Loving God, Loving Others

Thursday, I read James 4-5. What resonates with me is all the verses about finances and planning. (And I'm pretty sure that sentence is not grammatically correct...) James 4:3 says, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." Then, my favorite verses, James 4: 13-17 say not to plan your life the way you want it to go, but to follow God's will for your life. It goes on to say that since you know that you are supposed to follow God's will, if you don't, you are sinning. I get that. God created us to worship Him. We've fallen far from our purpose and so many of us live as the god of our own lives. In his book Crazy Love, Francis Chan points out that the American church is a very difficult place to fit in if you're a person who genuinely wants to live out New Testament Christianity. Think about that. Shouldn't the church be the easiest place to fit in? I've found him to be right about this so many times in my past. With my dad being a former pastor, I grew up in 7 different churches. Once I started college, I tried campus church and four local churches. I also visited the church my dad pastored in Baltimore several times. That is a total of 13 churches in my lifetime. I have seen SO many people faking Christianity. I used to be one of them myself, and sometimes I find myself slipping back into it. So many "Christians" measure their Christianity by how happy their marriage is, how well-behaved their children are, how often they show up at church (paraphrase from Chan). And that is just NOT what Christianity is about. While those things are admirable qualities, they do not measure how much someone loves the Lord. Love is an action, not a feeling. I mean... friendships, marriages, and families just do not flourish and survive when the people involved feel love for each other but never demonstrate love for each other. Why do so many people not act like they love God? If God tells you to do something, do it. Yet so many people use Jesus as "fire insurance" (they'll pray a prayer to keep themselves out of Hell...). This weighed heavy on my heart on Thursday & Friday.

Friday night, Aaron and I went to Thirsty at BRCC. Thirsty is a singing, prayer, and communion event that takes place the third Friday of every month. I had been praying about it all day, but I was still kind of distracted going into the evening. On one hand, I have been really wanting to go on a specific missions trip for months, but on the other hand, I have so much going on in my life, finances, unemployment, infertility, finishing college, etc. I was already distracted. Then, when we got there, there was a baby screaming through most of it, which further distracted me. First, I was annoyed. Seriously, when a baby is screaming and distracting 200 people, can't you take him out of the room until he calms down? Then I saw him-- cute little guy-- and I started feeling sorry for myself. And all of my life plans started rushing back to my mind.... our plan to have kids, which didn't work...our plan to try Clomid with IUI as soon as Aaron gets a new job. Then I started feeling even sorrier for myself. What if that doesn't work? We don't have enough money for infant adoption, whether international or domestic. It's not like we have $30,000 lying in our bank account. So anyway, back to Thirsty... I was feeling really sorry for myself. We prayed, took communion, prayed more, and then continued singing. I'm not sure what song we were singing, but in the middle of it, as my mind was a million miles away, I felt God say, "Jen, stop thinking of this as a curse or a burden. View it as an opportunity." I thought, an opportunity for what? "To do so many things you couldn't do if you were a mom. Like missions trips." I believe we are not going to have kids. And instead of beating ourselves up over it and wishing that life was different, why are we not content with what we do have and what we can do? So many times, I watch the news and see people who are poor, homeless, starving, diseased, suffering, and I deeply want to help, but I quickly shift my focus back to myself. And I just know that's not what God wants. He doesn't want me to feel sorry for someone and then do nothing about it. He wants me to go. Helping in that capacity is a privilege and an opportunity to share the message of Salvation with others. Afterward, Aaron and I sat outside and talked for a while. He said he understands how I feel and feels the same way. We filled out our trip applications. As soon as I get paid for this painting job, I am going to apply for my passport. I need the passport info on my application, so as soon as I get that, I'll submit it and then hopefully be headed to Managua, Nicaragua by the end of 2011. =)