which they graciously overnighted. In the meanwhile, I googled this issue and found that it’s a common one with this particular phone… *sigh*… I hope I won’t run into this error again!

Anyhow, they overnighted by phone by Fedex. Normally, when I have received packages from ATT, they send it through a courier that leaves the package between the doors of my house. This was the only time that a signature was required. Fedex ended up coming during a time when no one was at the house, so they left a door tag. I called my housemate who informed me of this. I called Fedex and found out that the deliverer would be pack at the center by 6:30 and that they closed at 8. Great! I headed home, picked up the doortag, and headed out at about 6p. The Fedex center is in West Philly; I live nowhere near there, so I mapped it out on Google, and headed out. I confidently drove down the streets that I was familiar with. A little while later, after I’d made a left, I passed about 20 blocks and still didn’t see the street I was looking for! I started to whimper (and then said to myself – Jenn, really?) then lamented because I couldn’t make a phone call OR use GoogleMaps on my phone to help me navigate!

I pulled over to a Rite-Aid and asked an employee how to get there, and let me say – what he said didn’t line up with what I saw as I drove along. Somehow, after looping around, I ran into the street I was looking for – Gray’s Ferry. I breathed a sigh of relief, and began to navigate my way to the Fedex center. Well, while looking for 36th street, I somehow ended up near 48th! It never ends, lol! I turned around and as I was coming back down Gray’s Ferry, I saw the Fedex center and turned in the parking lot. A few minutes later, I emerged, box in hand! Victory! I got in my car, placed the phone on the charger, and then headed back down Gray’s Ferry. I had no clue how I was going to navigate my way home, but I felt a little more confident with a working phone. While driving, I passed a sign for I76. Yes! I know how to navigate my way home from here! After I made my turn, I saw it said I76E… uh oh… I need to be going West! I drove a little further and saw a sign for I95. YES! THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I NEED!

Happily, I drove along, following the signs for I95. Driving… driving… in the left lane… driving… In the far right – “Last exit for 95 before leaving PA”… What followed after was humorous. “Nooooooooooo!!!!” Yep, that came out of my mouth. Up ahead was a bridge (I have a slight bridge phobia – sweaty palms, tensing up, the whole 9) so I braced myself. On my right was an 18 wheeler, something I also don’t feel too comfortable with. My gas tank was getting closer to E, I had no money, and I was tired (after a long Theraflu induced night). I saw an exit for the Camden Waterfront, followed that, and drove until I saw signs for the Ben Franklin bridge. I was familiar with old Ben because on my first day driving to my current job, I was forced to exit and ended up in Camden, NJ… a story my boss loves to share! Oh, sidenote – leaving Philly to go to New Jersey is absolutely free. Coming back is another story – You WILL pay a toll. No matter what bridge you take – Tacony, Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, etc. – you will pay a toll to get back into Philly. I prayed for God’s grace and finally got to the toll window. “Hi! I’m from Philly and I missed my turn and I have no money… Here! Here’s my driver’s license! You can take down my address and info and bill me! I just don’t have any money!”… and you know what? The young man said, “Don’t worry about it” and let me through… “THANK YOU LORD” came out of my mouth as I made my way back into Pennsylvania. Let me add – This entire trip, from start to finish, I went back and forth between laughing and crying. I tend to laugh in the strangest situations. Yes, my friends DO think I’m a nut. I gladly accept the title.

By the time I got home, my tank was on E, I was tired, yet glad, and thought to myself – Wow, an adventure with God. I noticed my sinfulness in the situation – feeling better when I got my phone versus totally trusting in the Lord alone to guide me through it all, my easy tendency to throw a mini tantrum when things don’t go my way, and not trusting His sovereignty and perfect plan… Yuck. I’m a mess. :’( And in spite of all of this, all of my sinfulness, He STILL guided me, directed me, granted grace to me, kept me safe, had mercy on me… What a good God. What an adventure in more ways than one.

It's all proclaiming Who You are – You're beautiful!

[audio:PW-Beautiful.mp3]

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You’re beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who you are
You’re beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful

Behind the Song:
“I wrote this song while leading worship at a youth camp. The theme of the Bible study that night was about how God has revealed bits and pieces of Himself in creation. “Beautiful” was born out of that night. I wanted this song to have a hymn feel to it. Mostly because the imagery in the lyrics reminded me of other hymns we sing. There are four verses in this song and each song is part of a progression. The first verse is about how we see the Lords beauty manifest in the morning/daylight. The second verse is about the night sky, and how His beauty is displayed in it. So there in the first two verses there is a “from morning till night” thing going on. The third verse goes on to speak of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and how through his work there He has allowed us to be apart of His pure and blameless beauty. The last verse is the sum of it all. When we reach heavens shores and see Jesus for who He really is… Beautiful.” – Phil Wickham