One of my favorite things to do is sit in a park and reflect on life. I watch families play together, fish or picnic. I see sweathearts walk hand in hand or read on a blanket and it all makes me smile as I think about the love they may be experiencing… what joy they must feel. Many probably aren’t even recognizing the rare and precious happiness or comfort their hearts may be in. I watch for what seems like minutes but is more like hours. I imagine flying in the wind to grip a receiving Frisbee or basking in the sunlight with someone’s hand caressing my arm.

This is what I thank God for-the joy I find through daydreams and others. I pray for the family I hope one day to help make,  the wife God is forming me into, the husband who may stand beside me and the children I may one day love.

In the Old Testament, the tribe of Judah was always to march out first in front of all of the other tribes into battle. Judah means “praise.” Praise needs to go first in the battle! The Lord taught me that to be more effective in spiritual battle, I need to spend more time praising Him.

During a horrible time in my life, I remember I could hardly praise God. I went through the motions of praying to Him all the time, begging Him for help. I read the Word, went to church, spent time with Christians, etc., but I didn’t spend much time praising Him.

You can praise Him by singing along with worship music, which I love to do, but I also like to declare who He is out loud. Just say something like: You are awesome, God. You are Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides; Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals; You are the Alpha and the Omega, You are the great I AM, You are the Ancient of Days, You are the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace!

Like facets on a diamond, He has many different names, and each one reveals an insight into His character. Just as our Heavenly Father calls us by name, get to know His and experience the power found in each one.

I was speaking with a friend this morning about a mission trip he recently returned from. He & his wife talked about the disgust for how ‘we’ try to Americanize other cultures by bringing people in need our money and gifts. It’s as if we throw an offering their way and carry on with our day. And what does that teach people? Well, it creates ‘beggars’ for one. Children have caught on to the ‘missionized’ way of life, thus, they cling to foreigners for the things that will turn prosperity for their families.

I believe really what we’ve done is tried to ‘dehumanize’ other cultures, just as we ‘dehumanize’ each other. The one thing humans can do that no other created thing can do is have a relationship with God. From this created human ability, we can also have relationships with others. We were made for relationships.

In today’s world of looking for easy fixes, when someone is in need, don’t we jump to this conclusion that ‘stuff’ will fix it? Money, a house, a car, maybe just a bag of groceries? If we could just provide these things for someone in need, we’d be helping them out. But think about it… as a creation in God’s image, it’s not really more ‘stuff’ our hearts are yearning for. Our Heavenly Father, the model for our design, doesn’t want the ‘good works’ and things we can give over to Him. God longs for us to spend time with Him. He wants to have a relationship with us. A real desire to share our lives with Him. And as His children, we too have been born with this innate longing at the core of every need we have. We were created for relationship with each other… to have others long to spend time with us, to desire sharing their lives with us. And yet, there’s this perceived lack of time that prevents us from doing this with each other, just as it hinders us from also sitting down with God.

Just as we don’t seek God only for His blessings, the hearts of people in need aren’t seeking us only for what we can tangibly provide. We seek God to know Him… that is how we show love and faithfulness to our Heavenly Father. With this example we have been given, we must understand that at the core of a person’s greatest need is simply a longing from their heart for us to get to know them; a desire for us to listen, understand, sympathize, hurt and grieve, rejoice and share in the seasons of life. We need to recognize the parallel this concept shares between our relationship with each other and our relationship with God.

“A mingling of sweetness and sorrow. The sweetness so outweighs the sorrow that I have no desire to dwell on the pain. The root is deep, the covenant solid, the love is sweet. Life is hard, but God is good.

I want to be astoundingly enabled to labor on through sorrow, accomplishing more than would ever have seemed possible in a single lifetime. And people will say ‘only by God’ as they give Him all the glory and praise.” John Piper

Tonight at bible study, we were discussing which seat of faith we sit in with God. Do we call ourselves Christians, but don’t really do anything about it? Do we call ourselves Christians, attend bible studies, talk about God and carry out good deeds and that’s the extent? Or do we call ourselves Christians and really know our Heavenly Father is such an intimate, unified way where we are one with our God? Interestingly enough, only until we stand before the throne in His perfection will we ever truly know our Lord in that manner.

What I found interesting though is that someone said “well I never feel like I want to read the bible though”. And someone else chimed in “well we’re all sinful beings so we’re never really gonna be able to get it right”. What? Am I even in a bible study right now? But isn’t that what the ‘Christian’ world does? We use our ‘sinful nature’ as an excuse to keep us right there in that place in life. And because of that, our mind doesn’t really ever grasp the fullness of what sin is and does. I’m not saying there is a person on this earth who is blameless, without sin. I am saying it’s not an excuse to stay where we’re at.

I found myself a little frustrated with this kind of statement. The reality is, before we entered this world with sin, we were all created in God’s image… His holy, perfect, sinless image. And you know what that tells me? That there’s hope! Why would God use his time to warn us of sin and speak wisdom on how to stay clear of it if He thought we would never be able to conquer the problems in our lives? And not just once or twice can we overcome the sinfulness within this world, but over and over and over again we can walk in His light… in His word… in unison with His presence to know our Heavenly Father in such a powerful, exemplified way.

Thought that I was all alone, Broken and afraid, But You were there with me, Yes, You were there with me. And I didn’t even know, That I had lost my way, But You were there with me, Yes, You were there with me. ‘Til You opened up my eyes, I never knew, That I couldn’t ever make it, Without You. Even though the journey’s long, And I know the road is hard, Well, the One who’s gone before me, He will help me carry on, After all that I’ve been through, Now I realize the truth, That I must go through the valley, To stand upon the mountain of God. As I travel on the road, That You have lead me down, You are here with me, Yes, You are here with me, I have need for nothing more , Oh, now that I have found, That You are here with me, Yes, You are here with me. I confess from time to time, I lose my way, But You are always there, To bring me back again. Sometimes I think of where it is I’ve come from, And the things I’ve left behind, But of all I’ve had, what I possessed, Nothing can quite compare, With what’s in front of me, With what’s in front of me. – Third Day

Closing out the old year, bringing in a new, one thing I have learned over the last 365 days is that it’s okay to wail in grief, scream for joy, sit in the silence, or completely abandon the good things of this world for God’s best we have only the eyes of faith to see. Gearing up for what God has in store, I’m praying that I would pour out love even when discouraged, still giving, even when spent, still patient even when exasperated, still sensitive if ever offended, still hopeful amidst disappointment.

Just three months ago, my church launched a 90-day tithing challenge. It was a call to trust in God that He would provide for us beyond our imagination. As I sat in the audience, I thought ‘well what more could He do for me that He’s not already doing… I tithe, I trust, that’s not a challenge’. But the spirit spoke to me ‘just because you already tithe and trust, doesn’t mean you can’t ask for more. Perhaps the problem is not so much that you don’t believe, but that you are trusting Him with all the small stuff.’.

I pulled out the bulletin insert and wrote ‘I’m taking the 90-day tithing challenge’. I wrote out a check for ‘ten percent’ and tossed it in the tithe bucket with my declaration. As it turns out, my sister couldn’t afford rent or her cell phone bill this month. So upon returning home, I wrote another check in the amount of her bills. As the next few Sundays flew by, people from the church climbed the stage to share their testimony of how God was providing in miraculous ways for their families since taking ‘the challenge. But 30 days in, I was beginning to feel the weight of my committment as my sister couldn’t afford another month’s worth of rent or the phone bill. I wrote out my challenge check and spotted her the cash with my parttime wages with trust that God was going to make everything alright.

60 days in, more extraordinary testimonies were being delivered at church, still not one had come to pass for me. I did begin to feel a heavy burden though, for the particular situation I was living in. It was a few months worth of harbored hurts that all began to stack up in my heart until I reached for a pen and wrote a letter to my landlord as notice of my departure. I had no place to go or any money to fall on, but I heard Him say this was the right thing to do.

As it turns out, my sister couldn’t afford rent or her phone bill for the third month in a row. So very shakily, I wrote the check for the challenge and cleaned out the rest of my savings to keep a roof over our heads. It was now mid-month, I still had no place to go. I remember sitting in front of the fireplace with my spiritual mentor talking about some of the deeper convictions I had been facing when she stopped me ‘you know Trisha, God is just placing it on my heart to tell you that my husband and I have a spare bedroom in our home if you’d want to stay with us. Pray about it and let me know what you decide’. Well it didn’t take too much prayer to know immediately this was what I had been waiting for! One last thing, what about my house full of ‘stuff’? Well, it turns out the church had a single car garage completely empty and offered it up as a place to store everything free of charge. In one week, everything I owned was packed up and stored away and I had a new address. As I went to the pastor to share my 90-day tithe testimony, he said ‘do you realize today wraps up the last day of the challenge’? My desperation knew I was close, but my faith didn’t care. I tested Him and He came through just like He says He will.

One last thing to note… one of my biggest struggles is patience 😉 God knew exactly what He was doing when He made me wait. It was all in His timing and in the end, with the enemy of time, logic and fear staring me in the face, I learned to trust Him, lean on Him and demonstrate a radical hope and faith in His promise.