Are Laura G's Philosphies God's Philosphies???

I was reading my favorite blogger today, Ann Voskamp's A Holy Experience and she and Holly were exchanging words about it means to give enough and I also listened to Alistair Begg's Truth For Life this morning about False Teachers and I began wondering what shapes my philosophies?? So much I am afraid are my personal experiences instead of God's objective truth in the Bible. Circumstances are bad, so God must be punishing me. I have a lot more than the 1/3 world so I should never have much and just give, give, give. I can't love someone the way I want too, so I will never be able to love well. These are the Laura Philosophies that fill my head. Are any of these God's philosophies?? God does punish everyone He accepts as a son, this is Scriptural (Hebrews 12:6). But does he ever say that our trying circumstances = his punishment? I haven't found a place that He says that in His Word. In fact, his punishment of us is always for our own good, to make us more into His image. In terms of giving, God does love a cheerful giver. But He also says He is the giver of all good gifts (James 1:17). And we are blessed to be a blessing (Genesis 3:12). But this makes it clear, we are blessed. He does give us gifts. And He loves it when we give, cheerfully. These are just few examples of how every philosophy must be held up the light of Scripture. There is always a tension in how to live, there is never a formula. There is never a time where we just plug our life into a formula and it gives us results. It is always a continuous seeking of God, communicating with God, and navigating this life with Him. Isn't that better than a formula? I mean, the people we love in this life, don't we want them on the journey with us? Why wouldn't we want the same with our Creator?

Home For The Holidays

Life is slower and more peaceful in Wooster and sometimes when I am here I wonder why I ever moved away. But I know why, I have been discovering who I am and trying to be who God wants me to be and that has taken me on journeys to Wheaton, Washington D.C. and Raleigh. And each of these places has shaped and molded me in ways I am usually not aware of until I look back on them.
But when I go home, I realize how much Wooster and my upbringing there has shaped me as much or more than all the other places I have lived. I love having all my family under my parent's roof, grandchildren and all. Somehow it just feels right. Like this is how God intended it or something. But it isn't a daily reality for my family and I struggle with that. I wish it was. I wish that me and my siblings sitting in a booth at Muddy Water's and my dad walking in from his downtown office during a break and seeing us was common.
I like home. I like the way it feels. I like being part of a family again. Living on my own has shown me just how much I prefer the company and community of others. I don't know if my family will all live close together again one day. But I do know that coming to my parent's house in Wooster still feels like coming home. I hope that never changes.

It's Time To Try Again....

So I haven't written a blog entry in a REALLY long time....like say maybe two years?? I might be a little rusty so please be patient with me...I don't even really know where I am going with this blog or what I want to say....I just know it is time to try again. And that is kind of a metaphor for all of my life. It's time to trust again, it's time to love again, it's time to live again. If you know me well enough to be reading this blog, then you know the last 2 years of my life have been painful in more ways than I would like to recount.
So let me recount what I know with certainty....I know God loves me because He says He does not because I always feel it. I know that their is a handful of people in my life who have seen me through this mess every step of the way. I know that time really is the only thing that helps sometimes. I know that being 28 and single doesn't mean my life is over...it just means it is different than I ever expected, and maybe it will be better than my dreams, but it isn't yet...but I will wait in faith.
So what does 2011 hold that offers hope? A possible trip to Rwanda in the summer...my church, Church of the Apostles, in Raleigh has a partnership with our sister church in Rwanda and we want to build that partnership and grow together and that is so much of what I feel called to be a part of. I have felt called to go to Rwanda and be involved with Rwanda in some capacity for so long. Would you pray with me about this as I try discern if it is God's plan for me and if it is financially possible? 2011 also holds my graduation from Nursing School!!! I am looking to work in either a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Special Care Nursery, Post-Partum Floor, or Labor and Delivery Unit. I am trying to discern whether God wants me to stay here in Raleigh or move somewhere else. In so many ways, Raleigh is the first place that has felt like home since Wooster, Ohio but there are also hard things about being here. So I really am needing God to help me know what is the best choice for me here.
More words later...this is just the start of me trying again....thank you for all of you who have prayed for this day for me...it's here.
Much love,
Laura

A Heart that Listened...

I have been leading a small group of high school girls at my church this past year. We started out doing a study on dating and have since moved into going over passages of Scripture more. Sometimes I don't think I connect very well with the girls and what I am trying to teach them. I can get into kind of sermony mode cuz I just want them to get it so bad!!
I have to admit, last night, I didn't want to have Bible study. I was tired. I wanted to workout and go home. I was struggling with some of my own personal issues that made me not want to be around people. But I went because I knew how much they wanted to see each other and it had been about a month since we had been together. So I picked them all up and we had our usual Bible study at Starbucks.
There are several different personalities in this small group, all of which I love dearly. We have the "I really don't care if people think I'm odd and I say whatever comes to my mind and I struggle cuz I really like what the world offers", we have the "I'm smart and silly and trying to live the way God wants me too, but why isn't he giving me what I want", and we have the "I'm quiet and life has been hard and I just want to be a normal teenager girl, but life won't let me". So these personalities all come together one night a week and I try to share Christ with them.
Tonight we talked about taming the tongue and James 3. A convicting passage for all of us. It went well, but I think the main lesson of the night came on the ride home.
I drive all the girls home and this night was a particularly rainy night and a little bit cold. We always pass this McDonalds on the way to one of the girl's houses. It was 9:30pm and I was hungry, so I said to E., "Do you mind if we stop at McDonald's before I drop you off?" I wasn't really taking too much notice of the homeless man outside of McDonald's until E. said, "That's so sad." Now conversations about homeless people is something that has come up several times with these girls. Sometimes I have sensed a lack of understanding about the homeless and therefore a lack of compassion for them. I have tried to explain that we don't know the story of how the homeless person got there, is it so wrong to ask for food if you are hungry, etc. But tonite it was E. who taught me about homeless people.
E. is a highschool girl who had $2 on her. I was an adult with a paying job and a credit card who could have gotten food in 1/2 hour when I got home. But it was E. who said, "Can I buy him something and give it to him on our way back?" And my response was "Of course!" So she spent her $2 on two sandwiches. We walked over to him, her somewhat hesitantly, and she said, "here sir,I got you some sandwiches." And he looked at her in unbelief. He looked as if he might almost cry. He said, to her, "Thank you. Oh, God bless you. Can I give you a hug?" She looked at me, I nodded, and they had a short embrace before we left. When we got in the car, E. was elated and filled with joy at what had just taken place. I was so happy to see her so obedient to the Lord and so satisfied with the encounter He had given her.
It got me thinking though, who was more satisfied, me with my $3 value meal or E. with her widow's mite gift that had her shreaking with joy in my car? I think the answer is obvious. I hope the next time I have to choose between the satisfacation of McDonalds or the satisfaction of joy from serving Christ among us, I choose to have a heart that listens like E. did.

What I Shared At My Church About AIDS (Wooster, 2008)

My senior of college, I did a program called hunger, HNGR, which stands for Human Needs and Global Resources. It was a 6 month program that I did in Cambodia and I worked with an organization that had a program for AIDS orphans. I spent time visiting with and teaching AIDS orphans English. But I would say my most direct contact with AIDS patients came through going on AIDS homecare visits to see AIDS patients with my Cambodian friend Sarim who was a nurse at the same organization. It was with her that I really saw and experienced what AIDS does to people physically and emotionally.

I went weekly with my friend Sarim on home visits and the longer I went with her, the more she explained to me what the life of someone with AIDS is like in Cambodia. While we were visiting one woman, Sarim told me that the woman who was taking care of her was not family. Her family was ashamed of her and disowned her. Her husband, who most likely gave her AIDS, divorced her and she never got to see her own son. Now this woman who was paid to take care of her was smoking in the corner of the yard while this woman dying of AIDS was lying in a hammock. Its hard to put into words what AIDS had done to her body. But her ribs were poking out of her chest, her eyes were almost swollen shut with puss, her legs and chest had open sores all over them and she could hardly utter a word. I would smile at her because that’s all I knew how to do. I was too afraid to touch her even though you can’t get AIDS just from touching a person. And the next time I saw her, the same line kept running through my head over and over “No one ever touches her. No one ever touches her unless they are paid to.” And so I let go of my fear and I began rubbing her arm and shoulders and she looked at me with an expression, I will never forget. It was gratitude, awe, and relief all in one look. It was in that moment that I realized that I as a follower of Jesus Christ I am not afforded the right to be immobilized by fear. I had to let the Holy Spirit use my hands and my feet to be Jesus to this woman or no one else would.

I became involved in this kind of work because God has place a desire in my heart to help these people and because I didn’t see how I could be a true follower of Jesus and not become involved in the lives of the poor and the needy. People with AIDS definitely are among the neediest. In Cambodia and since then, over and over again I kept reading verses in my Bible about how God cared for the sick and the poor and the lepers, and He did that for peoples physical needs just as much as he did for their emotional and spiritual needs. Galatians 5:6 says, “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”. I wanted my life to count and I knew no better way of my faith expressing itself through love than by touching these people and being with them.

This experience has had a huge impact on my life. Working with AIDS patients and seeing how Jesus loves them has become the way I try to see all of those that society and individuals reject. It’s made me know that wherever I am and and whatever I do, I want to express that love to those it is easy to go through life and never acknowledge. That’s why I am involved with Sowing hope, Internationals and that’s why I am going to Africa with our church in a couple of weeks. It’s a big part of why I am planning to go to nursing school. I think that sometimes God allows things to happen in the world to see how His body will respond. I think He is watching and waiting to see His church rise up and be Christ to the world’s rejected and despised.

Some Good Quotes On Mission....

Jean-Paul Heldt:

"There is no longer a need to qualify mission as 'holistic', nor to distinguish between 'mission' and 'holistic mission'. Mission is by definition 'holistic' and therefore 'holistic mission' is, de facto, mission. Proclamation alone, apart from any social concern, may be perceived as distortion, a truncated version of the true gospel, a parody and travesty of good news, lacking relevance for the real problems of people living in the real world. On the other end of the spectrum, exclusive focus on transformation and advocacy may just result in social and humanitarian activism, void of any spiritual dimension. Both approaches are unbiblical;they deny the wholeness of human nature of human beings created in the image of God. Since we are created "whole", and since the Fall affects our total humanity in all its dimensions, then redemption, restoration, and mission can, by definition, only be 'holistic'."

Steve Saint:
"Social services without the Gospel are like pain killers for cancer. But the gospel without the offer of loving compassion will frequently meet only a rejection of God's love which they have not seen, and consequently locked doors."

The Problem Is Me...

1 John 3:4-10:

"Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

7Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother."



When I started this blog I wrote two blogs mildly berating the extreme liberals and conservatives in the church, politically and theologically speaking. But I promised I would write a blog that confronts the biggest problem in the church today: ME. Ok, I am not trying to look for self-pity or reassurance that I am a good Christian. And I don't mean me alone. I mean all of the "ME's" in the church. But I know this me, Laura G., the best so it is fitting that I use myself as the subject.

I sin every single day. I see a homeless person on the side of the road and don't even contemplate if that is a need Christ wants me to meet. I get angry and swear under my breath at drivers who drive poorly. I waste hours of my day each day doing thing that certainly are not helping bring about anything of eternal value. I do not seek out the poor and engage them with food, drink or shelter the way Jesus does. I do not boldly proclaim tne gospel, in fact sometimes I am embarassed or dare I say ashamed of it. I too often set my bar of what to do against others in the church. I don't live radically because I see few others doing so and justify my inaction by their inaction. I think impure thoughts, I judge people on their outward appearance with very little look at their hearts, I say things about friends I shouldn't say. I wallow in my own problems and desires instead of looking at the blessing in my life. I commit SINS of comission and omission EVERY SINGLE DAY.
If we look at the verses I quoted above, it makes me question how well I know Jesus or if I've seen Him if I continue to sin as I do. How many of us really think of dying to our self daily? I don't. How often do I realize and admit that when I sin, I am ACTUALLY DOING THE WORK OF THE DEVIL? Not often enough.

Why don't I let myself be more transformed by Christ so that I can perform more righteous actions for Him as a testimony to who He is? A few things come to mind, I don't want to look TOO different from the CHURCH. I already know that I look crazy to the world because of my faith, but I don't want to look crazy to the church too! Where would I fit in? But haven't I missed the point? The world is not my home. Very rarely do routine mundane lives make an impact on this world for Christ. I also want to stay close to my family, geographically and thought wise. I don't want hundreds of miles to seperate us if that's what God wants me to do. I don't want the people I love the most not to get parts of me. And finally, it's hard! It takes a lot of tenacity and perseverance to live the life Christ calls us too and those aren't necessarliy fun things.

So, I think the ultimate problem with the world is obviously sin, but of greater concern to me personally are all the "Me's" in the church who settle for mud pie making Christianity when Christ offers us a holiday at the sea Christianity, to steal a concept from C.S. Lewis. This world will not be radically changed without all the little me's in the church being the radical change agent Christ calls us to be.


Ok, I wrote everything above this morning, Wednesday, March 12th. And then I was reading "Desiring God" this afternoon by John Piper. It's so cool to me when God links what we are thinking and learning so directly. So here are a few excerpts from Desiring God that pertain to my thoughts:

"An Almost Unbelievable Indictment of Western Christianity"
"....In Paul's radically different viewpoint I saw an almost unbelievable indictment of Western Christianity. Am I overstating this? Judge for yourself. How many Christians do you know who could say, "The lifestyle I have chosen as a Christian would be utterly foolish and pitiable if there is no resurrection."? How many Christians are there who could say, "The suffering I have freely chosen to embrace for the cause of Christ would be a pitiable life if there is no resurrection"? As I see it, these are shocking questions.....

"I say it again: the call of Christ is a call to live a life of sacrifice and loss and suffering that would be foolish to live, if there was no resurrection from the dead. This is a conscious choice for Paul. Listen to his protest, "If the dead are not raised, why am I in peril every hour? I protest, brothers, by my exultation in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day!"(1 Cor. 15:29-31) This is what Paul has chosen. He "protests" because he does not have to live this way. He chooses it: "In peril every hour!" "Dying everyday!" This is why he says he should be pitied if there is no resurrection from the dead. He chooses a path that leads to trouble and pain virtually every day of his life. "I die every day."


OH THAT I WOULD DIE EVERY DAY.