I just started the book, “3:16,” by Max Lucado this Easter weekend.  This book’s main inspiration is most people’s beloved verse, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  It is a great starter to our religious faith, and this is why Max Lucado is taking time to break down just one verse in the Bible that holds so much significance.  This verse provides so much hope and so much joy, and this verse serves as a reminder of God’s love for us, even when we don’t deserve it.  Even if you have been a believer for years, it is still a verse that should be relooked and reviewed again and again.  

The first chapter already made a big impact on me.  Lucado referenced John 3:16 and the relationships that we should have with Jesus as a Mulligan shot.  For those of you who are not golfers,  a Mulligan shot is basically a do-over shot.  For example, if there is a really bad drive that a golfer makes, they can try that same drive over again.  Now, granted Mulligans are not actually used in golf competitions and in tournament play.  However, in casual rounds of golf, it is commonly used.  It is not used in every hole, but usually once in the round.  Every golfer would prefer to never have to use a Mulligan shot, but it is convenient when it is made available to us. 

We all would like to have Mulligan shots in real life.  There are so many times when we say the wrong thing to the person that we work with, or we hurt someone’s feelings or we accidentally sleep in past an important meeting.  There have been so many days I would pray for a Mulligan day.  We as people all need a Mulligan for our lives in general.  Sadly, everyone has made a mistake.  Everyone has made poor choices and has hurt others.  Everyone has done the opposite of what they said they would do.  We have all sinned.  Romans 3:23 says this perfectly, “For all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.”  We all need a Mulligan, a do over.  We need one to cover our lives and make us renewed.  

I do have wonderful news, even when that last paragraph sounded harsh and tragic.  We have a Mulligan in Jesus Christ.  We have a chance for a complete do-over.  Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  Our heavenly Father sent his son to earth to die on the cross for our sins and for all the mistakes that we have made over the past and will make in the future.  He sent his son to die, even when people mocked him and rejected him, even when I mocked or rejected him.  Yet, he has chosen to love me and to save me.  I don’t deserve a do-over, I don’t deserve a second chance to do life, a Mulligan, but through Him, I have gotten one.  

Now, I will say that this means we get Mulligans or do-overs for our everyday decisions.  We are still going to make mistakes that will hurt others, and we will have to be responsible for that.  We may need to face consequences for some of our actions.  We are not made perfect in the sense that we will never make a mistake again. Similarly, after a mulligan shot is made in golf, there will still be some bad shots that will be taken, and golfers will need to work the way to the hole regardless of them. We need to be conscious of the choices that we are making daily. We will need to listen to our Holy Spirit, our guide to help us through this world and through our choices.  We may need to be humbled, we may need to apologize, but we will eventually make it to the home that we will have in heaven with Jesus and our Father. 

This is the Easter Season.  This is the greatest time to remember what the Lord thinks of His people, including you and me.  He loves us, even when we don’t deserve this.  I pray that when you are with your family or with your friends, that you remember the reason for this Easter season, that you remember everything that the Lord has done for you in order for you to have a Mulligan shot at life.  

I have two challenges for you this week.  The first is to spend your own time reflecting on the verse John 3:16. Through that reflection, I hope you can remind at least one person about God’s love through sharing this verse with them. Then my second challenge for you is to enjoy your week. Have the most blessed Easter week. Maybe even go golfing in the new, crisp spring air. Whatever you do, I hope you feel God’s love and the complete blessing of your do-over in life. Live out this re-do to the best of your ability.

The people we read about in the Bible really showcase a lot of different characteristics to us, its readers.  There is such a wide array of characters that are filled with bravery, hope, faith, but then there are also a lot of characters filled with anger, bitterness, and cowardice.  The other interesting thing about the Bible is that it really shows us the people’s stories from having moments of sin and completely missing the mark to being a champion of the faith.  The Bible gives us a realistic picture of humanity and what we all look like.  We have moments where we completely are filled with sin and make many mistakes to moments where we are filled with God’s spirit.  

At church this Sunday morning, we continued on our conversation and life story of Sarah and Abraham.  Today, we were in Genesis 20.  This was another time where Abraham would lie about who his wife Sarah was.  If you have ever read the book of Genesis, or if you have been following along in my blog post recaps of what we have been learning in church, you may realize that this is the second time when Abraham lied about who Sarah was.  This is the second time he has said that she is his sister as opposed to his wife, and this is also the second time that it has not worked out as he had originally planned. 

Abraham and Sarah were traveling through the land of Gerar.  Along the way, Abraham told Sarah to again pretend to be his sister.  He didn’t want someone to kill him and take Sarah to be their own wife, so instead he lied, and the King Abimelech took Sarah to be his wife.  However, nothing would really last long or happen before the Lord came to Abimelech and told him that Sarah was actually married to a man named Abraham.  The king was not impressed.  He would not have taken Sarah as his wife if he had known she was already married. Abimelech was then commanded to find Abraham, so he could reestablish the husband and wife.  

Something my pastor pointed out to us this morning was that this time he lied about who his wife was, was actually about 20-30 years apart from the original time he had lied about his wife.  Abraham had grown so much in his faith, yet he still went back to an old trick and an old lie that he had told many years prior.  Why had he told the same lie?  He had the same fear.  He had the fear of the people of Gerar and the king of the people.  Because of this, he took control as opposed to giving the control over to God.  Even though he had been growing in faith, he showed we are always growing and learning, even as we have been in the faith for years.  

This also brought me to thinking about a chapter I was recently reading with my Bible Study, Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis.  There was a chapter that is dedicated to the Great Sin which is pride. Because of pride, we can easily avoid admitting our need for help.  We may not want to admit that we need to change something about ourselves.  One quote I want to highlight from this chapter is,  “For Pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”  Having a lot of pride can make it hard to grow our relationship with God.  Pride can be blinding.  We can stop seeing the things that don’t make sense or the evil in the world and actions because of pride.  

Sometimes we can have too much pride to really want to change our actions or evaluate our thought patterns that lead to some of our actions.  Another quote from the book of Mere Christianity is “As long as you are proud, you cannot know God.”  Taking the time to evaluate our actions and the things that we can learn is the first step.  Realizing we are proud can help us become aware of how desperately we need God and how we need him to grow.  

Getting back to the story of Abraham in Genesis, we actually discover that there is a happier ending than where it was originally headed.  Abraham meets up with the king, Abimelech when he brings him back to his wife.  Abimelech is at first upset, and he asks Abraham why he didn’t tell him that Sarah was his wife in the first place.  He says that he could have gotten himself in a lot of trouble through marrying a woman who is already married.  We learn, as well as Abraham, that even though this culture of Gerar may not be considered Yahweh followers, they do value marriage, and they have overall good morals. 

Abraham was honest with Abimelech that he was afraid of being killed and being in trouble with them.  He didn’t want to be killed because of his beautiful wife. He was very fearful.  Abimelech listened to Abraham and would eventually give him land and let him stay in the area for a long time.  He gave him back his wife and he never killed him in the hopes of grabbing Sarah back.  We see that all Abraham was fearful of, did not come to fruition because God ultimately had a plan.  

As the pendulum constantly is swinging, we will see in later chapters that Abimelech and Abraham’s relationship isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean we can’t gather great information from this particular interaction.  Abraham who was a child of God learned a valuable lesson from someone who wasn’t.  He learned something as a man of older age, and he learned from a mistake that he had made many times before.  The point is, you can actually teach an old dog new tricks.  It can be hard because we are sometimes more stubborn as we get older and filled with more pride, but there is alway something to learn and there are always more ways to grow.  

My challenge for you this week is to think about something you have recently learned.  Write it down or tell a friend.  What is something that you have learned through either personal study with God or with a fellow believer.  What are some ways you have grown in the past week?  Celebrate that growth! It is important to realize that amidst our trials and tribulations, as well as the shame that can so easily creep into our lives, it is important to find the ways that God is working amongst us for the good.  It is uplifting to see the fruit that he is bearing in each and every one of our lives. 

I was reading my devotional book by Micah Tyler, “Walk by Faith.”  This has been a very good and loving devotion.  I have been reminded a lot about God’s love, ways that I tend to walk away from God, and how I can grow in faith. This last devotional really struck me because it is something I personally struggle with and that is being afraid of following the rules.  I am not afraid of following the rules in the sense that I am scared of the rules, but rather I am afraid of what will happen if the rules get broken. I don’t want people to get upset and I don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially God if I end up breaking the rules.  

Micah Tyler talked about his oldest son who was the ever rule follower.  His oldest son, as a young child, whenever they would go to a new place would ask what the rules are, so that way he wouldn’t break any of them.  Micah mentioned this made it easy when it came to parenting in many regards.  He didn’t have to worry about getting teacher phone calls or having a lot of problems at home.  He was confident in his child’s ability to go to a new place and be respectful of his surroundings and people occupying the space.  

However, he did bring up his concern about not wanting his son to be so fearful of making mistakes and not feeling God’s grace.  God’s grace covers all of our sins.  He is the one that we need to ultimately be good stewards of the word and his messages, or in other words rule-followers.  He is the one that we need to be cleansed.  We are only going to do right with his guidance and his love covering us.  One quotation from this devotional that I want to highlight is “For far too many people, a relationship with Jesus becomes more about trying to not mess up than focusing on the freedom and abundant life he offers.”   Just like Micah Tyler’s son and so many other christians, we can start to focus on the law as opposed to love.  We start to become more legalistic than realizing how God’s spirit should make us joyful just to continue in his grace.  

Even the Pharisees in the Bible were far too focused on the law than they were on loving the people that God had set before them.  One of the most known and influential stories of the Bible is the story of the Good Samaritan.  However, if you have never heard this story, it is a story of one man who has been beaten and hurt on the ground as well as robbed. This man needed someone to help.  Two religious leaders were walking on the same street as him and decided to cross the street to avoid helping.  It wasn’t till a Samaritan, who was culturally an enemy of the man beaten, came and helped the man to the best of his ability. His best, happened to be awesome because he had him cleaned up, a place to stay, and others involved.  He went the whole nine yards.  

I want to take note about the two religious leaders who decided to walk on the other side of the road.  They were the ones that were pushing the law and telling people to not make mistakes, but then missed the perfect opportunity to practice what God’s law was actually teaching, which was complete and utter love for both God and one-another.  When we are so overwhelmed avoiding all mistakes and making sure we have every i dotted and t crossed, we may start missing the opportunities to love the ones around us.  Or we can start to really bring ourselves down.  We can start to be insecure and anxious that we still miss the ways that God is working in our lives and have provided us ways to grow closer to himself and be his servants.  

I have personally always struggled with this.  I have always been a rule-follower.  I like to follow the rules, I like to know I am doing the right thing, and I like to know that I am not disappointing anyone.  This has actually landed me in a lot of negative self-talk whenever I do make a mistake or don’t follow a specific rule perfectly.  One of the main reasons I decided to start going into therapy was because of my negative self-talk.  My therapist and I have had to talk quite a bit about the way that I speak with myself that then leads to a lot of anxiety and insecurities.  It has been a rough road, but I am growing more and more in realizing that God loves me and is helping me to continuously grow both to be closer to himself as well as a better person in general.  

Obviously, this does not mean I think we should go out and try to sin.  We shouldn’t go out there with the intention of breaking the law both man’s and God’s, but this means that we shouldn’t have the fear of sinning and of making mistakes.  There are going to be times when we will mess up or blunder.  We are sinful people.  Obviously and hopefully, this is not on purpose.  However, we can now know that when we do make a mistake or we do the wrong thing, we don’t have to be filled with shame.  We can know that God loves us even amidst our sins and the poor choices that we can make.  

To sum up my thoughts as well as this devotional, I am going to leave you with a verse from 2 Timothy 1:9 which says, “He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.”  We have been called to be rule-followers.  We have been called to be holy.  However, we can remember that God is the way that we are holy.  It is through him that we can follow the rules, and it is then his grace that will cover us when we inevitably fail.  Throughout this week, I will be praying you will be reminded of the freedom that you have in Christ through his grace. 

I have talked and thought a lot about leaving the teaching field.  I have been teaching for four years, and I have had a lot of opportunities and experiences.   Some have been incredibly high and extremely rewarding, but there have been a few others that have been very hard and discouraging.  I have thought about leaving because I have considered going into more after-school, non-profit work.  I love teaching, but I love nothing more than my summer job which is considered to be a more nonprofit setting. 

That being said, I have recently taken a job at a non-profit.  I will be working at an organization called the Job Foundation. I will be working with kids still, but I will be teaching them financial literacy. I will be able to work with all ages from elementary, just starting to understand money to seniors who are ready to take on the world. This organization is in Cedar Falls, which is actually where I went to college. I am going back to the city where I first discovered my love of learning and non-profit culture, the world around me and the people inside it, and became deeper in my relationship with God. It is a lovely place in my memory.  I never would have thought I would go back there, but here I am.  I am excited, but if I am honest, I am also undeniably afraid of saying yes to this new and unknown future.  

This was just the first step though, and now I have many afterwards.  Isn’t it funny how that can work sometimes.  You make one decision and then you have to make another, and then you have to make another.  It goes on and on.  Now, I get to make a lot of other scary decisions, but the first one has been made.  It has been decided.  Now, I get to make the rest of the decisions with the peace that only Christ can give me that I am making the right choices.  

Where should I live?  Should I live alone again in an apartment or should I find a roommate?  I already have some insight into churches, but which one should I go to?  Where will I make a lot of friends?  What are some things that I should be involved in?  Are there a lot of clubs and organizations or volunteering that I can be a part or a member of? Luckily, I did live in Cedar Falls for a few years, so that takes away a little bit of anxiety, but there is still some there.  Then I have to step away from my kids and the community that I have already been building in Buffalo Center.  It is a lot at one time.  It is exciting and it is good, and I believe it is completely ordained by God.  However, it is scary, and I know I definitely need a lot of comfort from God and those I love during this time.   

I think that any time in life that people want to make a change, it does take just one scary step to get them there.  This can be anyone who wants to start making healthier life choices like starting to exercise, or eating clean.  It can be deciding to join a Bible Study.  It can be deciding to start dating or putting yourself out there in relationships.  It can be to pursue a new career or a side job or signing up for extra classes.  The world has so many different opportunities for people to be a part of, but that means there are always a lot of scary steps to take.  

One example of a group of people within the pages of the Bible who had to make a scary first step (there are actually very many) was Simon Peter, James, and John leaving their fishing boat and deciding to follow Jesus.  Jesus came to them and helped them with their fishing originally.  They were struggling to get any fish into their nets.  They had been working at it for hours even though they were professionals.  Jesus came and by his miraculous appearance helped them catch a lot of fish, more than they could have ever done on their own.  

Because of the miracle, the three fishermen were able to see who was in front of them. They fell on their knees, and they asked Jesus why he was around them because they were sinners.  However, Jesus actually tells them that he wants to be around them a lot more.  He wants them to follow him, and he wants them to be a part of his ministry.  He wants them to fish for people.  This is what is said in Luke 5:10b-11, “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.” 

 My favorite part about this section is that it says those disciples put their boats on the shore and they followed him.  That must have been a scary step.  They didn’t know how long they would be gone or how far they would travel.  Some of them had families and friends they may have wanted to spend more time with.  Then there were their fishing boats.  They were leaving behind their hard-earned fishing boats, but they did it for the chance to follow Jesus and have a more rewarding future.  

Hopefully, as I take this next step in my life, I will have the opportunity to fish for people.  I hope there are opportunities to volunteer, to get involved, and to really interact with the community.  I am excited to get to know people who are in the town.  I also want to take this time to thank all of the people who have been so supportive through this whole journey.  I have had so many people in my life wishing me the absolute best and giving me great advice.  I am so glad that I have so many people in my life who love me and want the absolute best for me.

Today at church, I was all ready to continue our way through Genesis.  This is where we have been the past two months, and I was excited to hear thoughts from the speakers on the next journey for Abraham and Sarah.  However, church was a bit different today.  They had a man named Merve give his testimony.  He is an older gentleman at our church.  I have probably seen him, but I don’t believe I have ever had the opportunity to talk with him.  

His testimony was very powerful.  He talked about leaving home at 14 and taking care of himself the rest of his life.  I find that really incredible because I would not have had the ability to take care of myself at the age of 14.  He does bring up that this is a downfall as he did not want to accept Jesus for good while into his life.    He says this is because he didn’t believe he needed anyone or anything else to survive.  He was all he needed.  He had taken care of himself and could continue to take care of himself. He was already married with a baby when he became a believer. It was a terrifying, yet miraculous, close to death experience that brought him to Jesus. 

One frightful day, he gets into an accident that could have and, in all honesty, should have taken his life.  It would have taken the lives of many others.  He became severely burned all over his body and this was because of an accident with his truck.  He somehow survived and because of this whole incident, he became a follower of Jesus.  He gave his life to God when the doctor who was saving his life, put the seeds of Jesus into his mind. He retells sitting laying down being transported from hospital to hospital, fearing death, but also fully aware that he had given his life over to God.  

For the rest of his life, he became a prominent member of his church.  He was a leader, both for his church and for his family.  However, there was one thing that he had not done since becoming a believer.  He had not had a believer’s baptism or an adult baptism.  He had a baptism when he was a baby, but he had not been the one to make that decision.  Through the years, so many people had just come to assume he had been baptized as a believer that he was afraid, a bit full of shame and embarrassment at the admission of not having a believer’s baptism.  

This brings us to the reason that we are here today at church, listening to him give his story.  Merve decided to be baptized today!   He had his family members, specifically his sons and his best friend baptize him.  They prayed over him while he was laying in the tub, and It was beautiful.  It had been weighing on his heart and conscience that he knew he needed to make this step toward his walk with Jesus.  He finally walked away from the shame and embarrassment and decided to step towards faith and become baptized, without anything holding him back.  Now he has been baptized as a believer, even as he is an 80 year old man.  

His overall message for us was not to let our shame or our embarrassment keep us away from doing what God has called us to do.  This can be really small to something really big. This can be talking to the people who usually don’t have anyone to talk to.  These are the people who are considered to be the outcasts, or they do not fit in.  This could be deciding to foster or adopt a child.  The Lord directs our steps, from the big to the small, so it is always good to get his insight on anything we do.  

There are many Bible figures who have shown risks and have given their heart to God in so many different ways.  There were so many who chose to share God’s Gospel, even by getting killed by non-believers.  One character from the Bible I would like to highlight is Nehemiah.  Nehemiah was a Jewish cupbearer who had felt compelled and challenged by the spirit to rebuild the walls and the city of Jerusalem.  This did include a lot of risk and hostility.  There were even a few threats that were made against him.  However, he kept leading his people on building the wall, until it was done.  Then it was a miraculous thing that had been accomplished. 

Nehemiah was also helping the poor while he was completing this role of building the wall.  He was giving back some of the things they had taken.  This was again something that was on Nehemiah’s heart because he knew that it was something that was on the Lord’s heart.  Nehemiah 5 discusses this in verses 15 and 16. 

“But the earlier governors—those preceding me—placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that.  Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land.”

Nehemiah refused to do the thing that the world had done or what the people before him had done.  He did what the Lord had laid on his heart. I hope through these two examples, one through Nehemiah from the Bible building the wall to Merve deciding to be baptized at the age of 80, to do the things that are on your heart from God.  

My challenge for you this week is to pray with God about what he has been putting on your heart.  Again, it does not have to necessarily be life-altering.  It could even be receiving an adult baptism like Merve.  I do pray that you spend that time in prayer to find what God really wants you to accomplish in the near future, and I pray you have at least one person to talk to about it this week.  Let us go out and be the Merves and Nehemiahs of this world. 

My mom kindly and graciously gave me a devotional book for Valentine’s Day.  It is called “Walking Free” by Micah Tyler.  I am already in love.  It has really short daily entries that help you think.  There was an entry that I read recently about Peter.  Peter, the man who was a disciple of Jesus and helped spread the message of the Gospel and Christianity, yet has been really known for his major mistakes.  He was the man who denied Jesus three times before Jesus was walked and sent to the cross.  That is a pretty major mistake.  

Micah Tyler brings up one of Peter’s main criticisms and mishaps which is the time that he sank in water after he was walking toward Jesus.  This moment is often criticized because of his lack of faith.  He didn’t believe that God could hold on to him in the midst of the storm.  However, if you think about it, I personally have never walked on water.  I have never had enough faith to walk on water for even a second, and Peter did.  Yet, he is the one who is considered by many to have no faith. 

Then, as I have mentioned many times, we are going through Genesis in church, so we are still learning about the highs and lows of Abraham and Sarah.  There were many moments when Abraham would show faith and have complete trust in God, yet there would be times when he would lose faith.  One of the more recent lows was when Abraham laughed at God telling him that he was going to be a father in less than a year.  Abraham did not believe this could happen at first.  The Lord simply asked, “Why did you laugh?”  Abraham quickly learned that he shouldn’t doubt God and what he tells him.  Even though Abraham had accepted at that point in his life to have no children, he quickly learned that this was not the plan that God had for him in his life.    

Later Sarah would also laugh at the idea of her being a mother in less a year while she is in her 90s.   Sarah and Abraham did, obviously, have a son in a year, and they named him Isaac.  Isaac actually means, “He will laugh.”  They are highlighting the moments when they did not believe in God and how wrong they were.  Their faith has grown, and they now know that God had complete control over their life.  He can make impossible things possible.  

My overall point in this blog post is that Faith takes time.  I think there are times when we want to address people as either faithful or unfaithful.   A person can either be one or the other.  However, I realized that faith really does take time to grow.  It is not one instantaneous moment where a person goes from being unfaithful to completely faithful.  It is something that needs to be challenged and stretched.  It will sometimes feel like two steps forward and one step back, but as long as there is progress being made, that is something that should be celebrated.  

There are going to be times when even the most faithful will fall.  There are going to be times when trusting God is very hard.  There are going to be times when believing in God’s sovereignty is going to take everything out of us.  Yet, the good news is that even the biggest advancers of the Gospel and God’s Word struggled with their faith.  They had moments of great faith and great growth, but then they had moments of great defeat and distrust.  We, as followers of Christ, can take this as a great encouragement.  Even when we have moments of failure, we can rest assured that we have been forgiven for our disbelief and given another chance to have faith later in life.  

One verse I want to highlight is 1 John 5:4 which says, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”  Our faith is a powerful thing that we possess and can use against the Evil one and against the sins of this world.  That being said, it is important that we are constantly trying to grow in our faith and our confidence in God.  It won’t be easy, but we have also been given a Holy Spirit from God in order to help us grow closer to Him.  

My challenge for you this week is to think about the ways that you personally can grow in your faith.  What is something that you are struggling to trust in God?  What is the area of your life where you do not believe in God’s sovereignty?  Where is your faith really being stretched?  I have mentioned many times that I am in the process of making a career change.  I am currently a teacher, but I am looking to make a change to more nonprofit work.  This is a really scary thought, and I am definitely nervous.  However, I know I just need to have faith in God in this whole situation.  He will make a job for me that is perfect.  I am finding it is not easy to give everything to God in this situation, but I am growing in this all the time. 

I am going to end our time with a prayer that I hope you will pray with me on your own: 

Dear Lord, 

Thank you for your spirit that is constantly guiding me and the people around me.  I pray that you will help me find the faith to believe in your sovereignty all the time, but please help me not to be discouraged by the moments of disbelief.  I know that in you, I can find continuous strength to be faithful.  Thank you for love and forgiveness. 

In Jesus’ Name, 

Amen

We all have shows or other forms of entertainment that we consider to be guilty pleasures.  Many of these are what people will consider “trash television.”  These are not meant to be taken seriously.  They are meant for pure entertainment, even some very unholy entertainment.   Some of my absolute favorites are Dance moms, the bachelor/bachelorette, and Youtube commentary/gossip channels.  Why do I love these so much?  I don’t really know.  However, I just know that I find them incredibly entertaining.  I would not say that I am proud of myself for enjoying these shows so much.  I suppose the reason they are called guilty pleasures is because we are not necessarily proud of watching them and we know there are issues, but we still enjoy them for their pure entertainment value. 

Let’s look at Dance Moms.  If you have never seen it, it is a show that has young girls who take dance classes and are a part of dance competitions.  The big drama of the show, though, is that each dancer has a mom who fights with the dance teacher on a regular basis.  They also sometimes will fight with each other and lastly, they can fight with other dance studios.  This is very interesting and fascinating to watch.  Then I also love to watch the bachelor or bachelorette which includes a lot of drama between couples or women/men who are fighting for the same significant other.  There is always drama between the contestants and then there are some times when there is fighting amidst the couples.  

However, part of me wonders if I just love to watch these shows because I love to watch others with their struggles.  The same thing goes for drama.  I will be honest when I say that sometimes it is incredibly entertaining to hear about the drama that is happening within friends or at the workplace, within a couple in town, or a big-name celebrity.  I suppose I am not the only one, as there are people who make it their livelihood to capture celebrities’ and politician’s personal lives and demise in tabloids.  It can be easy to feel that way about these people because they are on a show, or they are famous, therefore their lives really don’t count.  Or maybe they are so disconnected from your life that you don’t have to care about what is happening to them.  They count, but they are not on the same level as I am.  I can watch their demise because they have put themselves out there.  However, I do not believe this is the start of a good habit to look at others who are also image bearers of the Lord.  Their lives do count, even if we are not directly connected with them.  

There are verses throughout the Bible that discuss the problems of gossip and taking pleasure in others’ demises.  We see this throughout the love chapter in 2 Corinthians 13 that love holds no record of wrongs.  The kind of love that we should possess as children of God does not look at another person and count all that they have done wrong as whether or not they are worthy of love.  Similarly, we should hold no record of wrong or be holding on to the different ways someone is less deserving of love.  Then another verse is from Proverbs about loving these dramatic problems.  Proverbs 17:19 says, “Whoever loves a quarrel loves sin; whoever builds a high gate invites destruction.”  Proverbs are incredibly direct.  The idea of loving those gossip stories to be the same as loving sin really upsets my heart and mind.  I don’t want to think of loving a sin, even if I want to argue that it seems small.    

There are definitely some takeaways from this.  The first is that we need to be aware of how we see conflict others are experiencing.  There are some questions that we can ask ourselves in the moment of seeing others’ rough situations.  Do I look at this gossip as something I can find as entertainment?  Am I looking at this situation and believing myself to be morally superior?  Will I laugh at other’s demises?  Again, I am not asking these questions with a form of moral high-standing because I have definitely fallen into the rabbit hole of being infatuated with other’s problems and drama for all the wrong reasons.  I just described the shows that I love to indulge in because of the fights and the drama associated with others in their lives, so I know how hard and difficult it can be to fight against the desire of these shows or dramatic pieces.  

I think another good idea is to find something in a show that is dramatic but in the form of mystery or fantasy.  Television and movies need to include a kind of plot that includes drama, but it doesn’t have to be the kind that makes us desire bad things to happen to people.  There are plenty of books, television shows, and movies that have drama filled plots that still can have a whole moral value.  There is usually conflict, but there are many where the villains or the antagonists are able to also complete some personal reflection.  We love a good story, good stories are great to be around, but when the piece of the show makes us idealize a sin, we should stop and reflect if we are giving this show too much power.  

Of course, then my challenge for all of you would be to think about the shows and the entertainment in your life.  What are the positives to those shows and what are the negatives? This is a challenge for me, obviously, as well.  I am not necessarily saying that it is something that you need to remove from your life.  I think that will come from your personal reflection and prayer.  I do wish you luck in any endeavors of getting rid of bad things in your life, even our “guilty pleasures.” 

There was high energy in my Sunday school class last week.   The six kids that were there were ready to run.   They wanted to jump and play.  It did make sense as it was actually 30 some degrees as opposed to -30 windchill outside.  I too felt the effects of the “heat” and I was also ready to play, getting excited for the days when spring will actually be here.  To counteract some of their energy, we played some old-school games like red light, green light, as well as hide and seek.  

I discovered something, as a 27 year old grown woman, which is that it is not easy to play hide and seek in a room designed for 3-5 year olds.  There was nowhere for me to hide! The best option was behind the door, but still then it was a close squeeze, and I was usually the first one found.  Granted, I wasn’t necessarily trying that hard, but it would still have been nice to have at least somewhere I could have hid to fully play the game.  The kids still enjoyed “finding” me when I was basically in plain sight, so I suppose that is what really matters.  

Sometimes, we may want to hide.  Sometimes we may want to hide from the world and other people, or we may want to hide from God.  We may want to hide from him because we are ashamed.  We are ashamed of some sin we have committed or our thoughts that are constantly running through our heads.  However, God can see us completely.  God can even read what we are thinking.  He can see our thoughts and knows anything we are experiencing.  There is no reason to hide, and there is no reason to even want to hide.  God doesn’t want us to hide, not so he can punish us or treat us badly, but because He loves us and wants to bless us.  

Our church service strengthened this idea when we started talking about Hagar.  Hagar was the servant of Abraham and Sarah.  She was impregnated by Abraham when Sarah gave her to him because she herself could not have children.  (Well she was promised children by God, but she was struggling in her faith to believe in his promises).  Hagar decided to run away after Sarah was cruel to her after she became impregnated.  However, she found she could not run away from God.  God found her in the desert, alone.  He called to her, and he told her to go back to her home with Abraham and Sarah.  She does, and she has been touched and felt blessed by being seen by the Lord.  In Genesis 16:13, it says “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”  Isn’t that awesome?!  She has realized that God sees her.  He sees her for everything that she is and cares about her well-being.  

I imagine that any time we try to hide from God, you know the master and creator of the universe, able to see all things, we are just like me sticking out easily in a preschool classroom.  We can’t hide.  We will always be seen by him who created us and ultimately loves us.  I know there have been times that I try to hide.  I have especially tried to hide when I was struggling with my anxiety and my bouts of anger.   I don’t want to act as though I have anxiety with God.  I want to look as though I have complete faith in God and in his plans.  When in reality, there are times I am just insecure in his plan.   God knows about my anxiety even when I try to hide it, so there really is no reason for me to try to hide this fact from him.  

The best way that I have learned to avoid hiding from God is being completely honest with him.  God doesn’t need us to put on an act in front of him.  He doesn’t need us to be something we are not.  He knows that we are going to have struggles, and we are going to be anxious.  He knows we will get angry, jealous, and even defiant.   Not saying that he is necessarily approving of this behavior, but he would rather us be honest than lying about how we are really feeling.  Being completely vulnerable and honest in my prayer life is the best thing to keep me from wanting to hide from God.  

My challenge for you this week is more serving as a reflection.  My challenge for you is to think through any times where you may want to hide yourself away from God.  This doesn’t necessarily have to be your soul intention, but it ends up happening as your shame or fear starts to take over.  After you have reflected on that, I would highly recommend spending some time in prayer to God to ask him to help you fight against the desire to play hide and seek.  

Last, I want to end with this verse from Psalm 144:3 which says, “O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere motels that you should think about them.”  The Lord does think about you and me.  It is amazing to believe that the Lord, the God of the universe, and creator of everything would spend time thinking about you and me, but he does. This is why we can’t hide from him; he is always thinking about us.  

For my Bible Study, I have been reading a book about community.  This book is called, “Find your People,” by Jennie Allen.  She introduces the importance of community by introducing the research statistics of community and friendships as fundamental for health.  There has been a lot of research related to this topic.  Even though the United States, for example, has access to a wide array of resources and medical professionals, our health, both our mental and physical, is becoming worse as people are becoming lonelier and lonelier.   

“Research says that more than three in five Americans report being chronically lonely, and that number is ‘on the rise.’  These stats are indicators of a grave and costly crisis.  Anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts are all on the rise.  Scientists now warn that loneliness is worse for our health than obesity, smoking, lack of access to health care, and physical inactivity.” (Jennie Allen-Find Your People.)

This was a fact I found hard to believe.  Living in America, the idea that being alone on a regular basis is unhealthy is the opposite of what has been instilled in me, starting at a young age. America has adapted to a very individualized approach to life.  We love to live on our own, work on our own, and do our errands alone.  Then after we have had our full day of working, exercising, running errands, and other various tasks, we will make time for some casual friendships and relationships.  This statistic and therefore, most of Jennie’s book is looking at doing the complete opposite of that.  This book is challenging us to look for relationships being a main foundational piece of our life.  

Community is highly important when it comes to our physical health as well as our religious and spiritual health.  The Lord talks so much about community.  He also shows this.  There are not many stories about Jesus when he is preaching and when he is performing miracles where is not surrounded by individuals. He is constantly surrounded by his disciples.  He is with his really good friends.  Jesus was also a part of a community even before he came down to earth.  Jennie through this book helps me realize that God was a part of the community with the Trinity.  It is Three in One, which is three separate entities together forever.  (I’ll be completely transparent here that trying to describe the Trinity accurately is not my specialty.  I am not a Theologian.  But the point being here was that the commitment to community was so strong that they symbolize community.  So close that they are bound together.)

The important thing about community in our religious and spiritual settings is that we need to make it about growth and finding our overall joy in Jesus.   A verse I really want to highlight is Matthew 18:20 which says, “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.”  This is a great thing to realize that God will meet us where we are. The Lord wants a part of our relationships because he really cares about them and loves them.  It is important that we use our community to sharpen us as iron sharpens iron.  We can tell our community our struggles and ask for prayers, so we can grow to be better representations of the church and, therefore, Christ himself. 

This year has been a very hard year when it comes to teaching and the stress that has been involved in it.  I have felt very discouraged by many different moments in life.  I have also made some mistakes and struggled with stress, anxiety, and even, sometimes, anger.  I had to spend that time being incredibly honest with my small Bible Study group about this.  I was asking for deep prayers because I know that I need to grow to be better.  Telling them my truth and the items I was struggling with was freeing.   I knew I needed to let go of guilt and shame.  I knew that I wasn’t trying to put up a front that I was really strong and was doing everything perfectly.  I could be authentic, and I said what I was really feeling.  It was important that I had this community around me.   

Remember that God cares a lot about growing the church.  This does not just mean the physical location and place of the church, but rather anywhere a body of believers is meeting in order to grow in God’s love and help others do the same.  My challenge for you this week then is to think about who your community is.  This may not necessarily be the people who are already friends or already in your circle, but who have the potential to be.  Who are maybe the co-workers you seem to enjoy, but you have not yet gotten to know very well.  Sometimes we just really have to put ourselves out there to build the community that we want to have around us.  I pray you will find your community.  I pray this will help you continuously grow closer to God. 

I really love being a Sunday school preschool teacher.  I love getting to work with really young children for an hour a week.  It is definitely a change of pace from my usual of working with high school students.  However, I have definitely had a lot of learning when it comes to teaching a younger age.  I have to think through the lesson for younger minds for them to really understand all the love that Jesus has for them.  Jesus told his disciples to learn from the little children, and it is a very easy thing to do.  I take away something every time I work in the Sunday school room.  

I will often do a worksheet with them that comes from working packets through my particular Sunday school curriculum, as well as read through the lessons.  On this particular day, I was doing the coloring activity with the kids where there were so many shapes, but they were only supposed to color the shapes that included a small cross.  All of the other shapes were supposed to be left alone.  The question and topic was “Who alone should be worshiped?”  When the kids got done coloring the shapes that only had the crosses, it of course, spelled out and showed God. God is the one alone who should be worshiped.  

I loved this activity.  There are many times where we as leaders can be impacted more than the kids.  I really loved that the image was obscured, until we revealed the shapes that solely had the crosses.  This made me realize that there are many times our circumstances can get blurred, and we can become distracted by all the crazy events in our lives that we find it very hard to find Jesus amidst it all.  We know he is there, but many are hard to see.  There is just too much happening.  The stress, the anxiety, the jobs, the people in our lives, and anything else just seem to get in the way.  

Then this lesson was reinstated when I attended church.  We are going through Genesis, and the story of Abram (soon to be Abraham).  We are in chapter 15 verses 1-6.  The Lord came to Abram and provided him with an amazing sentiment and promise:  “Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your very great reward.”  God promised Abram that he would be his shield and he would be the reward of his life.  He didn’t need anything else because he had the Lord. However, Abram does not necessarily respond with immediate joy.  He will later, but first he is focused on something he does not have, which is an heir.  He doesn’t yet have a child.  

I am not going to say this would not be difficult.  I have personally never had a child, but I also have never had a desire to have a child, and I don’t have a significant other at the moment to desire a child with.  I can not say what it would be like to continuously desire a child, but to not have one.  That being said, how amazing that Abram just had the experience with the Lord.  He just had the Lord talk to him and tell him that he will be his shield and his great reward, yet he is not completely awed by his presence.  He is not 100% content at the sight of God.  He is still thinking of earthly desires, even if it is a very pure and wholesome desire.  

One verse I want to highlight that reminds us to focus on the cross that pops up later in the Bible is Matthew 6:33.  This says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and then all these things on earth will be given to you as well.” Abram would learn how to seek God’s Kingdom and righteousness and this is why he would be blessed and gifted in so many ways.  Of course, if we know how the rest of the story goes, we know that Abram does eventually be called Abraham because he is a father of so many.  He has a child named Isaac, but through him, there would be the whole kingdom of Israel.  Because eventually Abram learned how to trust God and to believe in him being the ultimate savior and the ultimate glory, then he got everything he also could have wanted in the world.  The Lord did end up using him to be a great father to a great and mighty nation, that ultimately would be where Jesus came from.  

I know I have been incredibly distracted by many different items in my life.  I have been so very anxious about my future career and where I will go on living.  I have been so focused on what I should do, what my parents want me to do, and what would get me the most money.  I have also been distracted by my stress with my current job and my current life situation, that I often get so in my head as opposed to thinking about focusing on the cross.  I want to do the job that God has planned for me and for his glory.  I want to focus on the cross as I seek to fulfill this next calling in life.

The truth is we are going to always have other things in the world that are going to be distracting and are going to be in the way.  The great thing that we need to learn is how to focus on the cross, even in the midst of the business and the stress.  Even when we are busy, and we are surrounded with people, we need to find ways to focus on the cross.  Even when we are discouraged, we can find a way to the cross.  My challenge for you this week is to think through what your main distraction is from the cross.  Write it down, say it out loud, or tell a friend.  It is important to know those distractions.  Those distractions can become weakened when their presence is known.  The cross is always there, even if the image does seem a bit obscured.  I pray you see the cross daily in your life this week.