Bringing it back to Jesus-

What a blessing it has been to spend the past nine months in the word of God. We are on our 66th book of the Bible, Matthew's gospel. After beginning in the New Testament and working our way all the way through the Pentateuch, History literature, Wisdom literature, and Prophets it is good to be reminded that it is all about Jesus. As our time wraps up in Taiwan we continue to build relationships with both the people in our school and the amazing Taiwanese friends we have met. It is going to be bitter sweet returning to America as so much of our heart is here in Taiwan.
Before we do return, we are traveling to a few countries in the Middle East to teach church leaders and pastors the inductive method, Bible overview and some books of the Bible. Eric and I are on a team of two other people, one student and one staff. We are really looking forward to giving out all that we've been given and see God do some amazing things in the countries we travel to.

SBS Fun Day

So typically our Saturdays consist of 10 hours of work, which is fun, believe you me. This Saturday, however, was even more fun! We had SBS fun day, mandatory fun, which is always nice to have time that you literally have to take away from working. We went up to some mountain and got to play all morning and early afternoon- we played dodge ball, football (McCall and I did anyway!), and ultimate frisbee. It was such a nice time to be out in God's beautiful creation and spend time with our classmates outside of the silent classroom where all you can hear is the clicking of laptop keys. The more time I spend with the people in our class the more I am blessed by each person. Seriously, God could not have put together a more amazing group of people- both students and staff. There is such a balance of fun and seriousness its unbelievable! Each person truly has a desire to know God more and change the world through what they learn about him. Hear that? Change the world. I go to school with a group of world changers and I am SO excited to see where God leads each and every one of them. Its amazing how each person can act so silly and goofy one minute and then get some amazing revelation from God and start preaching up a storm. It is so cool to see how God uses so many different types of people and personalities from all over the world to bless me! Ha ha, I know that's obviously not each person's purpose there, but sometimes it feels like it. I wish you all could meet them. I'll have to do a short bio on each person, so you can just get a glimpse of each person… they're amazing! (did I already say that?!)

After our SBS fun day a group of us went to the beach for the afternoon, about 15 minutes away and RELAXED! God gave me and my beautiful friend Hannah a pretty sweet revelation of how big he is and how big his love is for us through the horizon and the sky. MAN! After that we came back to our house and made a massive Mexican meal for 11 people, and sat out on our roof listening to Spanish Salsa music… only in Taiwan! Then we went over the guys staff house and played games, you know spoons, well here in Taiwan we play "chopsticks", you work with what you've got, right? =) What an amazing time of fellowship with wonderful friends. It really made me with all our friends, all of you were here with us to share this wonderful adventure God has taken us on.

There's still a chance! While we're half way done with school this week (so crazy!) we still have half to go, if anyone is in the mood to come to Taiwan, let us know, we'd LOVE to have you! =)

Holiness

Thinking about holiness and where it derived from- I've come to the conclusion that it was before the beginning as we know it. Genesis 1.1, in the beginning God- he always was. It is in his being that we see the very meaning of holiness. Perfect unity, perfect relationship with the trinity- God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This triune God is unfathomable to me. And yet, he has ushered me into a relationship that enables me to personally and intimately know them, and him- for they are one.

If holiness is this picture of complete intimacy between the trinity, even before the beginning, how am I to reach holiness? The Israelites are told to "be holy, for I am holy", and the same message is given to me today. How can I reach holiness? It is reading my Bible more? Is it praying more? Is it feeding the hungry more? Is it clothing the naked more? Is it being friends with the one person who doesn't seem to have any? YES! Each time I surrender my life, my day, my hour, my minute to the Lord I get a greater glimpse of his heart, his holiness and am supernaturally being changed from one measure of holiness to another.

While I may not be able to understand completely God's holiness, I have accepted that as a good thing. I don't want to be able to make God's holiness fit in my own limited vocabulary. All the words in all the languages combined could not begin to express the depth of God's holiness. This is the way it is suppose to be. If I could describe to you God's holiness in its fullness, then I would be God. But I am not, and for that I am very grateful, you should be too!

My desire is to understand holiness and how I can become holy as God is holy. I believe this is in a deep pursuit of intimacy with God. Knowing him more, knowing myself more and knowing his ultimate plan for me, so that I can truly be his hands, his feet, his mouth and his heartbeat to the nations.

Blessing out of no where!

Sucky turned blessing... my I-pod died last night as I was running. After just half a mile of running none of my buttons worked anymore. Once the song ended I was unable to go on to the next. I was going to stop, because really, whats the point of running without music. =) I felt God telling me to run with him. I looked up, and for one of the first times saw some BEAUTIFUL stars! I love the stars! Then Beth, one of my classmates came up to the track and we were running and talking about how much God was teaching us about his holiness through Leviticus. Praise God my I-pod broke! I was so encouraged by our talk! Sometimes God's blessings come through sucky situations, you know? I'm so thankful God sees the bigger picture!

God is faithfull!

We're studying Genesis now and its amazing to see God's faithfulness to people despite their unbelief. I've had a pretty sweet opportunity to see God's faithfulness this week with the Awaken tickets we need for the Gathering in September. We have prayed about it and felt God said we're suppose to go and really get involved which is exciting! As a group we've also prayed and felt God say that money shouldn't be an issue, if he says you're going then he'll make a way. It's really easy to say you trust in God's faithfulness when things are easy, but when you look online and tickets are up past 1,800USD, money becomes an issue. I was really struggling with the idea of spending so much money when we're living off of support right now. The Awaken group meets two times a week to pray and people kept getting reminded what God said about not letting money be an issue. Well we've talked to one of our translators to look up prices on some Chinese websites and she found some for under 900USD! PRAISE THE LORD! Seriously, half the price, God is so good. He really challenged me in my lack of faith and was asking me how can I trust him with my whole future if I can't trust him for a few thousand dollars and one event? What a good question!
God, forgive me for my unbelief. You are so big! In the midst of writing timeless truths about God's faithfulness he was challening me if I believed they were true- I fell short. But another timeless truth came in play- God's faithfulness isn't dependent on us, he is faithful because... he is, its part of his character.
God, thank you for your faithfulness and for building my faith in the small things so that my faith can stand the big things.

Love Has Action

The Lord has really been hitting me hard with this recently - not just saying that I love God, that I love people - but letting my actions prove it - letting my love be seen.
John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
I claim that I love God, that I have given him my life, that he is my Lord - but if my daily walk is not overflowing with my love being evident and portrayed to others than do I really even love God? The description of love in 1 Cor 13 are words that have action associated with them:
patience, kindness, rejoicing with the truth, bears endures all things...etc. Action words

Lord, let my actions not cause the words of love I profess for you and for others to be a lie.

Revelation from Revelation

We are working through Revelation now- what an amazing book! We received an additional assignment for this book, to write a letter to ourselves, from God. The structure is to mimic that of the letters to the seven churches in chapters 2-3. This was a pretty hard assignment because we had to ask God how he would introduce himself to us, how he would encourage us, how he would rebuke/reprove us, and what promise he would give us.
The hardest part is that this is going to be seen by other people. The interesting thing about the letters in Revelation is that they each were going to be read by the other six churches- all their dirty laundry was going to be exposed. So, I felt challenged to share the letter God put on my heart for me...

My daughter,

The words of him who knows all things and holds all things in his hands:

I know your heart and your desire to walk in my will. Keep pursuing me and you will find the way to go. Step out in faith and you will grow. Even if you fall, I will catch you and you will fly. I delight in our journey. Press in deeper.

D not fear man, but only fear me. I know your doubts- remember I hold all things in my hand, all things. You say that you trust me, but you still worry- this is not trust. Have I ever let you down? How can you call others to trust me and follow me when you still doubt? Trust me.

Remember- those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. (Psalm 125.1) You are like Mount Zion, in me you cannot be moved by fear or doubt, you are mine.

Love,

Your Father