A Beautiful Reminder

About a month or so ago a good friend challenged me to remind myself of the gospel everyday. So, here it goes...

Jesus became man, a man that felt temptation, a man that felt the weight of the world. But he was light--the light. He was God. He called people to be his disciples. He asked them to drop everything in order to follow him, to love him so much that love for a parent or friend looks like hate. 

He said weird things like “I am the living water” and “my food is to do the will of the one who sent me” and “you must drink my blood and eat my bones.” He hung out with the lepers and prostitutes and tax collectors. He talked about eternal life and being born again. He wanted those who were willing to trust even when they didn’t understand. He wanted those that chose him over anything else in the world. He didn’t care about righteous acts, but about making us righteous through him. He wants us to quit life so that we can follow him. 

He died on the cross. He wept. He took on the wrath of God to give the world costly grace. Grace that is not based on deeds but on surrender. He offers not only a kingdom in heaven, but also a kingdom on earth. He offers peace and joy and life abundantly HERE through oneness with him so that we may be one with the spirit. He takes our brokenness and wretched flesh and wrecks it, restoring it to radiate with a new light. Because when God looks at us he no longer sees the dominion of darkness, but His son, Jesus. 

He rose again, appearing to women in the garden. He conquered the world. He conquered death. He gave us the church to encourage us and his Spirit to guide us and be with us always, to lead us and fully satisfying our thirsty souls. Love is far more powerful than death.

He did this because he is madly in love with us. He did this because we are his children. Because we are made in his image, because he longs to be with us and he knows that the only thing that will satisfy us is HIM. Not even us made much of by him will satisfy us as fully and wholly as he himself. He loves us so much that he doesn’t allow us to be satisfied with ourselves. He freed us from the penalty of our wretchedness but also from the bondage of sin. We are Christ’s ambassadors, the pleasing aroma of Him who is in us. We exist to make much of Him, to give him all the glory.

Our response is to love people, to desire form them to have more than we could ever give them. So we show them Jesus, the hope of glory. 

College is Weird

College is weird. That's really the only word to describe it. It takes everything that you had so deeply woven yourself into and built yourself around and it strips you from it, leaving you naked and bare and probably extremely vulnerable. There's nothing familiar. No one knows your heart and can give direction when everything is jumbled up and blurry, there are no hiding places that you can run to and feel safe and secure, there is not even a familiar face to remind you that your life and you really are the same as you have always been. It's just you. And Jesus.

All that crap that I fantasized and dreamt about college is merely a romantic picture that I'd pieced together from movies and stories told from other people's adventures. The truth is, college is freaking hard. It's overwhelming and stressful and there isn't time for thinking let alone Spanish tests and English essays. There are a million new emotions that I never new existed, there are opportunities for adventure every day and suddenly the world seems accessible. The nations seem so close that I could reach out and touch them. College is a whirlwind, that's for sure. But amongst the newness and foggy future, there is a beauty that has begun to penetrate me with its growing light.

I feel extremely blessed by the family and friends that I've grown up with. I can't ever imagine having better friends than I've had this past year. They were those rare people who not only inspire you every day to love Jesus more and go where He sends you, but also make you feel free from the worlds constraints and expectations, that can show you how to throw your head back and laugh at the ridiculousness of life. They are the manifestations of joy. And as my dearest friend Alexis and I sat on my bed crying the night before six states came between us, we realized it wasn't the loss of friendship we were afraid of but the realization and the reality that things would never, ever be the same. That's what broke our hearts. But the truth is, Jesus wants us to realize that we don't need anything or anyone apart from Him. He is beautiful because beauty is satisfying within itself. It's not a means to an end, it's an end. He is the end and also the beginning. He is everything.

So although somedays I feel like I've been beaten by the world and it's pressures and expectations, I can feel Jesus wooing me to find rest in Him. When I feel like I must come before him with everything figured out and fixed, I hear him tell me that His strength is made perfect in my weakness, not my strength and put-togetherness. He loves me not because I am lovable, but because he IS love and I am his daughter whom he delights in. He rejoices over me not because I know what I want to do with my life or make good grades or keep my composure 24/7, but because there is nothing he'd rather see in all of the universe than his children loving him. That may seem daunting. It may seem scary because it means change and conviction, but there is nothing I'd rather do than quit life in order to love him more. He is all that I need. I'm still learning what that means, but I think that being stripped from everything that I clung to so closely made me realize something so beautiful: As it turns out, it's not my friends or family or church or school or hometown that have built me into who I am, but Jesus who is building me to be more like Him.

Nothing missing.
Nothing needed.
Nothing wanted.
Just Jesus.

It is well with my soul.