Across the Crossroads

Once was I walking
in sweetness and love
And winsomely talking
of things from above

Then slowly but surely
I began to believe
That the things of this earth
were better for me

I came to a crossroads
defining my choice
Yet I wouldn't stop there
or yield to His voice

So I turned aside from
the road of the cross
But I kept looking back
and regretting my loss

Soon swiftly and steeply
my pathway did run
Why could I not see
the light of the sun?

I'd thought that this path
would fulfill my desire
But then I perceived
'twas a way to the fire

So I tried to return
yet all to no avail
My footsteps kept slipping
was I augured to fail?

I yearned to remember
the road to get home
If I could just get there
no more would I roam

My strength fleeing fast
I cried out in pain
Its echo came back
it seemed hope was in vain

Then once more I cried
but this time 'twas for aid
And a morsel of strength
entered in as I prayed

A beacon of light
emboldened my gait
I quickened my pace
before it was too late

And then once again
to the crossroads I came
There I made it my choice
the cross to reclaim

I'm looking ahead
now across the crossroads
I'm so glad of the cross
which crossed off all my loads

I wrote this poem last night after meditating on Scripture, specifically Psalms 106 & 107.  If you haven't read them recently, they are wonderful works of art which proclaim many times over the mercy of God even in the midst of rebelliousness among his people.

Psalm 46

"God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
thought the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling."

God is with me even though it seems like my world is falling apart.  Even when everything else is shaking, He is unshakable, and I can put my trust in Him and He will not fail me.

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations roar, the kingdoms totter;
He utters His voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress."

I can long constantly for the presence of someone, but God is always present with me.  He will protect me.  In the dark season of life when I see no light, I can be confident that the morning will come and God will help me when the light dawns and I step out of the darkness.  Everything around me may be unsteady, and my emotions may be boiling over, but God still speaks in the midst of these situations, and He has complete control.  He can smooth everything out into His exact plan, mold the clay from an ugly lump to a beautiful vessel fitted for His use.  God is present, and He is strong.

"Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how He has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth,
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
He burns the chariots with fire.
'Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!'
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

When I think about what God has done and worked through all of time and throughout the world, and then consider that I"m not willing to trust Him in my relationships, that's just plain stupid.  Why is it so hard to let God mold me into the person He wants me to be?  He makes peace among people in conflict.  Why shouldn't I let Him make peace in my own heart?  Why shouldn't I trust that He will mend broken relationships?  My mind is racing on and on.  I think, "Why didn't I?"  My life should not be defined by what I should have done.  The mistakes are there, but they don't make me any less of God's creation.  I am a child of God who has sinned massively, but God, through His blood-bought mercy is in the business of forgiveness.  By living in sin, I was ruining my own chance at God being exalted through me.  He can't use hypocrites.  I was blocking his work through me by living in a pattern of sin.  Now I just need to be still, listen for His voice, and remember that He is God.  He can do anything.  Now I just need to let Him do the work.

Run!

It's been a really long time since I've posted, and a lot has happened in my life since then, but I have this confidence: God is good! I was reading 2 Samuel 18 (which is in the midst of the story of David and his son Absalom, who is trying to take the throne), and I was struck by the following verses:
Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said again to Joab, “Come what may, let me also run after the Cushite.” And Joab said, “Why will you run, my son, seeing that you will have no reward for the news? “Come what may,” he said, “I will run.” So he said to him, “Run.” Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and outran the Cushite.
2 Samuel 18:22-23

"Come what may, I will run."  What determination is this!  To run, not caring for the outcome, whether or not a reward will be received.  Ahimaaz ran to bring the good news.  He needed no reward, he only knew that he must run, and run with a purpose, so run he did.  And when he ran, he outstripped the Cushite, who ran "knowing" that he would be rewarded.  I think that this can be a lesson for all of us.  If we are Christians, we are called to carry the good news.  May we run with a fierce persistence, not caring what obstacles lie in our paths, or whether or not the news will be well received or we will be rewarded.  We must but run, because it is what we are called to do.  Let us have the attitude of Paul, who says in 1 Corinthians 9:16-18: Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rightsin preaching it."
Amazing!  Paul considers his reward to be the right to refuse any reward or monetary gain for his labors.
Through tears, turmoil and tribulation, come what may, I will run to bring the good news, not looking to the response of those to whom I bring it, but to the response of my Lord and Master in heaven.  When I have finished this life, I want to be able to say, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7)  And if it so pleases the Lord to say, "Well done, you good and faithful servant," (Matthew 25:21) may my response be, "I am an unworthy servant, I have only done what was my duty." (Luke 17:10)

Parlez-vous francais?

We've been in France for a week and a half now, and what an experience it has been!  We are cat sitting for some missionaries while they are away, so we get a house (very small and strange by American standards) to ourselves.  Every weekday we drive to College Daniel, the Christian school nearby which will serve our equivalent of preschool to 11th grade in the fall.  The school has so much work to be done it's unbelievable. My brothers and dad have been putting drywall into a room so that it can be used as a classroom in the fall.  My mom and I have been employed with various tasks, but for awhile I've been using a machine to make spiral workbooks that will be used in the fall by the various classes.  My mom and some teachers have been working on taking old wallpaper off the walls in a couple rooms in the chateau.  (The school is mostly housed in what used to be a mansion basically.  It's very old and needs lots of work and updating.  Last week there were four people from Austria staying at the school. (They were two teachers and two students from a Christian school in Vienna.  The two schools are trying to set up an exchange program.)  Anyways, one of them said something that really inspired me and was exactly what I needed to hear, and that was this: "God loves it when we are crazy enough to trust Him."  So I have a challenge: Are you crazy enough to trust God at this moment in your life in whatever circumstance you are facing right now?

Cloudy with a Chance of Frosting

I wrote this on Sunday, but i didn't have time to type it up until today.
Today (Sunday) ends our time in Germany and begins our time in France.  We sucessfully completed our part of the wall project at the Barn, as the missionaries there so affectionately call the Europe Ministry Center for its former life.   After we stuck all the insulation on the walls, we had to put more adhesive onto the outer side and glue a mesh on.  So, since the glue, which we also liked to call goop, was white and very spreadable, we began to come up with other terms for it.  It was cookie dough and milkshake, but most commonly we called it frosting.  And, since it is nigh impossible to spread goop on the walls without some of it dropping onto the ground below, whenever there was anyone working on the second or third level of scaffolding (or upstairs as we liked to call it),  the forecast became "cloudy with a chance of frosting," as goop would invariably drop.  And, if your head or your arm was in the way, well, you got rained on.  I took to wearing a baseball cap to protect my head, but there wasn't really anything I could do about my arms, so they received a vigorous scrubbing at day's end.
'Til later, be blessed, and watch your head ;)

Melody Grace

Progress!

Since I last wrote on Tuesday, a lot has been done.  On Wednesday we did more prep work and other various tasks which needed to be done because the supplies had not yet arrived.  I was given a special task of filling in a hole in the wall with stones and mortar, which was very fun, kind of like a puzzle without a set solution.  On Wednesday night a friend of ours from a couple hours away came to celebrate my birthday with us. :) On Thursday the supplies started coming, but we had planned a trip across the border to Guebwiller, France so we could see the work that we would be doing for the first 3 weeks of July and also meet with the missionaries in whose house we will be staying and for whose cats we will be caring. On Thursday night some missionaries from France, with whom Wesley had stayed for a week about a month ago, came over for dinner and told us some crazy stories about their kids. (All four of their sons are in missions, three of them in Africa.) Friday we started the real work, gluing insulation onto the wall.  We made a lot of progress on Friday, so I thought that we would probably finish on Monday, but I was only sort of right. On Friday night we had dinner at the home of some missionaries from College Church and had fun playing with their girls, and then we went to the dwelling of some other missionaries and watched Germany beat Greece in the Eurocup quarterfinals.  Yesterday we finished gluing the insulation to the wall except for a small 5cm gap at the top.

The Work Begins!

When I go on a trip, I don't really think about the things that could go wrong until they do.  My parents and I flew out of Chicago on Thursday morning. When we arrived in Zurich on Friday morning, exhausted from sleeping about 3 hours on the plane, we expected everything to go according to plan.  We went to baggage claim, and only my parents bags appeared.  My bag was
nowhere to be seen.  So, after finding out that my bag wasn't coming, we went to report its missing state.  We found out that it had been left in Chicago and was flying on the next flight, which arrived at the same time the next morning.  The only problem was that we didn't have an address to the apartment where we were staying or a phone number for the people who could tell us...big problem.  And then, when a kind Swiss young woman offered us to use her phone to look it up, we found the phone number and the address for the mission where we would be working.  However, the lady handling baggage retrieval would not let us use her phone to call the missionaries, and the Swiss lady who had let us use her phone had to leave.  So, we were in a pickle.  There were no pay phones on the inside of the airport that we could use, and none of our phones worked internationally.  So we sat down to think, which is very hard to do when you've had little to no sleep and your body is telling you it's the middle of the night.  Then I had the idea that we could buy wifi and use my dad's grooveip app which piggybacks off of google voice to make phone calls.  We paid 5 Swiss Francs for 24 hours of wifi in the one location, and then called the missionaries and found out the address.  Then, when we thought we had resolved all of our problems, we found out that Jeremy had missed his flight. (He was taking a later flight with a separate airline because he is going back to the States early to be in a friend's wedding.)  The airlines had given away his seat to someone else, even though he was there well before the boarding gate closed.  The plan had been that we would wait for Jeremy in baggage claim til he arrived and then together we would wait until Wesley got to the airport in the car he had rented in France.  But then we had no way for Jeremy to get to Germany because he wasn't coming in until the next day.  Eventually, though, we decided to stick with the original plan and wait for Wesley to pick us up.  He emailed us a picture of the car he was driving and told us he would be there in a few hours, so we settled down to wait. And wait. And wait.  Finally, about 6:30 p.m. he pulled up.  The 320 km drive had taken a LOT longer than expected, but at that point we didn't care.  We were just glad to see him.  So, we went into Zurich for a little while, snapped a few pictures, and then headed to where we were going.  The only problem with that was we didn't actually have any way to reach the guy who was going to let us into the apartment where we were supposed to stay that night, and by the time we got to Kandern, it was about 9:30 p.m., and none of the stores were open and there were no pay phones in sight.  So, we finally decided just to ask some random person.  A lady offered the use of her phone, and then we called the missionary responsible for us, who opened the gate and let us into the apartment. The next day my suitcase came and Jeremy got picked up from the airport, Sunday we went to church and explored the town.  Yesterday, we started work, prepping all the windows, first by washing the outside, and then covering them with masking tape and plastic so they wouldn't be damaged by the plaster when it was put on.  Then the scaffolding people came and put up scaffolding, so the rest of the day we proceeded either to help the scaffolders or to continue masking the windows.  This morning we finished with the windows, and then this afternoon we attached a bunch of tarps to the scaffolding so none of the plaster gets into the neighbor's yard, which is literally less than a yard from the edge of the building.  Tomorrow the supplies should come and we'll start the real work, putting up insulation  

Identity

The world tells me, "You're nothing special, nobody cares about you as a person."  Jesus tells me, "You are mine, you are precious in my sight, and I love you."

The world tells me, "Your only worth is your body, and even that is worth nothing if you ever gain weight."  Jesus tells me, "Your price is far above rubies."

The world tells me, "You have nothing to offer those around you."  Jesus tells me, "You are gifted for my service."

The world tells me, "You were an accident, you have no direction in your life."  Jesus tells me, "There is a purpose to your life, a reason to why you were born."

The world tells me, "You are so dirty, nobody could ever really love you."  Jesus tells me, "Nothing can separate you from my love."

The world tells me, "All your friends are fake, no really cares about you and actually likes you."
Jesus tells me, "I am your friend and confidant."

I could go on and on.  Doubts about my self-worth have plagued me for as long as I can remember caring about that sort of thing.  And I have allowed what the world says about me to penetrate into my way of thinking so that I actually believe the lies that have been whispered at me since I was little.  For a couple of years, I have been trying to combat those lies with the truth of my worth in Jesus. I'm trying to believe I am worth something, but it is hard.  I'm sure many, many other girls and young women struggle with the same thing, and I sure haven't gained the victory over these lies, but one thing has helped me, and that is this: I recognize that it is wrong to consider myself worthless, and that no matter what the world tells me, I do have a purpose for existing, and that God's love for me is beyond comprehension, and I can go bask in that light whenever the dark lies try to smother me.  To Him whose love is beyond measure be the glory, now and forever! Amen.

© Robb Davidson Photography

Supporting the Work of the Gospel

Looking back on the short years of my life, I have been noticing that at significant moments in my life, the lesson I learned was one of trust, learning to be completely dependent on God.  Right now I’m at another one of those moments.  The sensible thing for me to do this summer from a human perspective is to find a really good summer job and make money so I can pay for school.  However, another opportunity has landed in my lap, and instead of going the logical route, I am going, Lord willing, on a seven-week mission trip with my family—my mom, dad and two older brothers.  (I am being partly sensible and taking a semester off in the fall to work.) 

Since October of last year, my mom has been looking for opportunities where we could serve as a family before us kids fly the nest.  She contacted several mission organizations, but the one with the most enthusiastic response, saying, “Yes! We need your help!” was Greater Europe Mission (GEM).  Already I can hear the skepticism forming in your mind—“Europe! Aren’t there other places in the world more open to the gospel?  Is this really a mission trip or just a thinly-veiled vacation?”  Your skepticism is justified, because we asked those same questions before we decided that we should go.  However, God has been showing us that there is a deep spiritual need in Europe and that we shouldn’t limit His work to the places where it’s relatively easy and church growth is exponential. 

As for vacation, let me tell you what we’ll be doing.  For the first two weeks of the trip, we’ll be in Kandern, Germany at the GEM headquarters doing a much-needed remodeling project which the workers there cannot afford to take the time to do.  There is also a back-log of office work which my mom and I may do while the guys are doing the heavy lifting of tearing down and putting up walls. 

From there we’ll be heading to Guebwiller, France to a Christian school called College Daniel. (A college in France is our equivalent of a middle school.)  There is a profound need in France for an alternative to the public educational system, which uses shame as its motivation for learning.  The school is located on the grounds of a former camp, so we will be outfitting cabins to become classrooms.  For the three weeks we are there, we will be staying in the home of missionaries who work at the school while they are in London, which cuts down on our costs considerably, as we will only have to pay for utilities. 

For the final two weeks, we will be outside of a small town, Le Bourg-d’Oisans, at a camp, which hosts camps for missionaries as well as English camps for missionaries as well as English camps for young adults.  The young adults of the family will be basically just talking and trying to use our lives as a model of Christ to these youth, while my parents will be working behind the scenes cleaning toilets, washing dishes and so forth.  French labor laws dictate that in order for us to be volunteers and not working in exchange for something, we have to pay the camp for our room and board. 

I am really excited to see how God will work this summer!  Would you consider supporting me, prayerfully or financially, as I take this step of faith with my family? It doesn’t have to be much—every little bit helps.  Even if you can’t give, would you please pray for me?  Pray that I would have perfect peace as I do what is humanly illogical, that all of our support would be raised so we can actually make this trip, that God would give our family beautiful harmony as we work together, and that He would prepare the hearts of the people we meet to be ready to hear the gospel. 

Breakdown of my approximate costs:

Airfare and Ground Transportation:	~$1600
Food and Lodging:	~$1000
Supervisor Costs:	~$75
Total Costs:	~$2675

 In Christ and for His Glory,

Melody Grace

Online donations can be made at gemeuroteam.org/donate. Designate it to 52201 and also in the comments state explicitly that it is for the Hanna Family.

Or, you can send a check with a note designating it to EuroTeam 52201 and mention that it is for the Hanna Family. 

Greater Europe Mission
P.O. Box 1669
Monument, CO 80132-1669

I Trust in Him Completely

I know I've written about trust on this blog before, but the circumstances in my life dictated that I must needs do it again.  It is easy to trust God when the step in front of me is clear, and my life is relatively calm.  I can trust God about the future, whether it is days, months or even years in advance, as longs as I see the door open in front of me.  It becomes exceedingly difficult, however, to trust God when my well-planned path suddenly takes a turn, and the open door is suddenly slammed shut.  That is when trust becomes not just a platitude, but a way of life, a humble, contrite attitude, believing that God's way is perfect, that He sees the future, and that He is holding me in the palm of His hand, though I may not feel it at the moment.  My heart must abide in Christ.  My gaze must be fixed on His face alone. My life must be completely dependent on His grace.  Only then will I truly be trusting Him.
Fiat.

Paradox

I love paradoxes.  I like to try to wrap my my mind around great intellectual puzzles, to take seemingly contradictory ideas and make sense of them.  One such paradox is the one spoken by Jesus in Luke 21:10-19. First I'm going to talk about the passage in general, and then specifically about the paradox so oft repeated in the gospels.  Jesus informs his disciples that they will be persecuted for their faith, but also that that same persecution will be an opportunity for them to bear witness.  Now, I don't know about you, but the idea of suffering does not always sit very well with me.  I like to be comfortable.  So, being persecuted for not doing anything wrong just doesn't seem fair.  But Jesus tells us to expect it.  And, not only that, he tells us to seize that opportunity to do more of what got us into the pickle in the first place--bearing witness to him.  That doesn't seem like the wisest idea to me.  But God is all about being counterintuitive, going against the grain, doing things that make no sense to our minds.  So, Jesus tells us to be brave for His sake, proclaim His name, and not worry about being hated and even betrayed by the ones who are closest to us, because, he tells us, he's got it covered, he knows what he's doing.  But here comes the major paradox--"some of you they will put to death....But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives." How does that make any sense?  Some of us will die, but we will gain our lives?  I think the answer can be found in another saying of Jesus in Mark 8:34-38. 

Jesus is speaking about two different lives, one being our body and one our soul.  Our short physical life on this earth is but a blink of an eye in comparison to the eternity we have ahead of us.  We have a choice in this life how we will spend eternity--eternal life with Christ, or eternal death, punishment for spitting God in the face after he was merciful enough to provide a way back to him.  If we give up a few extra years on this earth because we are persecuted for our faith, we will not lose eternal joy in heaven.  But if, instead, we decide that we love this life too much, we can choose to deny Christ before men and then in turn be denied by Christ when this short life is over.  If we make the former choice, we truly will save our lives by losing them, but if the latter, what gain is there?  In the words of Jim Eliot, martyr for being a witness to Christ: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."  What are you holding onto? This life or then next?
 

Hard to Ponder

Contemplating the death of Jesus is a hard thing to do.  Hard, because it removes my ego from its pedestal and smashes it on the ground, showing me how utterly unworthy I am of the mercy of God.  Hard, because it saddens my heart to see the utter depravity of human nature, and that the best, most worthy, righteous person could be subject to the worst, most degrading treatment of all.  Hard, because it angers my inner sense of justice that a completely innocent person could be punished for crimes he did not commit, just to placate the crazed crowd.  Five times in Luke's gospel it is emphasized that Jesus was innocent, guiltless, undeserving of any punishment, yet he bore it anyway (Luke 23:4, 15, 22, 41, 47). Hard, most of all, because when I see his sacrifice, and remember that he could have avoided death completely, but chose to die anyway, I am left in utter awe of the immense love that Christ has for each and every person on this earth, including the ones whom he knows will choose to reject him.  It is hard, because it puts me down, but it is also good because it exalts Jesus.  His death, unjust and depraved as it was, satisfied the justice of God, so that we might be deprived of our depravity and decorated with the worthiness of Christ.  

Lent

So, the day before Lent started, I totally pigged out on some amazing almond bark.  I wasn't even thinking about the fact that it was the day before Lent, i.e. Mardi Gras.  I just saw the chocolate and ate it.  Later, though, I was contemplating what, if anything, I should do for Lent.  As I was thinking about it, I decided I would give up sugar, meaning any foods with added sugar, beyond those minuscule amounts found in bread and such.  I was actually thinking it wouldn't be that big of a sacrifice, because at our house we rarely have anything with sugar in it, and my mom always sweetens things with other natural sweeteners, such as honey or agave nectar.  So, I figured, "why not?  It will focus my attention on Jesus when I do run across something sweet, and I'll have a reason not to eat unhealthy foods."  At first it was relatively easy, because there weren't that many opportunities where I actually was tempted with sugar.  However, last week I headed to Virginia to visit a friend and watch her perform in a play and get proposed to on closing night (watch it here), go to DC (where I had never been before), and go wedding dress shopping (which was all tons of fun). The only problem was that I had to be confronted with sugar pretty much non-stop.  Then it really did become a sacrifice for me.  Instead of eating sugar literally every meal though, I got to feast on Jesus. As I approach the end of my commitment, I'm realizing more and more that any sacrifice I might choose to make pales in comparison to the one which Jesus made during Passion Week nearly 2,000 years ago.  I'm also realizing that feeding my relationship with Christ should come first, and that when I get hungry for physical food, I should be yearning just as much or more to be fed with the spiritual food of my relationship with Jesus.  I'm starting to consider fasting once a week for one meal, to continue the reminder for me that feeding on spiritual food is just as important to spiritual health as physical food is to my physical health.  Giving up sugar for forty days has been a worthwhile sacrifice, and although at the beginning I had no idea what I would learn, now I do. It has been so worth it!

Why Suffer?

Recently, a friend said to me something like, "I feel like every time I do the right thing, being honest, following orders, being nice and respectful, it backfires on me."  Although I responded in what I think was an appropriate way, I decided to write a more detailed response. There are often different ways in which rewards manifest themselves. We like to be rewarded for our actions immediately, probably because as children we are instantly compensated for our actions, whether with words or treats or some other special prize. But when we get older, this happens less and less, and it is easy to get discouraged when we do what is right time and again, but see no fruit from our behavior. Sometimes we even get criticized or condemned for our good actions, and that is usually the hardest to take. We start to question whether doing the right thing is even worth it. In that moment, the answer can be found in Scripture, specifically in 1 Peter 4:12-19:

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name...

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

Our response to suffering for doing the right thing should be rejoicing and thanking God for his working in our lives, which is so counterintuitive to the world's way of thinking. When we respond properly, we will also receive rewards in this life and the next, and though these are delayed, we can still wait in the hope of receiving them. What are these rewards?  In this life, it is a reformation of our character, and in the next life it is a sharing in Christ's glory, which is worth any mistreatment in this life.  James 1:2-4, 12 explain better than I can:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing....Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Grammar!

I've had this idea for a blog post germinating in my mind for a couple weeks, but I haven't gotten around to writing it down til now.  For quite a while, whenever I saw something in the Bible along the lines of " Let __ be done in you" or "May you be __"  I just automatically changed it in my mind to "do __" or "be __" and thinking that I could do it in my own power and strength.  But lately God has been working in my heart to show me that I've been wrong in my interpretation of the Bible. Not only does it contradict the principle of living and working in God's strength, it also goes against the fundamental rules of grammar.  Please bear with me as I act like the grammar nerd that I am for just a few minutes.  The scripture passage where God so clearly showed this error to me, along with the help of a few well-timed words by my pastor, is in Ephesians 4, where Paul is exhorting the Ephesians to live in a manner that benefits the body of Christ.  But it came specifically in verse 31, where it says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice."  When I heard that, I automatically changed that in my mind to the imperative: "Put off bitterness, etc." While I was still doing that in my mind, my pastor said something along the lines of: " Notice it's a passive voice verb."  And suddenly it clicked for me.  When it's a passive voice verb, then something other than the subject is doing the action.  And that was so comforting and encouraging for me.  Why, you might ask? because instead of an imperative for me to do the action of putting off the sin by myself, it is an exhortation to let someone else, namely Christ, do the action in us.  It is so much easier to let Christ do the work in us than to try to do it all by ourselves, fail miserably time and again, and be discouraged and maybe even give up trying to combat sin when we can't do it ourselves.  Instead, we can let Christ come into our lives and root out all the bitterness, anger, malice, etc.  We can do as the apostle Paul, "For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works in me." Col. 1:29

Busyness

So, it's been a while since I posted last, but I've been keeping super busy and learning a lot.  Sometimes in the busy times of life, it's easy to forget what's most important.  But God has been faithful, teaching me that even in the most hectic periods of my life, I can still reach out to Him and find Him there, waiting for me.  Perhaps the most important thing I've been learning is that, no matter how busy I am, I need to take the time to make sure that my life pleases God in every way, to take time to reflect.  What has been weighing on my heart lately is how I can be a witness to the unbelievers around me.  I recently read Psalm 40, which talks about waiting for God's deliverance, receiving it, and then telling of it to others.  In verses 9-11 it says:

  I have told the glad news of deliverance
   in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
   as you know, O LORD.
I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
   I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
   from the great congregation.
  As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain
   your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
   ever preserve me!

David doesn't hold back from telling the good news, and, in the same way, God will not withhold His mercy from David.  It is becoming my conviction more and more that I need to be vocal about the gospel whenever the opportunity may arise, and, more than that, to pray for opportunities and boldness to share the good news. May that become your conviction as well.
Be blessed!
Melody Grace

How big?

How big is your God? How do you conceptualize Him? Is He the grumpy grandpa upstairs who might wake up on the wrong side of the bed but has the power to give you some really nice birthday and Christmas presents? Is He like Santa, making lists of who is naughty or nice, withing your good deeds against your bad? Who is your God? Whence come your ideas about Him? From culture? If so, you may think of Him as I just described above. From creation? Then your picture will just begin to grasp who God is:

He is bigger than the mountains,
deeper than the oceans,
brighter than the stars,
wider even than the whole universe.

Creation doesn't tell us how big God is, only how small we truly are. So how do you know how big God is? By reading His own words to describe Himself. They're all over the Bible, but listen to Ephesians 3:14-21:
 
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

  Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." 

God's glory is unsearchable, yet He invites us to understand it through His word.

The depths of His love are unfathomable, yet he invites us to dive in and drown in it. 

His grace is unthinkable, yet he invites us to ponder it, and find that each new day, His unchanging grace can ever change us to be more like Him. 

That's how big my God is.  How big is yours?