No Lord

The Lord is so amazing. I am sitting here completely in awe of His sovereignty and faithfulness in my life. About a month ago I was struggling because I wanted to be "doing" something. Preparing for college, going on mission trips, studying medicine, teaching piano, working....something! I had all the wrong motives though. I was not content to simply love and obey the Lord. In my sinful nature, I thought that I had to be busy reaching for a goal to be happy. The Lord convicted me of making success my idol. He showed me that failure was not necessarily just falling short of reaching goals, but that it is having goals and reaching them on my own strength and with a selfish motivation. Sin is doing "good works" while still saying, "No Lord. My way."

For a month all I have been doing is finishing high school, doing some music related things and growing in my relationship with the Lord. But I would not have traded this last month for the world. Whenever I wanted to be busy, the Lord put me flat on my back again, teaching me to rest in Him. I would try to get a job, and the interview would be delayed, and then delayed again! I wanted to be busy doing things but instead He gave me a bad case of chicken pox and for a week I was on my back groaning and praying. All He wanted me to learn was to trust Him and say "yes" to Him...even in the small things.

All month the Lord has been asking me to go to a sister in the Lord and ask her forgiveness for something I did quite a while back. I kept rationalizing the conviction away. I would lay in bed at night and argue with the Lord about it. "It was so long ago..." On and on I would reason. But you cannot say "no Lord" and mean both words. If you say no to Him, then He is not your Lord. Quenching the Holy Sprit by resisting conviction is a hard way to live. Two days ago I finally yielded and humbled myself. My own pride, once again, amazes and disappoints me.

Tomorrow I leave to go see the campus at Bob Jones University. I cannot wait to see the atmosphere and really get a feel for whether or not it is somewhere that the Lord would have me to be. After vacillating about it for over a year I am hoping to reach some finality in how seriously I will consider that option. Thing are finally on the roll!

A couple of days ago my parents heard about the latest Mexico trip that our church is doing. Only one family from our church is going though. I have toyed with the idea of going to Mexico to minister before but it has always been at least $1100 to go for just one week. When you only work one day a week; that is a whole bunch of money! Not only that, but I had some concerns about reports that I heard of groups outside of our church teaming up with our church group and not preaching a Biblical gospel. In no way, shape or form did I want to be responsibly for presenting a gospel without repentance, hell and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The thought of once again "rocking the boat" by presenting my concerns made me squint and want to forget the idea all together.

The trip this November is like half the money because our church has found a more economical way to approach these mission trips. Everything literally fell into place. The air line ticket was reasonable and I am able to fly with the group from our church even though I purchased the ticket over a month after they purchased theirs. An extra part-times job came up last week making it so that I barely have to dig into savings to finance my trip. We aren't connected with other churches so we can freely present the gospel in a completely Biblical way. It is just so amazing! I didn't even pray that everything would work or try to make it happen. I just turned it over to the Lord saying, "If you want me to go, work out the details and tell me what to do next." The confirmation that the Lord wants me to go is that I honestly do not want to go right now. The thought of going into a different culture that doesn't speak my language and not knowing exactly what I am going to be expected to do is completely overwhelming to me. How perfect is that though?! I'm going to have to totally rely on the Lord. (But ah, I wish that I had paid better attention in Spanish class...)

Hmm...two days after I said "yes Lord' in such a little area, this literally falls into my lap. Any connection? Oh yes! See, the Lord doesn't need me to accomplish His work. He wants me to grow in Him because He loves me and desires a relationship with me. (For whatever reason, I don't quite know!) That is why God doesn't send me an IM telling me what He wants me to do for the next five years. He doesn't merely want people who do what they are clearly told. He wants people to make sacrifices so that they can have a relationship with Him. Only then does He show us what the next step is and give us the grace to say, "Yes Lord, I will follow."