All Over the Place

No idea where this blog is going...just a warning.

I know I have mentioned this more than once before....but I LOVE the country. Open spaces. How dark the nights are. The quiet. The dirt. The air. It is just good for my soul. Really, truly. It's one of those things that makes my heart explode. You know that feeling when you can feel your soul coming alive? The country makes my soul come alive. I would love to just spend a few hours driving barefoot through the country, stopping every now and then, my hand out the window playing with the wind, and good music up to volume 26. I have a hard time keeping my windows up when driving through the country. Even in the dead of winter when my hand numbs in two seconds flat. And if a good song comes on...impossible. The window goes down every single time.

I love good music. Music that makes you feel. "Chances" by Five for Fighting...the song from the Blindside which definitely is in it's favor...has been a good one for me. And randomly, "Ordinary Day" by Vanessa Carlton. Both songs just hit me right in the good spot. Oh! And "American Honey" by Lady Antebellum. To bad they already made it a single. I like the secret good songs that the world is still left to discover. The only down side to "Chances" is this one line that says, "No act of God could pull me away." I have a hard time getting over that. Anything talking about God in a negative way or questioning His power as my form of entertainment just makes me step back. And lately I have a hard time when movies say the Lord's name in vain. Jesus. What a beautiful name that I treasure. And it seems like every flipping movie that I love has to throw it in there. Honestly, I would so much rather hear cussing than that. Go ahead, cuss away. But don't you dare use my Savior's name as slang/curse when you're upset. Shouldn't that be a make or break for me? Wrestling with that. I want to say it is. I mean I don't let people talk about my friends negatively. And as corny of an examply as it is, if someone was walking around using my best friend's name in exchange for a curse or in a degrading way...I would be furious. Of course I would defend them. What a name. I want that to be a make or break for me. I remember a long time ago hearing 5 year olds explain what they thought love was. One little girl said, "When someone loves you, you know your name is safe in their mouth." Is His name safe to me? I would never use it in that way, but if I tolerate it without reaction isn't that the same thing? Blast. Literally almost all my very favorite movies have it at least once in it. Often in moral issues, I go with the thought of whatever, I don't hold them to the same standard I hold myself to because they don't love the Lord or follow Him so why should I? But isn't this different? Just like I wouldn't tolerate having a conversation with someone who was talking bad about someone I love even if they didn't, shouldn't this be the same way. Thoughts?

I heard an awesome sermon on generosity. Ever since reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan I have thought about tithing and finances differently. I also heard a message talking about what it means to "waste" yourself on the Lord. Think Mary's alabaster box, or the hidden treasure in the field, or Jim Elliot and his friends doing missions... they explained it that as youth, the most priceless thing we have to "waste" on our Lord is our time. I have been wrestling with the idea of giving with a cheerful heart and being a steward not an owner. The passage that talks about how you cannot out give God. He will provide. Matthew six where it talks about not being able to serve two masters, you can't serve God and mammon (riches).

Lately, I have been dealing with money a lot. That is such a tough issue for me. I worry about it a lot. What does that say about my faith? Who do I trust to provide? Clearly myself. It is calling me out on who I trust, depend on, run to, and find contentment in. The things I am feeling called to right now conflict with my ability to provide for all my needs practically and consistently. But things keep happening to confirm where I think I should be and what I think I should be doing. I said it last week, but I don't want to go to Egypt for help in times of famine. God called me to walk this road. I trust Him. It was not better than then it is now. I want to be content with His diet, what He provides instead of being jealous of all I had in Egypt. I don't want to put my confidence in the world's system and way of doing things as soon as following the Lord gets tough. And by tough I mean once I am in a situation that reveals my true heart. I just want to see the cloud in front of me. I want to be fully sure that what I am doing is the right thing and this next step is where He wants me to be. I feel like then I could cling to that and rest. But I don't see the cloud. I have gotten nothing that goes against it. So I am going out on a limb anyway and holding it with an open hand. I so want to hear His voice. THis is making me trust that sense. I hate trusting the sense because it is to easy for me to misconstrew (sp? probably awful). But I need to act. So I am trusting what coincidences point to and my gut feels. After seeking wisdom, the consensus was for me to trust it. So I'm taking Mr. Chan up on his offer. More like God I guess seeing as it was written from a passage of scripture. I committed today to something that will cause me to live outside of my means. For the last few weeks I have always had just enough. Random jobs would pop out of no where and cover it all. Every time. I was reading some of George Muller and it was talking about how God likes to give us just enough because it means we will have to come back to Him very soon for dependence again.

Walking by faith is a little weird when you actually are doing it instead of just saying it. In Crazy Love it asks how different our lives really would look to the outside world if we stopped believing in God. We'd still have our same house, car, job, etc. We'd still work to pay our bills and probably keep up the same hobbies and entertainment. It probably wouldn't look that different. I don't want it to be that way. I want to depend on Him. And clearly if I struggle with worrying about money I am not trusting Him or taking Him at His word.

So here it goes. Jump. The first of many.



oh and p.s. I really need to stop coming up with lists of things in my head saying, "If X happens, it would be really hard to move and I'd consider staying." THe problem with that list is X keeps happening. Happened again twice this week. Just watch, I'll end up at Fresno State, live in California for the rest of my life, and marry some city boy.