On Garage Sales and Faithfulness

If you follow me on Facebook, you're more than aware of the Garage Sale that I'm having this weekend.

Sorry for blowing up your news feeds, but we've got a lot of stuff to get rid of and we've got money to raise!

Most of you also know about my job. For those of you who don't, let me introduce you:

These are my students. They are superstars.

I work at a small Christian school in Jacksonville that's doing some pretty awesome things. In particular, we're raising world-changers. No big deal.

All joking aside, I teach English at this small school. We are not just teachers, we are disciple-makers whose biggest hope is to coach and guide these students to be successful, excellent, intelligent Christians. Each and every one of these teachers are excellent in their fields, passionate about the material, and most importantly, they are on fire for answering the Great Commission: to make disciples.

I love my job. There has never been a time in my life when I felt like my job had more meaning.

I also love my husband. If it weren't for him, I would not have been able to accept a position at this school. The reason for that is because this job is a ministry. This particular ministry required me (and my husband) to make certain financial sacrifices.

So, I accepted a pay cut in order to do something much more fulfilling with my time and life, and I have not regretted this decision. This past school year, as it was my first, has been trying and difficult. It has not come without frustration and insecurity, and has stretched me and made me grow. But it has been the most fulfilling year also.

In my last blog post, I talked about trusting God. My life has been a series of events and seasons that have required me to trust God over and over again, and he has always proven faithful.

This past season required me to trust him with finances more than I ever have before. It has really been strange to not bring a lot of dough to the table on my own--as someone who has worked steadily since sixteen-years-old, feeling dependent was not something I was ready for.

My husband and I were at once reminded of God's faithfulness when I very first took this job. My husband confidently said "yes" even though we weren't sure how we would manage. Not long after that, he was blessed with a raise and promotion at his job. This promotion almost made up for the amount I was going to lose from my income by taking my new job. I knew then that God had some pretty amazing things in store.

As you know, we found out in January that we would be welcoming our first little one into the world. We are BEYOND thrilled to be entering into this season, but it did not come without an onslaught of insecurity and doubt. I had a lot of reasons to question my future and wonder in anxiety.

Because of maternity leave and this big change that's coming, I will be teaching less classes next year, which means another pay cut. I was at once nervous, but then relieved. Nervous for what was going to happen to us financially, but relieved to have a less strenuous schedule with Baby coming.

I have been trying to no avail to find a part-time job for the Summer. It has become evident that maybe I need to take some time to rest in God's faithfulness.

In the week since the last day of school, with two paychecks left from last school year still on their way, we've already seen evidence of God's faithfulness once again. Some family of mine have been extremely generous in helping us prepare for Baby's arrival. It was unexpected and unsolicited. What an amazing surprise!

I am so confident in the faithfulness of God, that I look toward a Summer without my regular pay check and I know that my husband and I will not be in want for anything. I am not worried, I am not anxious; I am excited to see the ways that God plans to show off in our lives.

Now, in the spirit of preparation, I have planned my very first Garage Sale for this Saturday! There were multiple motives for this (as is typically the case with garage sales): I do not want to be a packrat, and am eager to get rid of things we do not use anymore. But I also want to raise some money to prep for Baby's arrival!

I am coming into this Garage Sale with a sense of expectation. The choosing and pricing of each item I am selling has been prayerfully considered, and I am really expecting this to be another opportunity for God to show himself off.

BONUS: My friends, the Brownings, are joining us for this Garage Sale to raise money to fund their Ethiopian adoption! I also have high expectations for them--I know this will be another opportunity for God to show off for them!

On Inferior and Unstable Callings

This morning, I was bombarded with e-mails and notifications that threw me pretty quickly into a feeling of melancholy. Why? Well, firstly because I'm pregnant and my hormones ensure that I am quite on the edge at all times. But also because these e-mails and notifications were intimately intertwined with questions that I have been asking God to reveal the answers to for quite some months. These e-mails and notifications weren't answers. They were just more mud in what has been an already muddy situation. The sort of situation where choices you have to make are not cut-and-dry. The correct choice is not obvious; it's hidden.

So I sat on my couch for a few minutes and stewed. I then decided that I needed to take some time and do my favorite thing: worship.

So, I put my phone on "Do Not Disturb" mode, turned on my iPhone speaker and pumped out some of my favorites. My voice was not warmed up, it was just my just-woke-up-groggy voice. But I belted it. There was something inside that I just needed to get out. I'm sure you know the feeling.

In this moment, I got to hear the bridge to one of my favorites in a new way:

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

What Am I Doing?

If you're like me, you have not always known what it is that you are called to do with your life. If you're exactly like me, you seem to be surrounded by people who do, and it infuriates you and makes you feel inferior. If you are me, you're still not sure exactly what you're called to do, and sometimes that makes you nervous.

There are some people, like my sister, who know exactly what they want to do with their lives, and it is such an amazing thing to watch them pursue their calling. But what of the rest of us who don't know? Who have asked and have not received an answer? Or have received partial answers, but the rest remains unclear?

My life, as a direct result of this, has been a constant one-step-at-a-time process. There is really no such thing as a 5-year plan for me, because God is always redirecting me. What do I plan to do next? Follow God's calling. That's all I've got. It is, quite literally, all the good Lord has given me to work with.

And what I need to remember is that that is plenty. 

I Am Not Without, So I Should Stop Acting Like It

As long as I have been listening to God's callings, He has never, ever failed me. He has never left me without something I needed. He has never not given me the answers to my heart's questions in the exact moment I needed them. He has been faithful and consistent. He has given me no reason to believe that the questions I'm asking in this season won't be answered.

So, when Darlene Czech sings, Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, I'm no longer going to hear it simply as trust that knows no end, but also trust that doesn't come with stipulations. Trust that never falters or questions. Trust that simply trusts. 

I will sing with Darlene, let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me! Water isn't solid ground. It's not consistent, it's not stable or sturdy. Real confidence (and trust) was required of Peter to be able to step out onto the rocky sea and walk on water towards Jesus. And we all know what happened the moment he doubted--he began to drown! No drowning for me. I want to walk confidently onto something that provides no proof of stability or sturdiness, all the while knowing that as long as I maintain confidence, Jesus will not let me drown. 

The next line, Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, means a lot to me right now. I am faced with some difficult decisions to make. And no options are presenting themselves as obviously wrong choices. I could be successful in any situation. But which one is the one for me? I want my trust to believe that God is going to take me so much further than anything I could possibly choose for myself. I have told myself this so many times over the years, and heard it proclaimed from the pulpits, but I'm suddenly hearing it with fresh ears. God's plans are so much greater than mine. So great, that my faith would be made stronger in the presence of my Savior. 

His plans to lead me confidently into completely unsteady places will end up taking me so deep into His plan for me that it will build my faith even more! 

What All This Means

When I think about the decisions I have coming up in this way, I'm not scared anymore. I'm not worried. I am excited. I am thrilled to go deeper. I am thrilled to be closer to God. I am beyond pumped for how much it will build my faith to be taken to those scary places! 

And beyond that, instead of feeling inferior for not being one of the ones to whom God reveals his calling all at once, I feel honored to have been trusted with the requirement of walking in faith on a constant basis. I feel honored knowing that God has confidence that I can walk in complete trust, stepping out into nothing, but knowing that I will find Him there!

So, what did I end up actually praying once I had come to all these revelations? 

God, you know the questions on my heart, even better than I know them. So I'm not asking for the answers to those questions. I'm asking that, in the time between now and the time that You plan on answering those, that You would get my faith ready for the answer You deliver. Prepare my heart to hear the answer You have. Make me ready. 

I would encourage you to do the same. We all have decisions to make. We all want to know what it is that God wants us to pursue. But sometimes it's not time for us to know. And we need to change the way we're thinking about not knowing the answers. Because the more scared we are before even knowing the answers to our heart's questions, the less prepared we'll be for the answers that come.

On Grayce

You read that correctly.

I am a very black-and-white person. Always have been. Lately, however, I've noticed that when I say that to people, I get a lot of reactions with a common main idea. The conversation tends to go a little something like this:

Me: "I am a very black-and-white thinker."

Person: "Oh, I'm just too gracious for that kind of thinking."

The implication is that because I see the world in black-and-white, I am incapable of expressing grace towards people. 

Now, I have nothing against the folks who've made such comments. In fact, I have found that this response is so overwhelmingly popular, that I can only deduce that it is a generally accepted idea that one is either black-and-white or overly gracious.

If you ask my Middle School students, I hope they would tell you that I am a fairly gracious teacher. I have patience to spare and am always open to listening when a student has trouble completing an assignment on time, or something else that may affect their grade in my class. But they know that the bottom line is this: an assignment turned in a day late is worth half credit, and an assignment turned in any time after that is worth no credit. Anything outside of extenuating circumstances or atypical behavior from the student is not an acceptable excuse for lateness.

Now, making an exception for a student for whatever reason is how I extend grace. But it's very clear when this happens that I am not extending grace necessarily because I think the student deserves it inherently; rather, I make sure the student knows that they made an error in turning their work in late, but that I will graciously accept the late work for whatever reason I choose is appropriate.

This is just one example of how grace looks practically in a black-and-white world. Let me explain:

Seeing the World in Black and White

First of all, my fellow Christians, I don't think that being black-and-white is a matter of opinion. It's not something that is a conviction for some, but not for others. It's something that I believe is universal.

We have the Holy Spirit here on earth with us to help us in our daily activity (Romans 8:26). I have prayed over the years that my heart and mind would be more sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is telling me. In addition, I spend time with God daily so that I can get to know him better, so that I am most likely to make the decisions he would have me make. In these ways, I set myself up to make right decisions (which is not to say that I never lose the battle with my flesh and make the wrong one anyway). In every decision, there is a clear right or best choice, regardless of whether or not that choice is immediately apparent.

There are also wrong (sinful) choices. Paul tells us quite plainly to "walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other" (Galatians 5:16-17). There is no gray area here; there are only the things the Spirit wants, and the things the flesh wants. And they do not agree with each other. He states earlier that we are to use the freedom Christ gave us, not to "indulge the flesh," (Galatians 5:13), but to crucify (or put to death) the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:24). Again I say, there is no gray area. The desires of the Spirit oppose the desires of the flesh, which are to be completely obliterated in our lives.

To further his point, Paul says that the desires of the flesh are obvious (as in, easily understood, lacking ambiguity or subtlety, black-and-white): "sexual immorality, debauchery, impurity, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like" (Galatians 5:19-21). 

Paul does something I completely appreciate: he leaves no room for misinterpretation. I mean, that's just good writing. His whole objective is to ensure that the church in Galatia would not at all miss his point: obliterate fleshly desires because they oppose the Spirit and therefore the advancement of God's kingdom. Can I get an Amen?

It is for these reasons that I don't believe in gray areas. There are two sides: The flesh, and the Spirit. They do not agree. One leads to destruction, the other to the glory of God. There is no in-between, there is no "no-man's land," there is no gray. Only black and white.

There's No "Y" in "Grace"

If we accept that, as Christians, we need to see right for right and wrong for wrong: where does grace fit in?

It is easy to confuse gray areas with being gracious. They appear similar on the outside. In both cases, the wrongdoer does not have to suffer the full consequences of their actions. But only in the instance of grace--not gray--does the wrongdoer have to acknowledge the wrong committed.

Grace is "God showing his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The operative clause here is while we were still sinners. Christ loved us so much that he bore the weight of all of our crimes (those aforementioned desires of the flesh) so that we wouldn't have to suffer the full extent of the consequences of those crimes, which would be death and separation from God (John 3:16; Romans 6:23). 

But we cannot accept this grace if we never acknowledge that we did anything wrong in the first place. Isaiah 30:15 says "in repentance is your salvation," meaning that we do no receive salvation without first repenting: admitting our wrongdoing and turning from it. 

Jesus himself was the most radical black-and-white, gracious person in existence. He says specifically that he came to the earth to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). His entire mission was to save the undeserving wrongdoers; but they can only be saved through their own admittance of wrong. 

The Implications of a Gray World

Who needs Jesus in a world where no one is right and no one is wrong? 

How useless would I be if someone came to me with a moral dilemma and my response was: "well, morality is really a gray area, so you just do what you think is best"? 

How could we get the correction we so desperately need (Proverbs 12:1) if we never admit that we did anything that needs correcting?

A Gray World is a scary place to me. It is a terrifying culture in which we cannot tell the difference between right and wrong, life and death, sin and righteousness, fruit and weeds. 

There is no growth, because no one ever challenges anyone else, because everything is relative to the opinion of everyone else. 

It is a scary, fruitless place.

Does this place sound familiar? It sounds a lot to me like the world that those who do not know Christ live in. And, as I've said before on this blog, our lives should look nothing like theirs; they should look radically different. Thinking in black-and-white and acknowledging that we don't always make the right choices and that for that reason we need a savior is so humble and transparent and radical--and freeing. 

There are chains that come with accepting a gray universe for yourself. These chains look a lot like freedom--from condemnation of sin and such--but feel a lot like groping the darkness, being lost in the forest, and being separated from loved ones.

There's so much maturity and humility in admitting that we've done the wrong thing. And there's so much freedom that comes from the subsequent forgiveness of that wrong--because we know that God is quick to forgive and forget (1 John 1:9). And then we get to grow and move on instead forever dwelling in that wrong, unable to admit whether it's wrong or not.

It's time to live out an uncompromising faith. It's time to step up and own and take responsibility for our own choices and actions. It's time to be bold and courageous, humble and mature. It's time to think radically and differently. 

It's time to see the world in black and white, and experience full, complete, and total grace.