Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
radical?
it's faces like these, faces of people i have met through ministry, through my everyday life, and even my own family that make me realize why i do what i do.
“My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to Him. ”
― David Platt
If most of us were being truely honest with ourselves... We would be able to say that far to easily we walk away content with our own lives and that we have left God alone in the corner. Right now, I am reading a book by author & pastor David Platt called 'Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream'
Many of you have probably heard of this book, but as a missionary struggling with financial support, trying to know God deeper and trust him to take on every area of my life..... it's all too scarily relevant.
This message should be something I already know & consistently do.... But it's not. I should be glad to serve him 'wherever/whenever' but more often than I would like to admit... I'm not always glad that I live in Hawaii. Most days if I were to be honest... I would say that I hate this season of training and how God is leading me to his heart. My flesh screams out 'God I want to be doing something PRODUCTIVE for you!' 'I am BORED'
I'm reminded of something a woman who was speaking to our group about a month ago taught us. She said simply "People were suckers for religion. The people cried out 'God we want to work for you! Show us what to do, give us rules! WE WANT TO WORK FOR YOU!' and Jesus kept responding back to them 'but I just want to talk to you. I just want to be your FRIEND!'"
There are days when I am so utterly frustrated. I'm frustrated because no matter how hard I try or what I do..... I CAN'T express how much Jesus means to me. Let me clarify that I DO love Jesus; but when it comes to expressing that.. I can't. A mindset creeps in and so easily says ''being a missionary IS my job, and I can't even do that...''
Far too often we 'adapt' the bible to suit our hearts and desires and needs... we don't recognize it as the living, breathing word of God. We see that our old mindsets have not shifted much, so much that we don't recognize that Jesus meant what he said. "The MOST important commandment is this... love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul; and love your neighbour as yourself."
How easily we forget that it is not about us.
God does not love me more because I can sing, or because I'm a missionary; and he never will. God's heart is for who I am when nobody is around me, and he has never been far off.
I often forget (just like you do) that it's not about me. I forget that Jesus has always cared whether at my darkest or my biggest 'glory moment.' Our identity as believers is found in him, and not our moments of failure.
The more we realize how big God is, the less it will take to get 'free-d.' Because then and only then will we realize that God has always cared, and we have always been free. His love has always been there & it has always been enough..
I have learnt to love this place and accept God's timing of everything. I have learned to laugh, cry, and *attempt to* rest. I have learnt to have compassion for others.
But at the same time, I have yet to get anywhere... and I am ok with that.
I will always be a work in progress.
But most importantly above everything else. I live for him because he is worth it & not because I feel like it. He is constant. I live for him because I want to make him known. I share who he is, because he is the good news: but like i said earlier-sometimes I get frustrated when I think of how to share who Jesus is to me. So bear with me :)
With Gratitude,
-Chelsea
sorry I have neglected this blog the past few weeks! I appreciate you all very much and am excited to see all of you back home these next upcoming weeks! :)
PS: The top photo is of a little Marshallese girl I work with during community outreach! I love her to bits & I am so excited to get to know her more!! =]
Saturday, October 13, 2012
the small things
sometimes it is the simple things that matter so much.
this past week was a week of God beginning to stir in me things again. I realized i stopped myself from having dreams in the midst of running after God, Jesus was (and still very much is) my everything. But in the midst of trying to be perfect i realized i did alot of things wrong.
incredibly funny how that happens....
as im in a season of rediscovering who i am & my god given identity as a daughter.... i decided (with the encouragement of a really good friend) to write three lists.
one: things that i love to do
two: my dreams
three: things that i hate.
i realized all of these things were all things that i had control over!
"chelsea if you love photography then just take pictures" "chelsea if you love to worship then just WORSHIP!'' that makes it simple :)
so often we make life far more complicated than it needs to be.
i made a list of my favorite things, printed them off and hung them on my wall. black and white photos for me to look at everyday of the things that i love & wake up inspired.
Jesus. Is so good.
Although it's something so simple, it is alot for me.
After looking at a blank wall by my bed for the past 3 months.... Things like this: photos on the wall, your own special mug, etc. make a house (or your small portion of the room with 5 other roomates) start to feel like home.
With Gratitude
-Chelsea
this past week was a week of God beginning to stir in me things again. I realized i stopped myself from having dreams in the midst of running after God, Jesus was (and still very much is) my everything. But in the midst of trying to be perfect i realized i did alot of things wrong.
incredibly funny how that happens....
as im in a season of rediscovering who i am & my god given identity as a daughter.... i decided (with the encouragement of a really good friend) to write three lists.
one: things that i love to do
two: my dreams
three: things that i hate.
i realized all of these things were all things that i had control over!
"chelsea if you love photography then just take pictures" "chelsea if you love to worship then just WORSHIP!'' that makes it simple :)
so often we make life far more complicated than it needs to be.
Jesus. Is so good.
Although it's something so simple, it is alot for me.
After looking at a blank wall by my bed for the past 3 months.... Things like this: photos on the wall, your own special mug, etc. make a house (or your small portion of the room with 5 other roomates) start to feel like home.
With Gratitude
-Chelsea
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
awakened.
one quarter is finished, i am changed and i am different.
the base is empty of changed young hearts going to the nations! i can't say that it wasn't hard for me to watch them go, that i wish i was one of the lucky ones going as well. Mostly, i miss their contagious joy and vibrant faith.
I have noticed & realized much more than ever, how much God grows you when you are in a community type setting. You begin to learn stuff you may never have learnt in your life before because you've never been put in those situations before. YWAM & Adaptability go hand in hand.
I have waited awhile to blog about what i am going to share, (i also have not had the time) but i wanted to share of an amazing encounter i had with the Lord roughly two weeks ago.
It was Wednesday and we never had anything planned (Wednesday is usually when a speaker will come in and teach, then we do a local outreach in the afternoon). I had spent a couple weeks at that point running on empty. When you are in a environment where you are constantly in a 'prayer/worship mode' it can be very difficult to let the Lord reach you outside the 1-3pm time period. And even then, it is reserved.
This particular Weds, a DTS on campus decided to do a 13 hour 'burn'.
The last little while God has been meeting me in weird ways (read about it here). It's amazing how as people we can go to God and allow ourselves to become burnt out and empty again in a moment. That was precisely how i was feeling. I was mad at myself for allowing my heart to hit the empty gauge yet again.
During the 13 hour burn, each DTS group took one hour to commit to pray for their nation. The day began at 8:00am and went until 9:30pm. For me i had planned to go for 3 hours of those, that's what I felt the Lord saying and i wanted to prove to myself that I could actually do it. God ended up meeting me in massive ways.
I am a perfectionist with a crappy attitude. sometimes, a really really really crappy attitude. I am hard on myself, i don't allow myself to rest, i can't do things on my own strength. I will be the first to tell you (out of experience, giving up a dream that i desperately loved) that it is NOT worth it.
I still fall short, i still freak out, i still hit exhaustion.... But there comes a point where i want more than that. I don't want days to come where i allow myself to get so stressed out that i am in tears and hate everyone & everything.
Most times i don't understand why God moves, but i'm beginning to learn that he just DOES. God began to pour into me in a way that i didn't know was possible..... simply by sitting in his prescence all day. There is a chorus we sing here sometimes that goes like this.... "In your prescence there is fullness of joy"
When prayer/worship & missions meet it is beautiful. I'm fortunate to live in an environment where that happens and it is real. Jesus doesnt care about just the act of intercession happening on the earth...... He cares more about reaching his children. He loves me no more, no less than if i would have gotten an education, pursued photography further, had a perfect life...... He loves me the same whether I am poor or rich, He DOESN'T care that i try to hard 90% of the time, that i deal with fear & massive doubt, that i deal with self confidence...... He loves me because he made me.
These steps i have taken in Kona have not been easy, it has been a very difficult few months here. Sometimes you have to run through concrete bricks in order to get to the center of God's heart. That run, that final push is worth it. God prepared me for this. His ways are not our ways.....
When we place our hearts in the center of God's hands.... while its hurting, while it feels like we are being stripped away of everything, while we feel vulnerable in the ugliest ways possible before him, days when we believe we do not deserve to be loved and like we cannot do anything right... Our hearts are in the safest place possible. Our God takes care of what he makes.
When we allow ourselves to worship without fear: we allow ourselves to encounter the person who made our heart and who knows how to take care of it. Renewal & change are just a cry away..... let it out. I promise you that the life you are craving to have with God is attainable, it's worth making sacrifices for, and it's worth fighting for.
I promise, because i've been there.
God is so much bigger than our fears of what others think of us.
the base is empty of changed young hearts going to the nations! i can't say that it wasn't hard for me to watch them go, that i wish i was one of the lucky ones going as well. Mostly, i miss their contagious joy and vibrant faith.
I have noticed & realized much more than ever, how much God grows you when you are in a community type setting. You begin to learn stuff you may never have learnt in your life before because you've never been put in those situations before. YWAM & Adaptability go hand in hand.
I have waited awhile to blog about what i am going to share, (i also have not had the time) but i wanted to share of an amazing encounter i had with the Lord roughly two weeks ago.
It was Wednesday and we never had anything planned (Wednesday is usually when a speaker will come in and teach, then we do a local outreach in the afternoon). I had spent a couple weeks at that point running on empty. When you are in a environment where you are constantly in a 'prayer/worship mode' it can be very difficult to let the Lord reach you outside the 1-3pm time period. And even then, it is reserved.
This particular Weds, a DTS on campus decided to do a 13 hour 'burn'.
The last little while God has been meeting me in weird ways (read about it here). It's amazing how as people we can go to God and allow ourselves to become burnt out and empty again in a moment. That was precisely how i was feeling. I was mad at myself for allowing my heart to hit the empty gauge yet again.
During the 13 hour burn, each DTS group took one hour to commit to pray for their nation. The day began at 8:00am and went until 9:30pm. For me i had planned to go for 3 hours of those, that's what I felt the Lord saying and i wanted to prove to myself that I could actually do it. God ended up meeting me in massive ways.
I am a perfectionist with a crappy attitude. sometimes, a really really really crappy attitude. I am hard on myself, i don't allow myself to rest, i can't do things on my own strength. I will be the first to tell you (out of experience, giving up a dream that i desperately loved) that it is NOT worth it.
I still fall short, i still freak out, i still hit exhaustion.... But there comes a point where i want more than that. I don't want days to come where i allow myself to get so stressed out that i am in tears and hate everyone & everything.
Most times i don't understand why God moves, but i'm beginning to learn that he just DOES. God began to pour into me in a way that i didn't know was possible..... simply by sitting in his prescence all day. There is a chorus we sing here sometimes that goes like this.... "In your prescence there is fullness of joy"
When prayer/worship & missions meet it is beautiful. I'm fortunate to live in an environment where that happens and it is real. Jesus doesnt care about just the act of intercession happening on the earth...... He cares more about reaching his children. He loves me no more, no less than if i would have gotten an education, pursued photography further, had a perfect life...... He loves me the same whether I am poor or rich, He DOESN'T care that i try to hard 90% of the time, that i deal with fear & massive doubt, that i deal with self confidence...... He loves me because he made me.
These steps i have taken in Kona have not been easy, it has been a very difficult few months here. Sometimes you have to run through concrete bricks in order to get to the center of God's heart. That run, that final push is worth it. God prepared me for this. His ways are not our ways.....
When we place our hearts in the center of God's hands.... while its hurting, while it feels like we are being stripped away of everything, while we feel vulnerable in the ugliest ways possible before him, days when we believe we do not deserve to be loved and like we cannot do anything right... Our hearts are in the safest place possible. Our God takes care of what he makes.
When we allow ourselves to worship without fear: we allow ourselves to encounter the person who made our heart and who knows how to take care of it. Renewal & change are just a cry away..... let it out. I promise you that the life you are craving to have with God is attainable, it's worth making sacrifices for, and it's worth fighting for.
I promise, because i've been there.
God is so much bigger than our fears of what others think of us.
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