"I get stuck in bitterness."

I was blessed with the opportunity to go sailing for 11 days in the British Virgin Islands back in January 2009. On that trip, my college group and I learned how to sail. Not motor. Sail.


We learned lots of terminology, how to chart our course, read the wind, to pull and loosen lines and sails, and how cramped life at sea 24/7 on a little boat with 8 people really is. We figured out the best places to sit when the boat was keeled at a steady 45 degrees, that conch shells [though pretty] are full of disgusting bugs, and that dingy boats are fun [and tricky] to drive while intoxicated...not that we were intoxicated...but--uhhhh--one can imagine it would be tricky. Anyway, cool stuff like that. 


One thing I remember very clearly, though, was dropping anchor. Before that trip, I had always thought that once you dropped your anchor, no matter where it landed, you were "good." Set. Safe.


Wrong. 


I learned that the proper way to drop anchor was to drop it down to the sea floor, and then continue to troll around slowly until the anchor [being dragged along the sandy bottom] became lodged firmly underneath a large rock. Or a reef. The bigger, the better. That way, when winds and waves come, your boat isn't swept away. It's good and stuck. Works great as long as you're anchored where you want to be.


Fast forward: *fzzzzzzzzzwhrrrrrrrrrrrip*


...Well, I went as a counselor to a high school camp in the Black Hills this past week. One of the nights, our speaker said something that whacked a funny bone in my heart. *zing*


He said, "When you anchor yourself to a lie, you end up in a bad place."


Last week God showed me that I anchored myself to the freaking Great Barrier Reef of bitterness about 9 months ago. And like that sailboat, I haven't been able to get passed my anchor point.


A year ago I graduated college and God never blessed me with the job I thought I deserved. The position and prestige He owed me for being such a good person. A life partner like all my friends were marrying. A place to live other than my parents' basement. These things made for great crevasses and cracks to lodge my anchor in. I cried. I prayed. I lied and said I was OK with it. I tried to count my blessings. I tried to squirm my way out of the circumstances God had orchestrated for me. And I tried to listen to God and become more in-tune with the plans He had for me. But I hadn't heard anything. Like almost no life direction from Him in 300 days. 


I had anchored myself to a lie, and I was in a bad place. 


See, I was trying to pursue God...but I could only get so far because I still had my anchor dropped on ole' Bitterness Point. But just as I admitted where I had dropped anchor, God graciously swept in and cut my tethered cord and began blowing a new wind in my sails.


He released me from my bitterness. From my resentment for life circumstances. From everything [I didn't have] that I was blaming Him for. From my expectations He had failed to exceed. He loosened my death-grip on the dreams I had for myself and replaced them with some new ones. 


"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." -Psalm 37:4




When I let go of all that bitterness this week, moving beyond Bitterness Point, I started to hear from the Lord. God let me know that He has plans for me in ministry. Youth ministry, for now. I want to pursue seminary. I'm excited and anxious. I can see now that God wasn't ignoring me...I was just too stuck to hear what He was saying.


My bitterness for God's dreams? Wow. God's love is so unfair. Hallelujah!








Do you have bitterness? Acknowledge that...pray to God...and wait for Him to uproot your anchor and take you in a new direction.

"I finish God's sentences. A lot."

Having patience is hard.


It's the little things that creep under my skin. Like when the Internet is super slow and I squirm as I watch the blue loading bar slowly creep its way across the URL. Or when my mom spends 30 extra minutes every Sunday after church saying "goodbye" to all her friends [while I sit baking in the car in the parking lot because I thought we were leaving 30 minutes ago]. Or when I freak out because my dog has to spend 3 entire minutes sniffing every inch of our yard in the morning [5:45! EVERYDAY.] before she can decide on a grass patch worthy of her urine. Or maybe how I eat at least 3 lukewarm meals a week because I would rather choke my way through a cold-centered hamburger than wait for 150 extra seconds to go by on the microwave.


I've even been known to manually pop the toast in the toaster before it's "done."


Maybe you can relate to that. And as funny and harmless as some of those things are, I see that impatience creep into my spiritual walk ALL.THE.TIME. I don't know if I've ever continually prayed for something for longer than a week. Don't get me wrong--if I say I'm praying about it, I am--but really it just boils down to: It's a "yes" if I don't have a sinking feeling in my gut about it by tomorrow night. Maybe 2 nights from now if I'm feeling uber-disciplined. 


What's worse? 


I have a habit of finishing God's sentences. 


I'll start to sense the Lord stirring something new in my life, and I'll immediately begin arranging the circumstances of my life to support what I'm assuming God is going to do next. And then when I assume wrongly, not only have I wasted my time pursuing something God wasn't leading me to in the first place, but I spend at least a week berating myself for having screwed up...again.


So damn over eager.


Cases in point? Oh, where do I begin. I'm only going to list two examples...any more and it would be too convicting.


Roll back to last August when my summer job ended. I had a college degree but no more direction than I felt when I graduated high school. When I felt God calling me unto Himself, I decided being "closer to Him" meant applying to an obscure Bible School in North Carolina. I did the 10 page application, figured out how I would move my stuff over there, had a phone interview, and then couldn't get a loan to save my life.


As life would have it, God was calling me to my parent's basement in Mitchell for awhile. Not North Carolina.


Or how about in January when I was getting ready to return to the US after two months in the Dominican Republic? In my prayer time I was asking God for my next steps. The conversation sounded something like this...:


Me: "God what am I going to do when I get back home?"
God: "Well, next I want you t------"
Me: "To-sell-all-my-stuff-and-ask-people-for-money-so-I-can-fly-back-to-the-Dominican-Republic-and-live-here-the-rest-of-my-life-as-a-missionary! What a great idea. I'm so glad we had this talk."
God: "......"




EHHHHHH, wrong.




Yep. This sentence-finishing-thing seems to be a trend. Guessing and planning and arranging. Starting and stopping. Explaining and deciphering. Anticipating and worrying. For a girl who struggles with the toaster, I find my patience in spiritual matters is tested often. Thing is, it's tiring to fill-in-the-blanks.


The last three weeks I've been feeling the Lord starting something new again in me. And for the first time, I'm sitting back and enjoying the ride. Because [I'm learning] if I walk through today constantly straining to get a glimpse of what's coming over the horizon, I forget that He's holding my hand right now. And if I'd just hang onto that hand through enough "todays", eventually [together] we'll reach a place with a better view. 




^{Proverbs 3: 
"5} Trust in the LORD with all your heart
   and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
   and he will make your paths straight.^"








Are you trying to finish some of God's sentences? How's that working for you?

"I can't explain the Gospel better than this. So I'm not going to try."

A GREAT VIDEO ON THE G.O.S.P.E.L.

"I still get nervous explaining the Gospel."

I like to make my blog posts as interesting as the next girl, but the last few weeks I've really felt convicted to write a very plain, straight forward message. The Gospel. No frills, no funny stories, no deep metaphors [for the most part]. Just the Gospel. Who God is. Who Jesus is. Who we are. And how we fit together.


Because how SAD would it be if someone stumbled upon my blog, read all my posts about God and what I feel He's doing in my life, but never really heard the truth?


Very sad. So here it is:


G : God created us to be with Him.
O : Our sin separates us from God.
S : Sins cannot be removed by good deeds.
P : Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again.
E : Everyone who believes in Him ALONE has eternal life.
L : Life with Him starts now and lasts forever.


That's the saving power of Jesus Christ. 


God is not church. He's not religion classes. He's not rules or summer camp or a self-help book. He's not interested in tallying up your good deeds, church attendance, Hail Mary's, or how much you give up for Lent. He doesn't desire perfection or sacrifice.


God is love.


He is love we can't imagine. Love we don't deserve. Love we can never earn. Love that is too good to be true [and frankly freaks me out, sometimes if I really think about it]. 


His love does not demand that we clean up our lives before we come to Him. I believe God delights in piecing back together the messes we surrender over to His capable hands. He takes the filthy rags we've been wearing and gives us dazzling, white robes instead. He can bring beauty from any tragedy. He extends his mercy, grace, and healing to everyone on this earth.


He desires relationship with us. He desires that we accept the overwhelming gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. When we do that, He grants us his HOLY SPIRIT to live within us. The fullness of God in our frail little bodies. He knows--once we get an authentic taste of His divine love--we will spend the rest of our lives attempting to glorify and draw closer to Him.


A faith motivated by love. 


Not by fear. 


Not by religion. 


Not by striving.


A life of following God is marked by adventure. Exhilarating. With purpose. And He pursues us. He pursues us despite our ignorance...disobedience...or indifference. 


Romans 5:8 "Christ didn't die for people who already loved him. He died for sinners--people whose lives were bound up and directed by sinful desires that went contrary to God's will. It was the sick he came to cure, not the healthy."



Acts 4: ¹² "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”




He made you on purpose. With a purpose. And OH how He loves you.