Just a ton of verses

I started writing down the verses that really stuck out to me rather than just marking up the page.

This entry is what I've written in my personal journal.

FEBRUARY18TH

Beware! Don't always be wishing for what you don't have. For REAL life and REAL living are not related to how rich we are.

He will always give you all you need from day to day if you make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.

But is was only with their words they followed Him, not with their hearts.

But anyone who is not aware that he is doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, for their responsibility is greater.

FEBRUARY19TH

How He loves His people -His holy ones are in His hands.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! The city that murders the prophets. The city that stones those sent to help her. How often I have wanted to gather your children together even as a hen protects he brood under her wings, but you wouldn't let Me.

FEBRUARY20TH

Think of it! The Ark of God, who is LORD of the whole earth, will lead you across the river.

"Come up from the riverbed." the LORD now told him to command them.

So no one can become my disciple unless he first sits down and counts his blessings -then renounces them all for Me.

FEBRUARY21ST

Rescue the poor and helpless from the grasp of evil men.

The good man wins his case by careful argument; the evil-minded only wants to fight. Self-control means controlling the tongue! A quick retort can ruin everything.

"Don't be afraid of them," the LORD said to Joshua, "for they are already defeated! I have given them to you to destroy. Not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you."

So the sun stopped in the heavens and stayed there for almost twenty-four hours! There has never been such a day before, and there has never been another since, when the LORD stopped the sun and moon -ALL BECAUSE OF THE PRAYER OF ONE MAN.

FEBRUARY22ND

The Kingdom of God isn't ushered in with visible signs. You won't be able to say, 'It has begun here in this place or there in that part of the country.' For the Kingdom of God is within you.

For Jehovah God is our Light and Protector. He gives us grace and glory. No good thing will He withhold from those who walk along His paths.

...the LORD God was their inheritance. He was all they needed.

But the question is: When I, the Messiah, return, how many will I find who have faith and are praying?

But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance and the mystery of His divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: people knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat Him like God, refusing to worship Him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in His hands for figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.

They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care -worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best.

Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgemental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done.

In kindness He takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.

God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up His own mind.

But if God Himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome Him, in whom He dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He'll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as he did in Jesus!), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who He is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with Him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with Him!

FEBRUARY23RD

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Those who heard Him say this exclaimed, "If it is that hard, how can anyone be saved?" He replied, "God can do what men can't!"

O LORD, You are so good and kind, so ready to forgive; so full of mercy for all who ask Your aid.

For You are great, and do great miracles. You alone are God. Tell me where You want me to go and I will go there. May every fiber of my being unite in reverence to Your name. With all my heart I will praise You. I will give glory to Your name forever, for You love me so much! You are constantly so kind! You have rescued me from deepest hell.

There is a stirring in my heart for something greater than I.
There is a stirring in my mind for something greater than this.
There is a stirring in my spirit for something greater than life.
There is a stirring in me; become less.

I'm well planned out. And by "well planned out" I mean, I have to have every little detail before I plunge in to something, and thus I never ask any questions in order to avoid that plunge.

But that's not what God wants from me right now, or ever, is it?

Maybe this current testing of my faith has more to do with willingness than whether or not I believe.

I mean, I have knowledge, don't get me wrong. I KNOW God provides. I KNOW God is always there. But do I believe it? I'd like to think I do...

I know not to test Him. I know it. But I still do it all the time. "Hey God...if you love me, show me." When the very sunrise that morning proved His love. When the very breath in my lungs and the absence of guilt reminds me daily, no millisecondly, that HE LOVES ME!

So why, why, WHY do I doubt?

This is pretty much what my brain sounds like right now:

Well, if faith is a God-given thing, am I supposed to stretch my faith?

Am I supposed to be waiting on You to stretch my lack of faith in You?

What if this detail doesn't work out? What if I don't have the money to do it?

What if no one goes with me, and I'm completely alone in this?

What if this really isn't You calling me to do it and I should just sit back and relax?

I wish I could sit and say God answered all my questions one by one. Instead, He just knocked them all apart by simply stating, "Just trust Me."

Ju...just...Just TRUST You!? Well...how the crap do I go abou-

Just trust Me.

Well what about all these things I haven-

Just trust Me.

Every question is answered "Just trust Me."

Frustrating, yes. Hopeful, trying to be. Doubtful, ridiculously yes. Needing God, more than ever.

I think I may have thought I tricked God into thinking I could do this all on my own. But I can't even trick Him! He knows how much I depend on Him. And since He's reading this right now,

GOD I FREAKING DEPEND ON YOU! Okay?! I get it I get it I get it! Now make me believe it.

It's been this constant nagging in my brain whether we're supposed to stretch our faith or if God does it. If we're supposed to, what does that look like? Are we supposed to go out on a limb and just do things, whether or not we heard God, in order to do stuff? Does it just mean going out on the street for treasure hunts because we all have the ability to heal? I mean WHAT THE HECK DO I DO!?

Just trust Me.

How the crap do I do that?

I mean, I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up hearing old women babbling away in some weird language (which I would later come to know as the beautiful gift of speaking in tongues). I heard it. I was around it. I didn't understand it, but I dealt with it.

After giving into the ways of the world and running back to God's arms after hating Him for six years I was all in.

Back then I believed I could do anything!

So why would knowing more of Him, and hearing more of His word make me shy away from the gifts of the Spirit?

I allowed fear of man, even Christians, to creep in and overthrow my sanity. Or wait...maybe to "keep me sane" because allowing the Holy Spirit to completely overrun your life doesn't look very sane to the average human.

I want to know that resurrections aren't just for Mexico. I want to know that jewels aren't just for every place but where I'm at. I want to see that dang gold dust. I want manna in my Bible. I want to know the persecution of being a believer.

Because all I know right now is what it's like to be told "it can't be done"

Why?!

I firmly believe the Holy Spirit is moving and alive today. Speaking in Tongues is beautiful. Interpreting Tongues is beautiful. Prophesy is beautiful. Miracles are beautiful.

So why are we settling for ugly? For the longest time I wanted anything but these gifts. I thought they were stupid and for other people because I was taught that! I was taught these gifts are for old women and their matching pale green suits.

"You're just a kid, you've got your whole life ahead of you!"

Well, then I might as well still be on drugs. I might as well be drinking away my liver. I might as well go out and sleep around with as many people as possible, man and woman, because I've got my whole life ahead of me. Sure!

PUKE!

I am just a kid, and I DO have my whole life ahead of me. I'd rather throw it at the foot of the Cross saying "Do what You will" than throwing me, a pearl of Heaven, to the swine (media, culture, careers)

I'm willing to accept I probably won't be very financially sound.

I probably won't be living too glamorous a lifestyle.

I probably will be laughed at, spit on, cursed, and beaten.

I might go months without a home.

I might preach the Gospel to those who hate it.

I might die in a car wreck in ten minutes.

I might die an old lady.

No matter what, I'm going to die.

You're going to die.

Shocking, isn't it?

If it's for Christ, I want to do it. If it's from Christ, I want it.

None of us are making it out of here alive. I'd rather live to allow light, than to stand in the shadows.

(listen to "Sons of Thunder" by Sleeping Giant)

open grasp
empty clasp
much to be admitted
(but much has been omitted)

closed door
wood floor
much to be admitted
(but much has been omitted)


-end-



I don't know where my head's at. I'm in a state where I'm not quite sad, not quite happy, but not quite numb. Maybe I'm just...open. Open to anything. Open to a picture to move me, open to a phrase to anger me, open to a song to make me cry or go run ten miles. I don't know! I have this urge to write. But about what? Naturally, God.

Oh, God. What a God! What a lover! What a husband! What a Savior!

In my lifetime I have literally sold my soul to other gods. Things. Drugs. People. Blades. Boys. Lust.

Literally sold. I was totally content with living enslaved to these things. Just things. Dumb things. Petty things.

Praise God for His sacrifice! I'm reminded of a journal entry I wrote back in September.

"How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"

I'm not for sale. I will no longer bow to the culture god. Only the living God, Yahweh, breathes.

He sees, He hears, understands, loves, and speaks to us.

I've been bought with the precious blood of Christ!

I've been ransomed. I've been kidnapped by God. I've been born again through the womb of the Holy Spirit.

I've traded with God, my life for His. I've sold myself to Him, never to be re-bought.

When I entered the market as a slave, God waited. No bid was too high.

Upwards to a million dollars, God still bid. He was determined to make me His.

Finally He cried, "My life for hers!"

Bruised, bloody, broken -He hung with open eyes, gazed upon me as if breathtakingly beautiful and worthy of love.

He came back to prove He had died, but also for me to see I could have Him at all times. No religion. No building. No curtain. No animal sacrifice. Nothing standing between me and my Love.

So how dare I turn my Father's house into a market!

I've been bought. When I re-enter the market, I re-enter a slave hood which I've been paid in full from. I am not a dog returning to it's vomit.

I have been set free from weighty chains, whips, and fire.

My slavery is to Christ. My chains are to Christ. I follow Him and Him alone.

Apart from my Master the very breath in my lungs is nothing.

How dare I re-enter the market when my Husband waits for me.

He has been waiting. I've finally returned.

Some may find it a tad blasphemous or uncomfortable to think of the Cross in a thankful light. Yes, I wish it were me hanging for my sins. Yes, I wish I was whipped to pay for my preaching. But no, I didn't pay. I didn't go through any of it because He did. I am so undeserving to have had Him pay for them. It's unimaginable that He, being sinless, looked at me, the worst sinner of them all, and said "Yeah, she's worthy of my love." WHAT?!

That's crazy talk, Jesus. I mean...have you seen what I've done in my lifetime? Have you heard what I've said and what I've thought?

Yes?

Well..bu...bu...but

No. I love you.

But what about the time when I-

No. I love you.

-Hold the phone- I mean Jesus. Right hand man to God the Father. This dude is God. The. Freaking. Son.

He created sunrise and sunset and grass and sea and animals and me and you and words and trees and C minor7 (first, second AND third inversion!) and love.

If anyone should show hate to the world it should be the Great Inventor. He should hate us for how liberally we've flung love around like it's a pile of poo. Now, that's not to say showing love to everyone is a bad thing...it's just our definition is off.

If I remember correctly (which I do) 1John4 clearly defines love.

"God IS love."

Boom roasted. Bread toasted. Whatever. Schmerrr.

So God, loving everything, living within us, moving around us, is love and loves the whole world. (translation, He GODs the whole world, which I think is kinda humorous. [oh! And did I tell you how hilarious Jesus is?!])

Quick retrace, I realize I went on a rabbit trail....God should hate us because of the liberally spreading love...which by that I mean in terms of "Oh, let's make love" sense. Make love, not war? Yeah...then war is waged against the human in the womb because of that love that just needed to be made. But this isn't about abortion. That's for a WHOLE other post.

If God waited for you to be 'good enough' to earn His love, He'd be waiting a long time and so would you.

If God could use pigs to deliver the power of His message (Mark5.13) what more will He do with you!

That was actually probably a terrible reference, but I'm making an analogy here! He's not going to send an evil spirit in you and have you plunge over a cliff. But that showed His power! And that's where I'm getting at, what more will He do with you! He'll use a message of redemption, not destruction like He did with the pigs, to show His power.

You want to part the Red Sea? If God calls you, don't delay. Go and do it in the powerful name of Jesus Christ!

Maybe it's not literally parting the Red Sea (analogy, hellllllo!) maybe your 'Red Sea' is what you're called to do.

And seriously guys, I can't stress this enough...if you have a dream to do something so astronomically bigger than the sun of some distant galaxy far far away and no one seems to believe in you, I get it. And much more than I, Jesus gets it. One gift God has given me is to believe in the unbelievable, specifically for times such as these. A time so desperate for dreamers. So if you can't find a footstool to stand on to preach in the middle of the Strip in Vegas, you can use my back to step on.

Whatever the "Strip in Vegas" looks like in your personal life...I want to believe in you. Please, please don't let your dreams die. My email is bethanyervin@hotmail.com so send me your gargantuan dreams.

Last night I wrote this prayer, and I hope it's your prayer as well...

"LORD, help me to realize how brief

my time on earth will be."

Lord, that is my plea, my cry, my outburst. I need to realize how mortal I am, how fleeting my life is. Open my eyes to see I have the right to walk in Your will, and the right to chose not to. Those are my only options! Walk in Your will or walk in my own (or Heaven forbid -satan's). I think once I grasp how short my life is, I'll realize how imperative every moment is. What (or whom) will I invest my time and my life on? What will I spend my emotions on? Who will have my affection?

Lord, if it be Your will...I will go to great lengths to see You proud of me. I cannot walk without You beside me. I cannot stand without You propping me up. I cannot breathe without Your breath in me. I cannot see without Your help removing the veil. What is Your will for my life? Where can I best use the gifts You've given me in order that I may 'fight the good fight', 'run the long race'. I'm open to Your will, thought my flesh is weak, my spirit is receptive. I don't want to continue living someone else's story. I want OUR own, Jesus!

Are all our goals aligned to fame? our days aligned to corporate slavery? our weeks aligned to dissipating sanity?

We're the kings and queens of convenience and I can only imagine it should become worse. Have you ever seen Wall-E?

We are disintegrating into robots with flesh on, and I am the greatest of them all.

I must repent for my actions, my laziness, and my inaction towards my passions.

I have dreams. I mean, they're so vivid I could call them day terrors, but they aren't filled with demonic forces. Rather, they are dreams and visions of my life to come...and life quickly slipping from my grasp.

I haven't prayed for them enough in days previous. I don't pray with the authority of Jesus Christ that these things WILL come to pass.

What's your dream? Do you want to cure cancer? GO DO IT! Do you want to paint in Italy and witness to your subjects? GO DO IT! Do you want to make a difference? GO DO IT!

Now, I know proper precautions must be taken, otherwise your dream will be a fart in the wind, but what if all our precautions have become the crutch that keeps us from stepping out in faith?

I know it has for me.

"Oh, I need more money." "Oh, I need connections" "Oh, I need more talent." "Oh, I just can't really do it."

Puke.

You can do it.

Become that professional juggling street preacher you've wanted to be! Become that rug-making machine! Become that skateboarder that wins...uhm....brain fart, what's the competition called?

Whatever it is, go for it.

This phrase has been like a plague on all my conversations this week, so I guess I must put it on here:

"Our generation is more free to do what we want, but we're more scared than ever to do it."

I don't want to be apart of the Tribe of Chains. I want to walk free in my freedom. My American freedom. My generational freedom. My CHRIST freedom!

I can only imagine that what holds me back looks similar to what holds you back.

Comfort. Safety. Security. Doubt.

I once heard of a group of Monks that intentionally ate horrible food and slept on the worst beds they could find all to be more religious.

No offense, but that's a little ridiculous. Ridiculous may be a harsh word, but I can't seem to find one to suffice.

God never said you must be the most intentional person when it comes to your discomfort. Now, that's not to say in every "career" God will call you to is going to feel like silk sheets, but unless He says to you "I'm taking you somewhere and it's not going to be very comfortable..." you don't have to automatically assume God's going to make you sleep on a bed of nails and eat rat poop.

I think we, as Christians, too often know something we could absolutely NEVER see ourselves doing. Let's say the sight of blood makes you faint, does that mean that God is calling you to be a doctor? I don't think so.

I think He's asking us to use our passions, and yes sometimes the things that scare us, to advance His Kingdom.

Many times during Jesus' life you'll find in Scripture Him saying (obviously the words changing a little) "Your faith has healed you. Get up and go."

My faith in God is just starting to heal me of some serious word-wounds.

"You'll never make it." "What can you give them?" "Do you think you'll make a difference?...because you won't"

We start to believe these things and identify with them and our faith starts to shift. Once we were on fire and pumped...I don't know why I keep saying "we", from now on it's personal. Once, I was on fire and pumped to go out and subtly preach during basement shows and loving on the "rejects" of certain church buildings. I wanted to travel and I wanted to love. I wanted to sing and I wanted to worship.

Then I got a job.

Yeah, yeah. You think I might be saying a job is a bad thing...but that is not at all. However, I made my job my priority.

Over God. Over friends. Over family. Over my passion.

Pfft. Over my dead body will I allow that again!

I miss that passion. I miss that fervor for lost souls.

God finally gave it back and I'm not going to continue to "fart in the wind" as I would so elegantly put it.

I don't know what the future looks like, but regardless what it is...God's got the whole world in His hands.


So go change your city. Go change your life. Go invest in what God's doing in your friends lives. Go hard and fast after God.






Don't let your city crumble.

I lost communication with the purple sunset, green sunrise.
I lost communication with the mother ship, serene blunder.
I lost communication with the broken mirror, cut diamond.
I lost communication with the moldy almond, beam me up horsey!

The map in my brain isn't welcoming to the occasional passerby. However, it's totally accepting of strangers and close friends.

If the letter R defined your life how refined would you be, D?

-end randomness-



Today is the first day of the third year of my real life. Happy anniversary, Jesus!

But today started out in a ridiculous fashion. My morning looked like this:

I dreamt I was late to Women's Connect because I was stuck on a dirt road, next to a high pond, in a buggie, driving (as fast as possible) away from a pink dinosaur. So I called one of my leaders to tell her I had a sniffle and a headache like a ping pong ball so I couldn't make it.

And I promise you, I believed the dream was real.

So after waking up an hour before my alarm was set to go off, I get up, get ready, and leave in enough time to run in right when service starts...minus calculating in the possibility I might hit every red light along the way.

Hrmph.

I had about as much luck finding a parking spot as italics being called bold.

Maybe God is telling me one key thing:

SLOW THE CRAP DOWN.

Too often I would try to make things happen on my own; force relationships (dating and friendly), force careers, force love, and force God.

Maybe not just forcing God down other people's throats, but forcing God into my own heart.

Have you ever faked that your relationship with God was delicious and juicy and bright like an orange when it was really about as tasty as a railroad tie? Yup. Been there.

I want to believe that God is really all around us. Not like, "Oh hey! That tree is GOD!" because that's really stupid...but to realize God MADE that tree. God made you. God made me. I know, I know...what a freakin' revelation, right?

But do you really believe it? I'm just starting to allow God to show me when He's present. Which is always, if you didn't know already.

Side note...I get angry when people say "God showed up" like He went somewhere else? He's always there...it's when He's like, "Hey Holy Spirit...let's obliterate them with Our presence...since they're asking for it!" is when you feel that "God showed up" feeling.

I had a vision as I was falling asleep. I was in the same place with the same people saying the same prayers as one night last week and I said "Jesus come down" and I saw Him physically step through the ceiling tiles.

"What would you do?" kept running through my brain when I woke up the next day.

I mean, what would I freaking do? Like, "Oh hey, Jesus...don't mind the spiritual guns" Or would I invite Him to pray...to Himself? would I ask to wash His feet? would I die from seeing Him? would I cry? would I worship? would I be in shock?

But what's funny is this vision showed me the physical demonstration to a spiritual reality (not to steal from "Baptism's" tagline)

When you ask Jesus to come down, what do you think He does? "Awh...well...maybe tomorrow? I'm kinda tired right now..."

NO! He's like "HECK YESSSSSS! Step aside, satan, these are my kids! Oh wait...what are you doing taunting them? *sound effects of bug being squished*"

I want to be obliterated. I don't know about you, but I want to be completely obliterated by Jesus.

I know I am the target of satan's hate, but moreso of Jesus' love.

I'm overrun by love. I'm overrun by God.

I want to believe God is bigger than the galaxies. (because He is) I want to believe God is more real than all the human race. (because He is) I want to believe God is more real than fire and buildings and pencils and water and flowers. (because He is!)

I want to hear God louder than music and rushing rivers and tap dancing and twenty alarm clocks (because He knows I don't wake up for any of them) and wind on a windy day.

I want to feel God more than heat and skin and a cool breeze and a door handle.

I want Him to be a constant tickle-itch inbetween the right and left side of my brain.





Today I realized I'm a muddy boot in a sea of glass slippers.

These days grow colder; perfectly represented in sunsets of blues and purples. Sunrises boast waves of clouds shimmering hopes of snow storms and flurries.

The outlines of countries burnt to retinas attached to the immovable body enslaved to a job well paid in currency, while all joy in spirit is spent needlessly.

TVs hung from the ceiling by a string thin enough for floss, while vines grow in and out of the eye sockets of its unsuspecting victims still entangled with needs of fictitious reality.

Piano keys and dots measured in millimeters catch attention from the voice speaking these written words in English accent, embarrassed by this strange admittance.

The dark is here now and it shows no sign of letting up until morning, lest I run the length of the world to catch up with the sunrise.

Oh goodness! This really makes no sense.

I can't sleep. I can't even think about sleep...which is weird considering my late night conversation with a Ms. Leah Shaw had me heading home at two AM and work had me up at six.
Less than four hours of sleep is becoming a habit. Complaining about not ever sleeping has also become a habit.

But right now? Right now I can't sleep. Jesus has awoken me in a literal physical and spiritual sense.

I can finally smell the fragrance of His offering to God. I can smell the sacrifice of God to God for us. I can't quite see the Cross with untainted eyes, but I can hear the faint sound of His footsteps leading Him to Golgotha.

Let me take you through a few passages that, quite literally, ripped my flesh off.

I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions -I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to Me? Do you know what I want? I want justice —oceans of it. I want fairness —rivers of it. That's all I want. That's all I want.
Amos5.21-24msg

It hits me when God says "When was the last time you sang to Me?" I mean, really? How many times do we sing for the person standing next to us in worship, or the person on the street corner, or the attractive specimen across the room, or the worship leader we hope will come up and give us a job by how oh-so in love with Jesus we are (don't act like this doesn't happen), or...or...or. Mmm. I'll get to this thing called a flawless performance in a bit...

It's amazing to me how easily I can sing loud during worship and how rarely I sit at the foot of the Cross realizing Whose blood drips on my white wedding gown.

It seems too often we will come in with a parade proclaiming "WE CAN HELP YOU!" And then we get bored, or tired, or our finances diminish, or our finances even flourish, or we just stop caring, or...or...or. How can we give a glimmer of hope to the hopeless when we ourselves have no hope for them? Get some dang hope because Jesus LIVES IN YOU and He is the hope of salvation and all joy! Plus...we are YOUNG! We have energy to spend. Not many of us have terribly high levels of responsibility upon us right now. A majority of you who read my notes are A.) Single B.) Just out of high school C.) Working part-time D.) Going to school part-time. So what are we waiting for?! Our chances to pass us by until we're tied down with responsibility and can no longer afford to go?

I'm reminded of Lord of the Rings when Bilbo is talking to Gandalf and he says, "I want to see mountains, Gandalf! Mountains!"

Well, "I want to see mountains, Jesus! Mountains!"

...uhm bethany, look outside your window...

Not those type of mountains! I want to see mountains of love. Waves of mercy. Pillars of sacrifice. Thunder booms of praise. Lightning strikes of Jesus. Tornadoes of grace.

But as much as I want to see it happen (and I'm sure some of you feel the same way) just think of what Jesus has to say! I mean, He's tired of us coming into places with a bottlerocket of surprise and leaving the people more abandoned than before. It hurts Him more than it hurts the people because we are GRIEVING His children and turning them off of the Gospel.
These are our religion schemes, these are our pretentious slogans, these are our religion projects.

These things make God vomit.

I was thinking about Moulin Rouge and the wonderful soundtrack all day today and then it hit me...

"How wonderful life is...now you're in the world"

Notice the "you're" is not capital.

Granted, I'm using quite the secular movie to describe God's love for us...but what can I say? God is outside the box and I'm not going to limit Him to Christian music in order to woo me.
It's on the same level as "Do you know the way you move Me?" because it seems so easy to take that song and make it about God, when in fact it's about us.

...it's always been about us to Him. We've ALWAYS been in His gaze. From the beginning of time, to the birth of His flesh, to the crucifying of His life, to the redemption of our sins. It's always been about us. He's always been about loving us and making us the center of His attention -the apple of His eye.

But when we catch that, He says "Okay, now give it away."

I mean, it even says religion God accepts as pure is taking care of orphans and widows. Justice. Seeking justice for whatever unfortunate event that has taken place to make orphans and widows as such. Orphans. Widows. Fairness by not seeing them, or anyone for that matter, melt under burdens or judging them for ANYTHING.

I think by God saying "I want justice, I want fairness" He's saying "I want you to freaking LOVE one another"

Oscar Romero was a genius with his words. Cheers to an onslaught of quotations!!!

"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

"We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs. We must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed at night with nothing to eat, among the poor newsboys who will sleep covered with newspapers in doorways."

"When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises."

"Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down."

I'm also reminded of the verse in Psalm51 that says:

Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.
Psalm51.16-17

A flawless performance. Wow. You know, there might be some of you who have been called to be an actor or actress in the center of Hollywood. But when you come to Him, He wants your mask to be removed. All of us act. It's easy. In fact, it's probably the easiest thing we do. We don't want to be vulnerable. We don't want to work through our weaknesses...because that would mean actually confronting them!

Going through the motions looks similar to this:
Wake up. Eat. Go to work. Eat. Go to school. Watch TV. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.Never to have a break in the chain.

Sure, God wants us to wake up with purpose (both in a physical and spiritual way), eat to our health, go to work to serve, go to school for...well...a edumacation I reckon, and uhm...skip the TV, then rest...but God wants more out of us than a monotonous routine. He wants our adventure as much as we want our adventure. He wants us to realize we're on a mission, and He wants us to spend every waking moment accomplishing that mission through His mighty work in us.

Whatever that looks like for you, I'm not sure. Obviously God holds that answer for you and you alone. Only when you act it out will we KNOW you're serious about whatever mission God wants you, specifically (enter name here), to fufill.

It hit me in The I Heart Revolution movie when this man says "I honestly don't think people are called. I think we see something wrong with the world and we go to meet that need."

I've put this off for far to long

...Ahh! Stop with LOTR quotes!

But honestly, I've put off being who I'm meant to be.

My journey begins now.

Watch what God does, and then do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us. Love like that.
Ephesians5.1-2