1 Corinthians 13:1-7

Here's a thought: God is love. Actually, it's more than a thought. It's truth. Read 1 John 4:8 if you don't believe me.

I read 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 recently. Probably for the millionth time. And really, who hasn't at least heard this stuff at weddings? But guess what? Turns out the Bible is the living and active word of God (Hebrews 4:12). Even though I've heard it over and over and over, it can still speak to me in new ways. One of my favorite experiences is when I think I've learned everything there is to learn about a part of scripture, and then God shows me how wrong I am.

So anyways, as I was reading it, I had a thought: if God IS love, and love is all of the things listed in 1 Corinthians 13, then this gives us another little picture of part of God's character.

According to this passage, love is patient, kind, rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things...and as if that weren't enough, it never fails. True love does not commit the sins of envy, boastfulness, arrogance, rudeness, selfishness, irritableness, rudeness, or rejoicing in wrongdoing. So since God is love, then it follows that God has all of these qualities. How awesome is it that even though we fail so often at exhibiting these characteristics of God, He never has and never will?

I decided that it's my goal to memorize this chapter. It's important to know what it means to truly love others. After all...faith, hope, and love remain. "But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Someone once told me that to find out how well you're loving others, you can take 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 and replace "love" with your name and then evaluate how true those statements are of yourself. You're not done growing in your ability to love until you never fail to be all of these things.

The Cost of Following

"...immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him." (Matthew 4:22)

When Jesus called James and John, they dropped everything they had going on in their lives and followed him. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the future and what God may have in store for me. After being in Taiwan, I really feel like that's a possible place that God may call me. While I don't know for sure if that's where I'll end up and I don't want to focus too much on the future, I feel like I need to consider what the cost would be for me to follow that calling (if that is, in fact, where God wants me).

I love Taiwan. A lot. I love how hospitable the people are, how bustling the city is, and how beautiful and breathtaking the mountains are. I would absolutely love to live there someday. I even have a fair number of friends there that I miss so much and would love love love to see again as soon as possible.

But then I think about how many things I wouldn't be around for at home. I'm sure I'd miss weddings, births of babies, funerals, etc. Aside from those big things, Facebook would no doubt remind me that all of my friends here are together, doing things without me. Life would still go on for everyone here, minus me.

I guess the possible costs of following Christ have never been as real to me as they feel right now. The fact that I'm considering moving overseas in just under a year is really exciting and scary. I know that we, as believers, will have to make sacrifices in order to follow Christ, but that doesn't mean it's easy to make them.

The question I'm still dealing with is this: When Jesus calls will I, like James and John, be willing to leave behind everything familiar and comfortable to follow?

Obesession.

I think I'm going to get really annoying to everyone pretty soon (if I haven't already). All I can think about or talk about or post facebook statuses about is Taiwan. It consumes at least 80% of my thoughts. I miss it so much. For the first few days home, I spent most of my time sleeping or being so tired that I didn't really think or care about anything.

Now that I'm starting to have to live real life at home again, it's really really hitting me how much my experiences in Taipei mean to me. There are so many people there that I would basically give my left arm to see again right now. Everyone there was so kind to me and I met so many new people that I really love...it's just hard for me to think about not seeing them again for at least a year, if ever. I mean, right now I have every intention of going back to Taiwan at some point, even if I don't end up living there. But the exciting and scary thing about life is that you just never know what will happen.

I know that the trip I was on isn't necessarily a picture of what it would be like to live there for an extended period of time. It was fun being a tourist and visiting things like Taipei 101, but what I really miss are the everyday sights and sounds of the city. I miss waking up and going to Ed's Cafe for breakfast every morning. I miss the convenience stores where I can buy milk tea while surrounded by the smell of tea eggs (I'm not saying I like the smell, but I got used to it and it's weird that it's not there now). I miss the liveliness of the city...the masses of people everywhere, and how all those people have learned to live together pretty peacefully. I miss walking into a store and hearing five Lady Gaga songs in a row. I miss sqeezing onto an almost-full subway car. I miss my students. I miss tofu that acutally tastes good (I mean, I can try to cook tofu myself all I want but it's just not the same...). I miss dodging scooters every time I cross the street. I miss night markets. I miss being able to find really good tea basically anywhere. I just miss the everyday living parts of Taipei.

I have some serious thinking and praying to do right now. On one hand, I know that I really love Taipei and there are tons of people there that I love SO much...but on the other hand, it would be really really hard to move to Taipei knowing I'm not coming back home in just a few weeks. There are things and people here that I would miss too...

I think that's the hardest thing about life for me...I can't move on to something new without having to say some really hard goodbyes...

So on that note, I have to go pack because I'm moving back to River Falls today. I guess life just keeps on going even if I'm not ready for it, huh?

I was really bad about updating any blogs at all while I was in Taiwan, but I just want to get my thoughts out now that I'm home. I obviously can't recap everything that I did while in Taiwan, but there are a few major things that I just need to process.

God has been so faithful to me this summer. At the end of the school year, I was very depressed and my faith was so weak and I just felt purposeless and directionless. I was confused and scared about so many things, and I don't think I talked to anyone about it nearly enough. I just kind of kept things to myself for the most part and crawled into my own little shell of hopelessness. This is definitely not the way God wants me to live, but I just didn't know what else to do.

Going to Taiwan was the best thing that I could have done. I had so many experiences and formed/strengthened so many relationships and it was just really wonderful. It was just what I needed. My life had become a long road of just waiting for something. Waiting to find direction. Waiting to feel like I'm really living. Just waiting. I know God sometimes calls us to wait for Him, but it gets really hard after a while. Now that I'm back, I really think going to Taiwan is what God wanted for me. He really confirmed some things for me through it.

First, that I have a deep love for Taiwan and the people there. I can't explain it, it's just there. I guess that's how God usually works though, huh? Even a year and a half ago, I would never ever ever in a trillion years guessed that God would plant a love in my heart for this little island thousands of miles from everything I know. And that this little island would feel like home to me in a lot of ways, even in only a few weeks of being there. There are so many people there that I love SO much that I feel like my heart is going to burst. It's amazing what God can do in such a short time.

Second, that I have at least an idea of a direction my life could take. I know I want Taiwan to be involved somehow. I don't know if that means moving there or something else, but I know that I love Taiwan and Taiwanese people way too much for them not to be part of my life somehow. I am really considering moving to Taiwan when I graduate. So many things in my life add up to mean that would be a good idea. I have some praying and thinking to do about it and I don't know where I will be a year from now, but it's a possibility.  

Third, that teaching really is something I could do--and enjoy. I guess before I just didn't have the confidence to think that I could be good at it. I know I still have a lot of learning to do about how to be a good teacher, but I really think I can do it now. Having my class and getting to know my students was just so great that I know it's something I would enjoy doing when I graduate.

There are so many more things I could say about Taiwan because this experience means SO MUCH to me, but these are the things that have been on my mind since I got on the plane home. And for anyone who will see me regularly (or worse yet...live with me)...get ready to hear about Taiwan more than you ever wanted to, because I just CAN'T stop talking about it and thinking about it. :-D

What I've been taught

I was browsing YouTube tonight and came across this Francis Chan video, and I really started thinking about some things.

Where exactly have I gotten my beliefs, really? Sure, I read the Bible. But there are so many cultural influences battling for my attention--and that includes Christian culture. Especially Christian culture. If I'm being completely honest, I've been told what to believe about a lot of things and just accepted it. That's not to say I can't learn from people who are older and wiser than I am, but I think I've put too much trust in people like pastors. They may be wise, but they're not God.

Not only have I been fed certain beliefs (and accepted them far too easily), but there are different ways of interpreting scripture and I even feel like my interpretations have been influenced by things other than God.

I've accepted too much of what I've been told and haven't studied things for myself enough. I've allowed pastors and teachers and family and friends to feed me information without me investigating it on my own. Maybe those people are telling me the truth. But the point is, am I willing to accept the word of other humans as the final word in my life? Not really. This is ETERNITY we're talking about. It's not something I (or anyone else) should be willing to risk. I want to be as sure as I can possibly be. The heaviness of that has really been on my mind lately.

I have been realizing lately that I need to take a fresh look at a lot of the things I've been told to believe. I've been finding it extremely difficult to have very strong faith lately, and I think it's because I haven't struggled with a lot of things for myself and I need to. I need to struggle with questions and doubts...to pray and study rather than just accepting what others tell me, no matter how much I trust them.


I really like what Francis Chan says about being on an island and having no influences other than the Bible and God. That's what I want to find out. If I don't accept anything as truth except what's actually in the Bible, what will I believe? It's time for me to find out.

You don't have to have all your ducks in a row.

This has been a tough summer for me, spiritually speaking. I've felt really disconnected from God. I've been struggling with the doubts I wrote about in an earlier post and not making prayer a priority in my life; on top of that, while I'm at home I feel extremely cut off from any kind of significant Christian community. I know my relationship with God is personal, but I'm learning more and more that it is important to involve others in my walk of faith as well. This feeling of being cut off from God and from my believing friends has really started to take a toll on me and I know I've let some of Satan's lies creep their way into my life. 

The biggest lie that I've been believing is that God does not want to use me. After all, I'm just an over-emotional 21 (almost 22) year old who seems to find a new way to mess up every day. Who doesn't know where she's going in life, or even what in the world she's supposed to be doing in the present...and who hasn't even been making God much of a priority in her life lately. Why would God want a mess like me? 

I really am kind of a mess of a person sometimes (or a lot of times). I might try to act like I have all my ducks in a row most of the time, but it's usually just a facade to hide the fact that I have plenty of issues and I almost never feel like I have it all together. And who does? I don't think anyone is as perfect as they pretend to be. God has been slowly breaking down some of the lies I've let into my life in this area, even though I haven't been seeking Him very persistently. I mean, I haven't even had a good quiet time in longer than I'd like to admit. But God is so much more faithful than I am, and He has been whispering to me in other ways. 

I was at the Joyful Noise Christian music festival last weekend, and Mark Hall (lead singer of Casting Crowns) said something that stuck in my head for a long time. He said "the world doesn't care that we sin, ya'll...they care that we pretend we don't." It made me realize how imperfect each and every one of us is, and how pointless it is for me to pretend I'm not...not only pointless, but maybe even harmful to ministry. If I pretend I'm perfect, how will people see that no matter how many problems they have, God still wants them? How will anyone ever see what God has done in my life? What better way is there to see who God is than in someone who is such a disaster on her own, but can find peace and even healing only because of God's grace? 

So if I can see that God wants other people even if they aren't perfect, why can't I seem to realize that it's true about me too?  Why can't I live more boldly and with more confidence, knowing that God does want to use me even if I'm a mess? I was pondering this at work today, and God brought a verse to my mind that I really need to remember while I'm wrestling with feeling unusable: 

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

I wish I could say that I've had some kind of huge breakthrough and I'm done struggling with this, but I'm not. Feeling wanted and loved has never come easy for me, and I guess all I can do now is give this struggle up to God and have faith that he does  love me and have a purpose for me, and that His love is unconditional. I don't  need to be perfect and I don't need to earn it. As usual, I don't have a solid conclusion to leave you with, so I'll leave you with a Relient K song that I enjoy and also can really relate to lately:

Doubts.

"Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties?" 

((Vaclav Havel))

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace to you!" But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see." 

((Luke 24: 36-39))

I'm a natural doubter. And not just when it comes to spiritual things. If it's possible to doubt something, I've probably doubted it before. 

I doubt whether people really care about me, and whether I'm worth caring about. I doubt that my friends and family will be there for me when I need them. I doubt whether authorities have my best interest in mind. I doubt whether people actually like me at all. I doubt my ability to succeed at new things.  

Probably the most terrifying doubts I've experienced, though, are doubts about God. I've spent way too many nights plagued by "what ifs." I've lost a lot of sleep over it. I've spent a lot of time reading my Bible, reading blogs and books about it, and praying to God that he would help me to overcome the doubts I have. It's really scary sometimes. Until this year, I never experienced such intense doubts, and I've pleaded with God to take them away. Faith has not been an easy road for me, especially this year. 

To be completely honest, I still have doubts sometimes. And they still scare me. But God has taught me things through them. He's still teaching me things. One thing that I've learned is that sometimes a greater degree of certainty can be produced by times of doubt. Having doubts and overcoming them is a really good (albeit scary and sometimes painful) way of figuring out what I really believe and why, and whether this faith I profess is worth what Jesus asks of me. 

The other big thing I've learned is something that I've known intellectually all along, but never experienced until recently. Ever since a couple of years ago when I decided to recommit my life to Christ, I've been told that in my faith I should not depend only on my feelings. I agreed intellectually, but up until this year faith was generally an emotional experience for me. But as time went on, the spiritual high of recommitting began to wear off a little. I think that's when I started experiencing doubts. I'm a person that's driven largely by emotion, so when the emotion behind my faith started to weaken, my faith weakened with it. God has shown me that faith is often going to be a choice rather than a feeling for me. Sometimes I don't want to read my Bible or pray, but God wants me to be faithful in those things even if they're not a mind-blowingly emotional experience every time. I just need to accept the fact that I am going to go through spiritual deserts sometimes, but it is still important to remain faithful to God. 

Tonight at the Unite prayer event, I was finally able to have a more emotional experience with God, and it was amazing. You know on a really hot summer day when you're extremely thirsty and all you can think about is getting a huge glass of cold water, and then when you finally get some it just tastes incredibly good? That's kind of how it felt. I know that faith is not always going to be an emotional experience for me, but it was good to really  feel it for the first time in a very long time.  I've been so up and down, so discouraged lately; a night of praising Jesus with my brothers and sisters was exactly what I needed. I feel refreshed and excited for what God has in store for me. I'm just so thankful for how God met me tonight. All night, I feel like He was telling me to remember. Remember the good things God has done in my life. Remember the bad things He's brought me out of.

 When doubts arise, remember His faithfulness. 

Can't Go Back.

Sometimes I really don't like looking at old pictures and scrapbooks and stuff. It's fun to look back on good things that have happened, but it also scares me sometimes. I just get overwhelmed with the fact that there's no going back. I mean, it's a pretty elementary thing considering we haven't invented time travel (yet). Life just feels so much shorter and so much harder when I realize that if I miss a moment or an opportunity, that's it. There are no do-overs. Whether I like it or not, every human is on a one-way trip to the end of their earthly lives. I don't have anything really profound to say about this. I just was looking at an old picture and started thinking about the past and the future and the fact that I have no control over time. It keeps on moving and I can either move with it or miss out on life.

Generations come and generations go, 

   but the earth remains forever. 

The sun rises and the sun sets, 

   and hurries back to where it rises. 

The wind blows to the south 

   and turns to the north; 

round and round it goes, 

   ever returning on its course. 

Faith

"Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible" 

((William James))

It is impossible to go through life without faith. I never thought much about this until recently, but faith comes in many forms and they don't all have to do with any kind of religion or god.

We as humans have faith in lots of things. There are basic things that we all trust to just be. When is the last time any of us questioned whether gravity would fail us or whether, after all these years of staying in its place, the earth would suddenly crash into the sun? Or whether the stars and moon would appear at night and the sun rise in the morning? Or when we sat in a chair wondered whether this time it would disappear unexpectedly from beneath us as soon as we lost sight of it? Or when we take a breath, whether the next second the oxygen will disappear from the air? These are things that I don't normally question. They are just things that always work the way I expect them to. I have faith that these things will continue to happen. 

We have a lot of faith in each other, however misplaced that faith may be. I mean, this might sound really pessimistic, but the fact is that anyone we meet could be a really bad person out to steal from or hurt us. But we interact with strangers all the time, and have faith that the person's intentions are good. Or when driving, it takes a lot of faith to trust that all those other metal boxes speeding down the road at 60 miles per hour won't spin out of control and crash into us. 

I don't know. I haven't got an profound conclusions to draw from this. I've just been thinking about how so much of life is based on faith, but we usually only consider it faith if it's in a religious context. But faith is an essential part of life. 

Judgment

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you"

 (Matthew 7:1&2)

Something that I've been feeling really convicted of lately is that I'm a much more judgmental person than I realized. That's not something I like to admit. Of all the bad things I could be, judgmental is the one I would least like to be...but God is showing me that there are subtle ways in which I have been judgmental and not realized it. 

I don't really have such a problem with judging people who have different beliefs than mine. It's pretty easy for me to realize that people who don't believe the same things I do and worship the same God I do are obviously going to have a different set of standards to base their lives on. It's the people who are of the same faith as me that I am more critical of.

See, sometimes I think that I know what the right decision is in particular situations, and I fool myself into thinking I know what God would want. If a fellow believer makes a decision that's different than what I would have chosen, I sometimes like to think to myself  "I may not be perfect, but I would never do that..." This attitude is just so, so wrong. I guess I just never quite realized what I was doing until now. When I was reading Matthew today, it just really hit me when Jesus said "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." I felt as if he were saying it directly to me. 

The thing is, I don't know everything. Shocking, right? Who am I to say that I'm right and other people are wrong? That's just pure pride.  But it doesn't even matter if I'm right or not. That's not the point. 

God has lavished so much love and grace upon me...who am I to deny others the same love and grace? God blesses me so that I can in turn be a blessing to others. It is not my job to judge. It's my job to love my brothers and sisters and build them up, even if they fall sometimes. 

God has given me so much love, it's time I started pouring more of that out on others. <3

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.

This world is a dangerous place, and life is a dangerous adventure.
As much as we like to think we have some degree of control over our lives, the truth is that we really don't. There are so many circumstances that we can't control.

We aren't even in control of whether we live or die. There are so many things we do nearly on a daily basis that could end our lives if even the smallest thing went wrong. For instance, driving or riding in a car. Even if you do everything the right way and are extremely safe, who's to say that some other driver on the road will be as careful? What about natural disasters? Lots of people die because of them, who's to say it won't happen to you or me?

This might all come off as really pessimistic and morbid, but I promise that's not at all the point I'm trying to get across.

The point is that the world is a dangerous place over which we do not have control. Why should we pretend that we have everything under control? Why is it so hard for us to admit our weakness? Only then can we realize that deep down we need and want God to be in control.

This is a struggle I face. The closer I get to graduation, the more it bothers me that I don't know what is going to happen to me after I graduate. The future is something that really scares me. But why can't I just realize that I don't have that much control over it anyways and learn to place it in God's hands? He's really the one who should be in control, anyways. He may not promise an easy and comfortable life, but he does promise abundant life. I might not always understand or even like the places He takes me, but those places will always surprise me by being so, so much better than the places I would have taken myself. God has demonstrated this in my life a ton of times before, and I'm pretty confident that He will continue to do it.

It's like every time I feel like my life couldn't get any better, God leads me somewhere else that seems scary at first but turns out to be really wonderful. Every time I tell God what my plans are, He pushes me to follow His instead. And you know something? When I listen and obey, my life becomes fuller and better. I come out of it with no regrets at all. Every time.

So maybe it is a dangerous business, going out your door. But it's also an exciting and fulfilling one, if you are willing to go to the places God calls you. 

Openness

 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
(Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

 

I'm really bad at being open with people. I know that. For a lot of reasons, I have trouble trusting people enough to tell them things about myself. There's stuff in my life that I just don't talk about because it's not fun to even think about. I don't mean that to sound depressed or whiny, because I really am blessed and I know that. But in the past, I have made unwise choices about who to share the hard things with and it has ended up hurting me in the end. But that was before I really started following Christ. Before I had friends who are, too. Now, I have friends that I'm pretty sure I could trust enough to be open with them about things. So why am I not doing it?

It's really starting to get to me. I'm really starting to realize that my relationships will never get deeper if I'm not willing to share things.

Aside from the fact that it's bothering me, I don't think shallow relationships based mainly on laughing a lot and having fun (which are definitely good things, too) are really what God wants for His people. How are we supposed to support each other along the way if we're not open with each other about our struggles? I've known intellectually all along that God did not intend us to go it alone in our faith. But as time goes on, I realize more and more that is really is nearly impossible to stand strong in faith without allowing yourself to support and be supported by others.

So...that's really what I've been thinking about for a while now and I just wanted to share. I don't know if other people have been feeling this too, but I really think God is nudging me to start being more open. It's going to be so hard for me, but so worth it.