The Renewing of Your Mind

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

As with all mission trips I have been on, the time following the return is usually spent reflecting on what God has done as well as what He may also be trying to teach me or prepare me for, and this time was no different. It is hard to put into words every detail that lead up to my deciding to quit my job and move to Romania for a couple months, but what I do know is that I definitely felt that was where God wanted me to be. Even all the little details that got worked out were more than “coincidences” to me, but God showing me His hand in all of this. As I get the opportunity to share with each of you who have been praying for me and supporting me through this journey, I am sure that I will go into much more detail on the day-to-day or personal stories of opportunities that God allowed me to be a part of, but here, I just wanted to give you a “big picture” take-away for me from my recent time in Romania.

As I was thinking about what God is continuing to reveal to me, Romans 12 came to mind, so I decided to stop and read through it. The first couple of verses have been part of my memory since Bible Quiz back in high school, but I felt like I needed to read this all again with a little more focus than I had given it before. The first verse refers to our bodies being offered as “living sacrifices”, which reminded me of a quote I have on Facebook and have used in one of my blogs before: “. . . we’ve already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned?” Ed McCully. Sometimes, it is easy for us to “serve” – we find comfort zones within our strengths and gifts and slide right into something where we can serve (and I am not saying that this is wrong), but is it really a “sacrifice”? My prayer as I look for more opportunities to get involved here in Atlanta is not that I will gravitate towards what is easy, but that I will try and find where there is a need – even if that pulls me further outside of my comfort zone.

The next verse I quoted to start this blog off and it has definitely been weighing on my heart over the past several weeks and months. Looking back at this time last year, I can see how my thinking has changed and I sometimes get some weird looks when I tell people I’ve quit my job (especially during this current crisis) and “traded down” on my car, but to me, it makes perfect sense as these things no longer matter. What is a job except a means of income and an opportunity to show God’s love to those around you, and what is a car, but a means of transportation? Whatever we are about, it should be to glorify God and not in a desire for material possessions or recognition as so many of our peers are looking to do. When all is said and done, it doesn’t matter what car you drive, what house you live in, or how much money you have in the bank, but rather what kind of fruit did you bear and how did you glorify God?

The next several verses talk about gifts and unity in the body of Christ. We cannot all have the same tasks to do, but we can take what God has given us to do and do it to the best of our ability and with a heart that is pleasing to God. Paul then wraps up the chapter talking about love, and over the last couple of weeks in Romania, that was also the topic of conversation during the sermon and at house church as we reviewed the Sermon on the Mount. And, instead of chiming in my two cents worth here, I am just going to post a couple of the quotes Paul used to close out this chapter of Romans: “Love must be sincere.” “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Just an Update

Well, I wasn’t planning on updating this blog while I am in Romania, but I figured I would just give you a quick update at about the half-way point.

Things started off a little slow, but that was actually a welcome beginning & allowed me to spend more time with some of the students still in town and to get to know Relu, the new leader of OSCET, a little better before the business of planning for the upcoming school year got into full swing. I have also been able to help out some with OSCET’s discipleship team in planning for the start of the school year, and had the opportunity to spend a week in Bulgaria with OSCER’s leaders from the different college cities in Romania. They were also spending time getting ready for the new school year, but were also taking a look at their past strategies to see how things may have changed since implemented soon after the fall of communism. It was definitely a great opportunity for me to get to know, not just the ministry “objectives/goals”, but to also get to know the people behind the cities represented.

Well, I will be coming home soon & will have much more to share when I do, but for now, please keep praying that God would be preparing the leaders of the college ministry over here for what He has in store for the upcoming school year!

Two Weeks To Go

Well, after several months of preparation and prayer, I am about to set off for a three month trip to Romania. Believe it or not, but my bags are already packed! For those who know me and my travel habits, I generally wait until the last minute (the night before I fly out) to actually get packed, but I am kind of excited for what is ahead of me, and I am ready to go! I am sure that wanting to make sure I have everything I need is also a factor, but either way, I cannot wait to hop on the plane in a couple weeks.

I do, however, have a couple odds and ends to finish up around here before I leave, and the biggest of them is getting rid of my car (which I hope will take place sometime this week). Please be praying that I will be able to get what the car is worth and will not have any difficulty in the final sale of the car.

Other than that, please be praying for the Adventure Camp that will be going on next week (7/26 to 8/2). I will not be at that camp, but a lot of the students I know will be there, and the team from here in Atlanta has planned a great camp. I know God has amazing things in store for that camp, and I cannot wait to hear from them about all that He did while they were there.

Intimacy with God

What does that mean to you, and how would you explain this to someone else?

Well, that is what we have been focusing on as we prepare for the weekend retreat coming up in Romania, and we have been trying to put our thoughts and feelings into words that we can express to the students who attend.  It’s not as easy as it sounds, because everyone has their own way of connecting with God, and even 2 people with very similar “styles” of worship and drawing closer to God can be completely different when it comes down to their own intimacy with God.  A couple years back, Andy Stanley did a series at church called “You’ve Got Style” addressing the different ways people draw closer to God, and as we think more on this subject and how to prepare for our upcoming time in Romania, we have decided to look back into this a little and see some of the areas Andy focused on. 

Back when the series was done, they had an on-line survey everyone could take to see what their style was, and fortunately, this is still on-line, so we have decided to re-take this survey so that we can see what our “style” is, and also see how we can best explain this to our friends in another culture.  If you’re interested in checking this out for yourself, here is the link to the survey: http://common.northpoint.org/sacredpathway.html.  Just so you know, my styles are: 1. Caregiver – draws near to God through caring for and serving others, and 2. Naturalist – draws near to God through nature.

As I said before, intimacy with God is a very personal thing for each of us, and how we relate to God involves a lot of personal factors that could either hinder or help us as we draw closer to Him.  However, some of the areas we have started to focus on as we try and hone in on what we want to discuss are:

·         The dictionary describes intimacy as: “a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group.”

·         God initiated the intimacy with us throughout creation and by sending His son Jesus to die for our sins showing His love for us.

·         Drawing closer to God should be similar to drawing closer to others.  If there is someone you want to get to know better, you do things to get to know them better – you talk to them and you spend time with them, and the more you do, the more intimate your relationship becomes.

We know that just as there are things in each of our lives that affect our thoughts on the subject of “Intimacy with God”, there are also probably culturally some things that may be different with our friends in Romania, so I ask that you all be praying that God will direct our hearts as we prepare for our time of sharing at the retreat.  Also, please pray that Shae & Brad will be able to articulate their thoughts and feelings well with the students at the retreat as they set forth the topic for discussion as well as the rest of the team members as we prepare our hearts for the small group breakouts on this topic as we try and share what God has laid on our hearts.

In closing, I just wanted to share with you a little excerpt from a recent post on Facebook by one of my cousins who was sharing about his prayer time.

“When I got to the point where my mind began to wander, I made a concentrated effort to focus on what God was placing on my heart. When I did, I began to feel that ‘heart connection’ with God.  God was reminding me that He doesn’t speak English.  He is not moved by the depth and eloquence of our words.  God hears the language of our hearts.  It is the Holy Spirit who allows us to feel what the Father feels, and see what the Father sees.”

“When we allow Him (the Holy Spirit) to be our means of communication, our heart is fully expressed.  It’s not a matter of mindlessly letting our vocal chords vibrate, while we put our minds on cruise control (which I am too often guilty of).  It is a matter of letting His thoughts become our thoughts, and allowing the Holy Spirit to communicate our heart to His, and His to ours.”

I pray that this week, you would think about where you are with your own intimacy with God, and how you can continue to draw closer to Him.

Baby Steps & a Dead Horse

Well, at this point of the night/early morning, I should probably be going to sleep so I will be awake for work tomorrow, but that’s what caffeine is for.  I’m sure you’re wondering about the title of this blog, and it does seem a bit weird, but they were the 2 thoughts on my mind after the past couple months and after some of the conversations I had with people today.  You may still wonder “WHAT?” and “WHY?”, so I guess I will share a little with you before I do head up stairs for the night.  If you haven’t read my first blog entry, then I suggest you go back and read it now, because I won’t be restating anything I said at that time.

After a little over a year and a half of praying about how to continue to be a part of what God is doing in Romania and looking at different options, I have decided to begin taking baby steps (like Bill Murry in “What About Bob?”).  I am not 100% sure where these steps may lead, but they are definitely going to be taking me outside of my comfort zone and causing me to put my faith in God more so than I feel that I have ever done and to trust that He will guide my steps and provide opportunities as I follow where I believe He is leading.  Usually, the first steps are the hardest, because they are the ones that get you away from where you are the most comfortable (just like a baby who would prefer to crawl and stay near the floor to avoid falling), but once you take that first step, the second is a little easier, and the third gets even easier, and so on.  Of course, though I feel like this is the first step in this process, I can look back to a couple other big steps in my life – leaving UVA for SEC (or SU as it’s now called), and moving to Atlanta.  Either way, both of those instances had some certainty and a lot less complexity involved and the chance of failure, though always there, was somewhat hidden by the fact that I always had something to fall back on if things didn’t work out.

This time, however, the step is a much bigger one for me, and there isn’t exactly the same feeling of the “safety net” that has been there in the past.  For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about at this point, the step is for me to quit my well-paying job and pursue moving to Romania on a longer term than the 1 week trips I have done in the past.  Even so, the first opportunity I will be looking at will still be a short time – just a couple months – but during this time, there will be no income to take care of the mortgage payment or other expenses.  Instead, I will be looking to either sell my house, rent it out to someone else in my absence, or something else I have not yet thought of.  And, in case you are wondering, no, I don’t have everything figured out – I just know that I need to move forward, and as long as I keep saying “I’ll get to it”, I will never “get to it”.  A speaker at one of the single’s retreats I went to in the past used this statement: “it’s easier to get a stubborn mule to move in the right direction than it is a dead horse.”  I know it’s an odd statement, but it did cause me to think about what he meant, and as I was sitting here this evening, it popped back into my head and I thought I would share.

I know I may take wrong steps in the process, but I ask that you please pray for God’s guidance for me and that He would lead me where He wants me to go and that I will not try and rush things for my timing, but that I will follow the heart of God and move as He directs me.  Also, please pray that, if it is God’s will, that my house would somehow sell amazingly fast, or that an extremely amazing roommate would come into the picture to help alleviate some of the concerns I currently have with such a big responsibility sitting back here in Atlanta.

Well, I know I should really try and get a little rest tonight, so I’ll bring this to a close, but hopefully, I will be sharing more with you all soon.

“. . . the worries of this life . . .”

For those of you on twitter, this is similar to a “retweet”.  This is a blog entry from back in March that I posted to another blog, but since this is my main blog site, I wanted to re-enter it on this blog in case some of you haven’t been to the other blog.  So, what follows is a short excerpt from that blog:

“Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.” Mark 4:18-19

I’m reading through the Gospels this week, and the parable of the sower has popped up a couple times, and I guess I have never really sat down to think about all the different areas where the seed landed. I mean, I’ve read this and know what the parable is about, but I don’t think I’ve ever ‘really’ read these verses and stopped to think about them.

It’s so easy to let the worries of life overwhelm us, so my prayer over these next couple of weeks is for wisdom to see these “worries” for what they are and that God will help me pull out those things in my life that have been causing me to not produce the fruits that I should.

Why don’t we see miracles today?

I guess there are really several ways people answer this question. A couple real quick ones are that some people might say that the miracles in the Bible were during a different time and used to show God’s supremacy (OT) and to show that Jesus is God (NT), and this was used to help spread the Gospel. Others might say that we do have miracles today, but they come in the form of doctors with the knowledge to treat previously incurable diseases. Still others might indicate that miracles are performed today, but only in areas of poverty or real need. I’m sure there are other opinions out there too, but I’m not out to list all these and to dispute anyone’s opinion – instead, I’m simply posing a question for thought and offering an opinion myself that I started thinking about this evening on my way home from a little bike ride.

This past week, I have been reading through the Gospels, and one thing kept popping up, and I wanted to share a verse from Matthew. “And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” Matthew 13:58. There were needs to be met and people Jesus could have healed, but He chose not to because their lack of faith. I know that God doesn’t change, and I believe that the same miracles done in the Old & New Testaments can still happen today, but maybe the reason they don’t is because we don’t have the faith necessary to see them happen. Maybe that’s why there are miracles still among those in poverty – they have no possessions or money to put their trust in, but have they do have the faith necessary to see God move in miraculous ways.

Why the Daniel Fast for me?

OK, I’m not going to go into a lot of past history at this point, but I did want to kind of give you a little background.  I was raised in a Christian home and had gone to church from as far back as I can remember.  I accepted Christ as my saviour at a young age, but my relationship with Him early on was that of obeying a set of rules (do this/don’t do that).  Then, during my senior year in high school, our youth pastor challenged all of us to read our Bibles more to get to know God instead of “because we had to”.  He also challenged us as we prepared for our missions trip that summer to take time to pray and fast to truly get ourselves ready to be used by God.  Throughout that year, I definitely felt God doing a work in my life, so much so that I ended up transferring out of the college I had been wanting to go since before I even got into high school to a smaller Christian college in FL.

Knowing what a great impact fasting had on my life (and that trip in particular), I have always tried to include it in my preparations leading up to any missions trip I will be a part of , and I know that has helped me continue to stay close to God and to be more flexible during these trips and more open to His leading.  However, after preparing for several trips over the past couple of years, I was beginning to feel like I had gotten used to the “same old thing” and feared taking my preparation for granted.  Then, I heard about the Daniel Fast, and though it only restricts the types of foods you can eat, it is for a longer period of time, and sparked my interest.

Leading up to Easter, myself and a couple friends, have committed to doing the Daniel Fast together (for accountability reasons), and along with the strict diet, will be also giving up other things that have become obstacles in our relationship with Christ (for me, this will include TV, Movies, Facebook, etc.).  I know this will be difficult to do, especially when so many others are eating things we can’t and doing things we have agreed to give up, but I see this as another way to put my trust in God and to rely on Him more and more for guidance and His will for my life.

“. . . we’ve already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned?” Ed McCully

I know, it’s a long title for the first blog, but it’s a quote that has begun to mean more and more to me over the past year as I try and evaluate where I am and where I am going, so I’ve used it for my blog title and this first post.  Back in college, I heard about Jim & Elisabeth Elliot and how Jim had eventually given his life to share the Gospel to a tribe deep in the jungles of Ecuador, and how Elisabeth continued to minister to the same tribe who killed her husband and other men as they tried to share Christ with them. In 1998, I bought and read their story in “Through Gates of Splendor” – written by Elisabeth Elliot, and it was definitely a very touching story and one that humbled me in my comfortable apartment thousands of miles away from anything like this.  It began to cause me to think further outside of my immediate reaches and those I currently had direct contact with and to begin to pray about being used in this world however God saw fit to use me.

No, I didn’t run right out and sign up for a missions trip, and nothing changed in my life immediately, but I began to pray about how God could use me, and as opportunities arose to pray for those going on trips or financially support others going, I did what I could.  Then, in 2001, I heard about a group from our church who were going to Romania on a missions trip, so I decided to specifically pray for that team and Romania.  The next year, I considered going, but had not really looked into it and found out about the trip after the team was set and they were ready to leave, so I once again prayed for them and Romania.  Finally, the next year, I had an opportunity to go, but it wasn’t to Romania, it was to Macedonia where they had a need, and I was able to be a part of what God was doing in that country.  However, I had friends this time going on the trip to Romania, and I continued to pray for them and Romania, and the same thing happened in 2005 – I wasn’t able to go to Romania, but through continued prayer for that country and the work that was continuing to go on there, God had planted a burden for that country even while I was currently serving in Macedonia.

Finally, in 2006, I had an opportunity to go on a trip to Romania to help their college ministry with an Adventure Camp, and happily jumped at it!  I can’t tell you how excited I was for what lay in front of me.  I had known God had placed a burden in my heart for this country and these students, but it really didn’t become aware to me how much until the last night of the camp when we all had the opportunity to share our thoughts about the camp.  I had gotten up to share about how grateful I was to finally be in Romania, but all I could really get out were some words broken up by a lot of sobbing as my heart just broke for the students who sat before me.  I don’t usually get too emotional about anything, but anytime I think about these students in Romania, I just break down (even getting a little teary right now as I type). Since that first trip in 2006, I have had the opportunity to be a part of 4 other teams going back to Romania (and will be heading back again this June), and I say this not to brag nor to make a big deal out of anything, but just to let you know that my friends in Romania definitely weigh heavily on my heart and I long to be with them more and more each year and to continue to be a part of what God is doing among them.

Because of this, I thought I would start my blog with my heart for this country, its people, and specifically my friends living there. I am sure that I will jump all over the place as I continue to blog, but I hope that through everything, you can see God’s dealings with my life and my desire to continue to be a part of what He is doing in this world – no matter what that means.

A couple months ago, I once again pulled out the book, “Through Gates of Splendor”, not to read in its entirety, but to glance through some of my notes, etc., and I ran across a quote from Ed McCully: “. . . we’ve already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned?”, and began to wonder what my life would look like if I did live it in a way where I trusted God for everything, and that is my prayer as I draw closer to my 35^th birthday this month, that I would lean on Him for everything and not trust in my own abilities or knowledge, but follow Him wherever He may lead.