You!

God, Father, Sovereign Lord, Savior, Advocate, Author of Life and Ancient of Days, Creator of all things:

when i start to feel stressed about classes, remind me that it's an absolute and undeserved privilege to be attending a professional school, let alone have a college degree.  my education is a gift.

when i start to worry about my bank account, remind me that over half the world - 3 billion people - live on less than $2.50 a day (World Bank, 2008).

when i start to complain about feeling tired, remind me that i have a bed to sleep on at the end of the night.

when i start to whine about the freezing weather, remind me that over 200 million people in the world don't have a roof over their head -- and that's considered an uber-conservative estimate (UN World Report, 2005).

when i start to get frustrated about how underrepresented my program is at my school, remind me of the countries where civil liberties like freedom of speech and freedom of religion are viciously denied, where millions are trampled on and neglected by their oppressive governments.

when i start to feel sorry for myself for getting sick with the cold, remind me that there are millions of people with incurable diseases like AIDS/HIV and CA who face the possibility of never improving and/or denied the necessary treatment for their conditions.

when i start to get frustrated with my parents, remind me that there are so many broken families, forgotten orphans, and victims of domestic violence in this world.

when i start to become annoyed with my brother, remind me that there are too many stories to count of siblings who have lost their lives too early.  and he still doesn't know You yet!

whenever i complain, fret, gripe, groan, grumble, moan, nitpick, whine, God, remind me that i have a covenant relationship with You; that the God of Heaven and Earth loves me unconditionally in an incomprehensible, relentless, and indescribable way.

and remind me that You did not create for me.  You created me for You.  my life has nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to do with me.  this world is too big for me to live narrowly, for me to think narrowly, for me to have such a narrow me-centered perspective.  my life has everything to do with You and is meant to be a complete and utter glorification of who You are.  and may You remind me of that daily, in everything i do. 

It's all about You, Jesus

And all this is for You

For Your glory and Your fame

It's not about me

As if You should do things my way

You alone are God 

and I surrender to Your ways

all right, God, fine. i'll listen.

this morning, i did something that i haven't done in a couple months -- i went running.  not b/c i wanted to, not b/c i've been learning about clogged arteries and heart attacks in class, not b/c my dad's been hounding me about exercise, but because my mind and heart have been conflicted and frazzled with various reflections, and i just needed to listen to God.

when im running, my thoughts are pretty much flayed open for God to see, but most importantly, when i run, b/c i'm pretty much struggling just to breathe and make the next step, all i can do is listen.  i can't interrupt Him (as i've been doing this past month with "but's," "what if's," and complaints), b/c i'm just trying to make it past the sidewalk.  so i'm silenced, and in those 40 minutes, all i can do is listen to what He has to say.

about a month ago, a Christian fellowship started up at my school.  i was ecstatic.  after searching for churches and praying for spiritual community since moving back to chicago in may, i thought that this fellowship was the answer to that prayer.  at long last -- i've found my community!

so at first, i was cruising on cloud 9.  it felt so good to finally study the Word with others, with peers, to talk about Christ with peers, to go to church with peers.  and on top of that, personally, i felt so intimate with Him.  this is a horrible analogy (david, please forgive this ignorant civilian who is simply at a loss for a better illustration), but it's like...you go to war, and someone is there 100% with you during that time.  when you get out of that war, you have this completely unmatched and strong relationship with that person who was there with you during that war.  and that's how i feel about God.  when i had first moved back, b/c i didn't have spiritual community, all i had was God.  and in those times i shared with God, i came to Him with a new kind of honesty, openness, and vulnerability.  and from those times, God gave me the strength, the peace, and the joy that filled my life then and fills my life now.  i feel this unprecedented intimacy with Him...i feel like He is with me and that He is living within me.  i feel like i am living life with Him -- im in class with Him, im studying with Him, im emailing with Him, im eating with Him, etc.

ok whoa.  sidetracked.  anyway...i felt like i was strolling on cloud 9 b/c i was personally intimate with God AND i thought i was seeing the beginnings of the His answers to my prayers for spiritual community through my school's Christian fellowship.  but as the month wore on, i realized that this fellowship wasn't the community that i was waiting for.  oh man, and that was such a heartbreaking realization.  God, i thought this was it!  i thought that the waiting and searching were over, and that this fellowship represented the group of believers of Acts 2.  and the realization that this fellowship was not going to be the place where i was going to be prayed for, the place where i was going to grow my own prayer life, the place that was going to challenge me to grow and love God more, the place where i was going to be cared for and supported was devastating.  God, why?!?!

so my grand master plan was to pretty much go back to a full-out active searching, invest 110% into a new church, and essentially jump ship with this fellowship.  but God definitely has been rebuking me these past couple weeks during each of my devotionals.  Example 1:  

1 Kings 8.29-30, NLT = "May You watch over this Temple night and day, this place where you have said, 'My name will be there.'  May You always hear the prayers I make toward this place.  May You hear the humble and earnest requests from me and Your people Israel when we pray toward this place.  Yes, hear us from heaven where you lie, and when you hear, forgive."

Solomon has built the Temple of God and is praying over it in this passage.  Solomon's intercession for Israel served as a reminder that I should be interceding in the very same way for my school and for the fellowship.  That instead of abandoning ship, I should be striving to make this spiritual desert a Temple for God, praying for it just as Solomon did.

Example 2: I was singing chris tomlin's "Give Us Clean Hands," and the bridge stabbed right through me -- "O God, let us be a generation that seeks, that seeks Your face, O God of Jacob."  lisa!  how can i abandon ship?  i'm at a school of soon-to-be medical professionals in my generation, and i see that God is not their God, and i'm just going to walk away?!?!

and finally, this morning, while running, flanked by a fluttering wave of changing colors in the leaves, God reminded me that it's not about me.  He brought me to my school for a reason beyond myself and my own little life.  it's not just about my education.  it's not just about my vocation.  maybe, just maybe, He brought me to this school so that i could give with what He had built and stored in me while i was in ann arbor.

how can you just walk away, lisa?  you see a desert, and instead of trying to build a temple for Me, you're wanting to run away and find a place where you can find water for yourself?  are you kidding Me?!  you think you're just at this school simply for your own education?!?!  i thought you knew Me!

the final nail: after the run, after hearing His full-out rebuke and His heart for my school, i read 1 Kings 18 for my devotional, which is about Elijah's contest on Mount Carmel with the priests of Baal.  while i was reading, God reminded me that i need to be His prophet.  and that as His prophet, i need to show the other students at my school that the god they worship -- their studies, success, money, prestige -- is not worthy.  that my Lord and my Savior -- He is God.

"At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, 'O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that You are God in Israel and that I am your servant.   Prove that I have done all this at your command.  O Lord, answer me!  Answer me so these people will know that You, O Lord, are God and that You have brought them back to yourself.'  Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench!  And when all the people saw it, they fell face down on the ground and cried out, 'The Lord - He is God!  Yes, the Lord is God!' " (1 Kings 18.36-39, NLT).

praying and thanking

Philippians 4.6-7, NLT = "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.  Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."

dennis, me, mom, dad.  i love my family.  :)

thank You God for my family.  thank You for giving me parents who love, support, encourage, and provide for me.  thank You for saving my parents and allowing them to have relationships with You so that one day we can worship You after this life is over.  thank You for always financially providing for my family, especially during these hard economic times.  thank You for keeping my father's business alive and for providing an employee who can work on sundays so that he can go to church.  thank You for sustaining my parent's marriage and for the companionship that they've found in each other and in You.  thank You for keeping them in good health.  thank You for my brother dennis, who has always been my constant cheerleader, a trusted confidante, and someone who always shows me grace and forgiveness.  thank You for continually providing for Him, for keeping him safe and healthy, and for giving me this year to rebuild our relationship.  and thank You for chasing after Him. 

i pray that You would bring salvation to my brother, that he would one day know You as His personal Lord and Savior and not as some distant entity that his sister worships.  i pray that he would meet You face-to-face and that You would fill him with the joy of His salvation.  i pray that he would experience the death of his old life and the new, glorious life that he has in You.  i pray that You would bring other brothers and sisters in his life who can point him to You.  i pray that You would open his eyes to the truth of the Gospel, and that he would finally experience the peace and joy he has been hungering for.  i pray that You would also provide a spiritual community for my parents where they can feel supported, encouraged, and challenged.  and i pray that our family would be a family that is centered and founded on the love of Christ.  Father, may we be a Christ-like family, spilling with the fruits of the Spirit and the character of Christ.

in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

after God's own heart

"King David was now very old, and no matter how many blankets covered him, he could not keep warm.  So his advisers told him, 'Let us find a young virgin to wait on you and look after you, my lord.  She will lie in your arms and keep you warm.'  So they searched throughout the land of Israel for a beautiful girl, and they found Abishag from Shunem and brought her to the king.  The girl was very beautiful, and she looked after the king and took care of him.  But the king had no sexual relations with her."  
 - 1 Kings 1.1-4, NLT


King David's life finds much of its renown in his youth and prime -- the little boy with the sheep anointed as king; the epic battle against Goliath; his various psalms exuding with vulnerability, passion, and vigor; his countless victories over Israel's enemies; his adulterous sin with Bathsheba and subsequent murder of her husband.  i know King David as the man after God's own heart, and I assume that characteristic stems solely from those earlier chapters of his life.

But several days ago, after reading 1 Kings 1, i think God helped me realize that David was more of a man after His own heart as a frail old man.  It is this late in the game, at this ripe old age, nearing mortal death, that King David fully encompasses what the prophet Samuel had once proclaimed about him in 1 Samuel 13.13-14.

Compare 2 Samuel 11, the scene of, arguably, David's most heinous crime.  He gets up, and standing from a rooftop, from afar, sees a beautiful woman, and from that distance, David's already sinned.  He's already committed adultery in his heart, and 3 verses later, she's pregnant with his kid.

To make matters worse, he arranges Uriah's death.  Plus, after all this craziness, he takes forever and a day to confess his sin before God, and only after the priest guilts him up.

Years later, in 1 Kings 1, David's old and frail.  But I'm sure he could have been just as perverted, just as carnal, just as lustful as he once was Bathsheba with this new gorgeous gal, Abishag.  The Bible calls her beautiful, and if the Word of God is calling someone beautiful, then I'm guessing this Abishag was one sight to see.  So here's this beautiful Abishag, who is pretty much lying naked next to King David just to keep the old guy warm.  "But the king had no sexual relations with her."

What a change!

2 Samuel 11: David sees beautiful Bathsheba from afar, a woman who was minding her own business on another rooftop somewhere.  With temptation at a distance, he sins.

1 Kings 1:  David's lying right next to beautiful Abishag.  Next to her.  He's practically sleeping right next to temptation.  And yet, with temptation right at his door, he does not sin.  He remains pure.

Dang.  That's redemption.  That's full-circle redemption.  When Samuel had announced to Saul that God had chosen "a man after His own heart," i think that 1 Kings 1 illustrates a part of what Samuel had meant.  King David was a man after God's own heart, not just for the reasons played out during his youth and prime, but he was a man after God's own heart b/c of the forgiveness and repentance that he sought and had to daily fight and strive for even in his old age.  it was his acknowledgement of his flesh, the daily confession and repentance of that weakness, and the reliance upon God's grace that comprises one of the many things that makes David a man truly after God's heart. 

"Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.  You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.  For I was born a sinner -- yes, from the moment my mother conceived me..Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow...Don't keep looking at my sins.  Remove the stain of my guilt.  Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Renew a loyal spirit within me.  Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take Your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you."
- Psalm 51.4-12, NLT (written after the Bathsheba debacle)

i've been praying for this trait -- being a woman after God's own heart -- for several years now.  often, while i pray for this characteristic, i have this vague idea of what that means, but nothing concrete.  i once thought it meant being someone who possessed a gung-ho love for the nations and the lost or someone who was radically and revolutionarily in love with God.  and while those are characteristics that i also want for myself, 1 Kings 1 teaches me that being a woman after God's own heart is not something that i conjure up on my own.  it's not about me, it's not a passion that i can express, it's not a life vision that i can display.  being a woman after God's own heart is recognizing who i am, fully experiencing who God really is, discovering that i'm absolutely nothing without Him, realizing that it's only through Him that i can be clean, and daily coming to Christ, kneeling at His presence to be forgiven.  it's the everyday striving to fight my flesh and the simultaneous complete reliance and leaning upon His grace.  my heart craves to be a woman after my Lord's own heart, a woman with a transformation from 2 Samuel 11 to 1 Kings 1.  and fortunately, with great relief, i learn once again that it's simply in His presence and in His salvation that will lead me there.