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Excited

Before I go to bed tonight, I just have to type out some of my excitement. First of all, I just have to say GLORY to God because He has chosen to let me feel great this summer. I would love to get to continue this way. We will see what He has in mind. I hope I can handle it (well, I know I can’t, so I will say, I will be relying on Him to make me handle it) if everything has to come to a screeching halt. Anyway, I’m rambling…Here’s what I’m excited about!

I am excited about all this new school year brings. I love our homeschool curriculum (My Father’s World, but we are also throwing in several other subjects and resources). I love that Selah is doing gymnastics. It was so much fun to watch her go around the gym and get to try out every single one of those cool things (cool to her; they just make my hands start sweating even looking at them). I love that my mom comes on Tuesdays, giving me a day to teach lessons again and prepare for things coming up, such as maybe leading songs at church one weekend or a concert. I’m excited about making a CD and getting to share these songs in concerts maybe once a month. I’m excited that by God’s grace, and I do not say that lightly because He knows it’s Him, I am out on my road running 5 mornings a week. And lastly, I am excited that I am going to be co-teaching Spanish and Missions 2 mornings a month to homeschoolers in FAITH’s Enrichment program!
If that made your head spin, it did mine as well. We’ll see if I make it to Christmas. I am not a busy person by nature, and it all looks like my highest priorities will still fit into every day, but we’ll see. Everything in my life right now feels very focused. I’m getting to teach and do many things that I have a passion for, but had completely given up and surrendered to God. I’m excited that when people said, “He’ll bring that back in another season”, they were right! I had to fully let go of these actually very normal things during those years of sickness. That sounds so pitiful, but it’s not. God is teaching me so much about how He cherishes the weak, the unable, the despised…how He loves the humility and wisdom these things can accomplish in our lives. I understand a little bit now that things that embarrass or make us misunderstood are a gift from God.
Letting go of everything that I thought defined me, and for about 2 years only finding my identity in Christ because I had nothing else, (I didn’t even have a hobby!) has made me alive. I died to what I wanted out of myself. I died to my somewhat unBiblical expectations of God. I died to what others thought of me. I died to the life I thought He wanted me to have, in order to finally and slowly embrace the life I do have. Somehow I am living in that grave still, because it is right where I need to stay…but because of the grave, resurrection becomes a possibility. Not resurrection of my goals or identities or activities or health, that doesn’t matter in the least. That’s just external stuff. Resurrection on the inside. Just like Jesus had to go to the grave before He was resurrected, we do, too. He gives us crosses– to kill us– in the same way that He gave us the law to show us we were incapable of keeping it! So when we finally give up and die and let go of our understanding of how to love and serve Him, then the Spirit finally has control and freedom and power and we stand literally amazed. If this whole thing I’m talking about was a download on my computer, I would say I have downloaded less than 1 %, but nonetheless…I am excited.
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Being a Momma





I am going to give myself a grand total of 3 minutes to write…and then I must start my bedtime thing. 8:57 p.m.

I just put Yemi to bed for the first time in her big girl bed. She was SO excited. I left the rocking chair in there because I knew she wouldn’t be ready to give up rocking time…hmmm. I sat down in it tonight and she came in and said, “I don’t want to rock, just put me in my big bed!” 8:58 p.m.
I almost cried. Wow. I like giving away baby stuff; and i love the talking and doing things for themselves stage; but I wasn’t quite ready for that. Then I prayed for her and was saying good night and she said, “You aren’t going to rock me??” So, we did our normal little routine ending in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. 8:59 p.m.
I have some absolutely adorable pictures to post but I don’t have time tonight, hopefully tomorrow. Yemi turns 3 on Saturday and we’ll be celebrating all weekend. She said she wants a donut, a cookie, and a cupcake for her birthday….she is SO my daughter. She is getting a Sesame Street floor puzzle and a really cool magnetic Usbourne puzzle book with a little brown girl named Abi in it that you get to dress in all kinds of stuff…Oops, I’m a bit over my time. 9:01 p.m. Gotta go! Enjoy the cute pics!
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Making a CD and Much More…

I knew when I started recording this CD that God was up to something. I knew it had very little to do with music.

So, I went into it with a little bit of fear and trembling, because I had some clues of what He was thinking. And here we are with just a couple of sessions left (for me anyway, I’m sure there is a lot of work left for others to do!), and I’m seeing some glorious stuff! Well, God being glorious; me, not so much, as you will see if you continue reading.
I wanted to share three things that God is showing me through making this CD.
#1- He doesn’t need me to make a CD, and I do not need to make a CD. It is not a need in any way, shape, or form. The need is this: To learn some things about myself and about how to please Him better with my life; to just obey even if I don’t see a good reason to do it. I think, “I probably won’t even do any concerts. I probably won’t even sell any CDs, ” and He is saying that isn’t the point. The point is that I obey. And so, He provides the opportunities that will teach me these lessons.
#2- This is about the process, not the outcome. As in SO many other things in my life, God is concerned with HOW I do things, HOW I respond, more than actually WHAT I do. From the beginning of this project I have known that I was going to be given opportunities to handle frustration or difficulties. What a great object lesson for life! To realize that whatever happens, our attitude and faithfulness to praise Him/pray/love others/forgive is much more important than the action we were doing when that opportunity arose…whether that was getting groceries or working in a village in Africa! Therefore, I have learned that I am not a very grace-filled person. I’ll give…until I’m done. Today I see a clear message from God: We can never give too much grace. There will never be a time that we are too kind and generous. Sure, we might have to make better decisions about who we work with, etc., next time, but for this time, for right now, let’s see if we regret ever giving too much grace. I don’t think it’ll happen. (And by the way, I would never want to work with anyone other than the people I am working on with this CD! I was just playing out the example a bit.)
#3- Being in ministry and sort of on church staff for the past decade, I have seen many wonderful, beautiful people doing many wonderful, beautiful things. But I have also seen one thing almost always rear its ugly head…and that is this innate, protective, cloaked in a sense of responsibility, PRIDE. Pride is not necessarily thinking you are important or great or that God couldn’t go on without you. Pride is WANTING to be important or great or invaluable to God, or wanting your church or ministry to be important, great, or invaluable to God. Pride can come in the form of being aggravated at others for not being as involved as you are in your particular ministry. Pride can come in the form of complaining that others are just not as committed or caring or sacrificial as you are. Pride can come in the form of you staying up all night to do a church project alone, because you feel responsible that it happens. Pride is there when we feel the need to protect our spiritual reputation, when we’re afraid to say something in small group because we don’t want to look like we are spiritually clueless, when we shrink back from asking someone to pray for us because we think they’ll think something that is not true about us…that they’ll think the worst when really it was a kind of small thing.
I don’t think we get burnt out because there are so many people to pray for, minister to, or organize. I think we get burnt out because we begin to prioritize some things God never told us to prioritize, in our hearts, in our souls. We set goals and set our focus on lesser things than knowing Jesus and loving others. We receive a sense of responsibility that is really just condemnation because we think “our thing” needs to look like this and do these things…and our drivenness does nothing but drive others away. The fact is, and this is just a word of warning to myself as much as anyone else, we must be obedient and focused on what God tells us to do each season of our lives and TRUST that HE will take care of the results even if what He is saying seems so small and quite frankly, not a ladder to success. Spurring others on is part of it, for sure…but never ever ever ever ever for the sake of our ministry thriving or our church growing or for the identity and security of those who call themselves our shepherds. Spurring others on toward Jesus should have one goal: Those people being left in His hands for Him to tell what to do. And He may tell them to leave. It’s okay. If it’s not okay, then we are feeling the result of pride.
So, how this relates to the CD is that I have seen and fallen into these traps before, and I sense I could easily fall into it again by thinking that this CD is super important and worth being driven about, out of some warped understanding of the responsibility that I DO have to obey. Whether its a church or a ministry or an orphanage or my money or this CD, its not that I don’t care. Its not that I don’t think its a worthwhile undertaking. It’s a priority because I was told to do it, but it’s not more important or valuable than any other thing I am called to do such as make lunch every day for my family or pray for people God puts on my heart. In our hearts, I think we must come to grips with the facts that these things entrusted to us are not ours to be a part of our legacy, reputation, or story, and that they are not for us. It sounds like death to self and it is! But do you see what happens through this death, through saying farewell to all that self interest and self entrenched God-following, all that trying to impress God? When that death happens, we are set free to obey with a carefree spirit because we are no longer loaded down by the things that made our callings sort of scary and anxious and hard.
I think that’s the point. Going about obedience in a childlike, carefree way. He didn’t tell us to do things and to do them in certain ways to lay a heavy burden on us. He didn’t tell us, “Go do this and impress me!” He certainly didn’t say, “This is your baby. You’ve got one shot to get it right.” We can be carefree as we obey because we are doing our part and we have crucified the part of us that is pridefully interested in the results.
As you can see, I am learning a lot about myself…and doing quite a bit of repenting, which is an enormous gift in itself. I have nothing if I don’t have repentance. I am convinced all I have to offer God is my faith (which He produced in me to offer to Him), and all I have to offer others is my honesty.
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Renewing Our Minds Daily

Have you ever felt like yesterday was a completely different decade than today? Like you had this great day where the things you needed to do, you did with energy and joy; the people you needed to deal with, you dealt with with patience and love; the self-control you wanted to have was there when you needed it…and then you wake up the next day and it’s like you cannot find that person in there. You thought certain struggles were over and there they are again. I personally would like to just drop the whole sleep thing sometimes because it takes me so long to get back in the groove and sometimes I can’t ever seem to get back to what I stumbled upon…be it a good voice day, a good hair day, or a really hearing from God day. Is it just me that is so inconsistent and forgetful? I honestly have felt like the girl on 50 First Dates many times with God. That’s why I journal, and I’m not kidding!
I have always known that I struggle with trying to be good and get things done on my own, knowing full well that even in my best effort it is God who truly gives any strength or success. I tend to rely heavily on my efforts and discipline and whatever it takes to do something I set out to do. But I always inevitably fall flat on my face, as I was saying in the paragraph before. I had it…then I lost it…you get the picture. So you can know I am not trying to make this sound like an easy fix when I say that if I am clueing in to anything, I am seeing this: I must must MUST renew my mind everyday. I must come to the Lord to be filled–emptied of self, aware of my absolute lack of goodness, and absolutely surrendering my control and opinions–and then filled with TRUTH everyday. Yesterday’s mercies will not do for today. I need a fresh awakening to Who this Person is dwelling inside me.
Somehow I have wisdom and joy and contentment when I do not hit the ground running in the morning hoping I will naturally evolve into a good natured focused person, but instead running to the Source of my everything…Yes, first, but then all day. All day. We have battles to fight. Not with people, but with the enemy…against lies and suggestions that set themselves up against the knowledge of Christ (ask God to show you and He will)…against distractions that are not necessarily sins but will literally keep us from our callings and commitments to Jesus if we don’t recognize them and choose the beneficial over the permissible. (That last sentence was partly from a book I am reading right now Made To Crave by Lysa TerKaust. Incredible book!!!) That doesn’t mean every day is going to be an awesome day or we’ll be in great moods every day. I’m just seeing that I am not a slave to whatever I wake up to.
Even in my easy little life, I don’t have what it takes to fight my battles and run this race. Even if I did on the outside, there is no way, absolutely no way, that I am comprehending and obeying all that the Lord has for me. I get this sense right now that He is waiting on us, so that He can move us on…and all this time we thought we were waiting on Him. He is waiting on me to come to Him, be renewed daily, be full of His truth and surrendered to His Spirit…so that He can continue His work in me and take me deeper. Sometimes we are bored in our walk with Him…or at least I am…and I see so clearly now that He is waiting to take me places with Him I have never dreamed of. Sometimes I am just lazy in my walk with Him. It is good to see these things about myself! I long to have a consistent passion for Him like He deserves…and if that comes, it will come by letting every day be new and doing the work all over again of settling my heart and mind in His Presence, even if it is just for that day.
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Believing

God is good. God is personal. And God is completely in control.

As I have grown older, these three things have slowly but surely come into question. Really without me noticing, as unexpected difficulties, failures, heart breaking knowledge of worldwide issues, and strange seasons of my life came and went, I did not lose my faith in God but I lost my faith in God’s character.
I have stubbornly held onto faith and the grace of the cross, the Word, obedience and a prayer life, and my hope of Jesus’s return. But I didn’t realize until this past year that I had wandered from these rock solid pieces of His character–that He is good , that He is personal, and that He is completely in control. It actually hurt to believe these things. It hurt to say them to other people. It hurt to find out that I didn’t believe them like I used to. Because if I believe He is truly good, then I must believe that everything He allows into our lives He sees as good at least in the end. If I believe He is truly personal, then that means that He is fully “in the know”, nothing escapes His view. And if I believe He is truly in complete control, then we all have a lot of questions.
I’m sure I have even doubted if He loves us. Really.
And I want to say three things about these confessions…
#1 The enemy of our souls loves it when we use “sight” (or the lack of it) to rearrange our faith. I was reading in a Martha Kilpatrick Bible study about how Satan used those lies on Eve in the garden…”God is withholding something from you, so He’s not good. There won’t be consequences for this, because He’s not really in control.” Somebody has won when we start basing our lives on these suggestions, and it isn’t God…and it isn’t us either.
#2 Faith is a choice, and we aren’t forced into the fold. He is generous and kind, but I think He is heartbroken that people such as myself are saying we love Him but are not believing–really deep down– these basics of His character! I am telling you now, I want to be one of those fools out there believing God is good, all powerful, and present, standing in the middle of tsunami damage, standing in the middle of war, poverty, come what may. Because He is. And when the day comes that He explains Himself, not that He has to, but if He does, I want to have been on His side! I want to have been faith-full.
#3 As completely against American culture as this is, life becomes much, much simpler and we become much more content when we believe–by faith, by ridiculous faith–that He always is and always will be these things I have mentioned. Why? Because we can enter into His rest. Faith is a sanctuary for the foolish. Let them say it; it’s true! We enter into a rest that the world can never have when we believe His Word and His character. All of a sudden things are clearer, because we see what is our responsibility and what is not.
#4 One more thing that may help explain–or dare I say make it easier to believe–these things about God is that contrary to popular opinion, and contrary to the beliefs of my first, um, 32 or so years of life, God’s greatest intentions and plans and purposes aren’t exactly about us or for us. They are for His Son, Jesus. Again, I must mention Martha because she has taught me so much. She says she used to think: “God loves me and has a great plan for my life.” Then she says, “But while those things are true, now I believe a little different. What I see my focus should be on now is that God loves His Son and has a great plan for His Son. I fit into that plan but it isn’t for me or about me.” I think of the song I wrote: “You’re writing my history one word at a time with Your glory in mind, and that’s okay with me.” It wasn’t necessarily wrong, but for me, I am with Martha. When I first heard her say this, I thought, “Isn’t that the same thing??? His plan for my life was supposed to be all about Him.” But I get it now. The focus was still on MY life. What God would do with Lyndsay Taylor…my legacy, the impressions I left behind, my effectiveness. The Holy Spirit had to explain to me the difference. The difference is wonderful, and leaves a lot of room for the beauty of community instead of individualism, the beauty of humility instead of pride, the beauty of equality instead of competition in the church body.
Let us wait up all night for the Bridegroom, lamps full. It’s a long night ahead and we need grace to believe the best about Him. He will certainly surpass our greatest hopes.
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Why Our Knees?

Jack and I have really enjoyed watching Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip on Netflix the past couple of months. I cannot believe it only got one season…! I would love to find out why it was cancelled. It was a show that spoke very bluntly of the public opinion (at least in Hollywood) of politics, the war in the Middle East (or the part of it we are involved in, anyway), and Christianity. The main characters were people who produced and acted in a Friday night comedy show, like SNL, and one girl, Harriet Hayes, was a born-again believer.

In the last episode of the season, she and her friend were in the hospital waiting room. Her friend had just found out that his fiance was in bad shape and may not recover, and Harriet says, “Okay, it’s your choice. I can do my Holly Hunter impression or I can teach you how to pray.” Her friend says, “Let’s find the chapel.”
She’s on her knees and welcomes him to join her, and he goes off in a tirade that went something like this: “If I was God, I would not need people to bow down to Me. I mean, if I really did what I said I did, make the whole earth and everything in it and have total control, then why do I need someone stroking my pride? This is ridiculous. God shouldn’t need me on my knees for me to pray.” She said, “Kneeling is not for God’s sake, its for yours. We have everything in this life handed to us–wealth, fame, whatever–and the only thing not handed to us is humility. We bow to remind ourselves who He is and who we are.” He, unfortunately, stormed out. But she was right, wasn’t she?
Psalm 104:24-30 says, “How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures…These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.”
Believing that I am on the receiving end so much, if not all, of the time is humbling. Knowing that no plans I make can be held together by my own power is humbling, even the best and godliest of plans. Like a baby, we must stay less than an arm’s length from our Creator whether we realize it or not, and whether we like it or not, and that’s humbling. We like to be in control and be responsible, and we certainly have to obey and do “our part” but we are so out of line when we begin to think that “our part” is the real work of God. The real work of ministry. The real work of relationships. We obey and we don’t take pride in it, and we certainly don’t get impressed with ourselves, because that would simply be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? Just like I can plant a seed in the ground and take the time to water it, I realize even in me doing my part that I had no power to make it grow. I am not the soil, the nutrients in that water, the sun; I am just doing my tiny part. And so it is.
Why can’t we have a relationship with God that doesn’t require kneeling–the kneeling of our hearts if not our bodies as well? Because a relationship with God doesn’t come as a partnership…”let’s join our resources, God! We’ll make a great team, God!” It doesn’t come by thinking we are His equals and looking Him in the eye and asking Him to do His part, while we can confidently hold up our end of the bargain. Oh, my. If we think we can hold up our end of the bargain, any bargain at all, pride has finally reached the surface. We are dependent on Him even for our part.
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Friends Forever!

Last night I was laying in bed thinking about this and decided if I had time, I would write about it today: FRIENDS. Not the show, but the blessed reality of people we get to walk through this life with. Yesterday, my mom brought over a couple of boxes of my things from the lovely teenager years…collages, journals, keepsakes. There are some things that really stand out to me, looking back at those clothes, books, things I wrote, things written to me.

#1 – I am still learning the same exact lessons from my personal walk with Jesus that I was then. I briefly looked through those journals in amazement. I was really pursuing Him. I don’t know whether to be sad that I haven’t come very far, or just excited that He was so important to me then, too. All grace. ALL grace.
#2 – I wish I hadn’t let boyfriends and the pursuit of that have such a high place in my heart and mind. I didn’t date, so it wasn’t necessarily about my time, but I did form strong bonds with a couple of guys in my school years. I know that’s all a healthy part of life, but still…it should have been lower on my priority list.
#3 – Friends were my life. School was bearable every morning because of friends. A lot of times I went to church because of my awesome youth group. Once we went to college, wow, it was like heaven because it was just constant community. We were together all of the time, and they were not petty friends, they were true, true friends. Many of our parents were friends with each other, and now most of us are parents. We’re spread all over the globe, literally, some of us doing what we always thought we would do, and some of us doing the last thing we expected. I am so thankful for the thousands of conversations and hours and laughs and tears I have shared with these FRIENDS!
I don’t know if it gets better or different or not, but it’s been hard for me to grapple with how friendships change once you get married. For one thing, 90% of my guy friends disappeared, and I had some incredible guy friends so it really was a big loss! When it comes to my girlfriends, I didn’t lose them, but as time went on past college, I found out who was going to make the effort to stay friends and who wasn’t. It had to be a mutual effort or it was not going to happen… But we move, we get jobs, we spend our free time with our spouse, and what a big shock really, we don’t have 12 hours a day to be together anymore! I was not prepared for that! Then, shocker of all shockers, we start having babies and the only way we girls can talk is by risking our children’s lives while we take the phone to the bathroom and close the door. An uninterrupted conversation just might never happen again.
Oh, friends. Sweet friends. God’s love wrapped up in people. In the past five years, I’ve had a really hard time with this sleep disorder and health stuff, and getting together with friends has had to become a low priority. I’ve been living on a necessity-only basis many months out of the year, and that’s been hard. I’m so grateful for the friends I could at least call or write when I was able to resurface. I’ve been feeling better for about a week and that’s exactly what it feels like: resurfacing. I don’t know for how long or even why, but I’m grateful, and my friends are going to know it!
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Birthdays and Stories

Selah’s 6th birthday was on Sunday. As every mom says, I don’t know how my little girl’s already 6 years old! I can’t say time has flown. We’ve had millions of great moments tucked into those 6 years! Hundreds of times that I’ve closed my eyes and hoped that someday I could bring back the same sounds, sights, smells, and feelings of that very moment.

On Sunday, we had a get together with family and afterwards we went to the nursing home to visit Jack’s granddaddy. While we were eating cake, Jack’s grandma told us some great stories! Here’s a couple of my favorites.

*First of all, she gave Selah a 70 year old baby doll–a Sparkle Plenty doll, for those of you who know about the Dick Tracy cartoon. Selah was so thrilled, and said she would “pass it down from generation to generation.” I didn’t even know she knew that word! Grandma said when she was 6 years old, her mother ordered that doll out of a catalog and even though she was not allowed to go to the post office to look for it, one day she could not resist any longer. She walked across the street to the post office and saw the package in their post office box! She was so excited, she ran home to tell her parents it was in. What did she get? A spanking. For going across the street! Understandable, but sad! Then, of course, the Sparkle Plenty doll was hers and she told us on Sunday, “It was worth it.”

*Grandma told us that when Grandaddy was a baby and his mom needed to get some work done, she would dress him in a long dress and then put the end of his dress under the mattress to hold it down. Then he would be stuck and would have to just play within about a foot of the bed. HA! Pack and play, schmack and play!

*Last story…Grandma said that when she was born, a midwife came to her house to deliver her. Her family was poor and couldn’t pay the midwife with money, so they paid her with a bushel of tomatoes. A bushel of tomatoes!! I will never look at a bushel of tomatoes the same again! We’ve come a long way in 74 years…or have we?

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Money, Possessions, and the Poor…Again

What was I thinking about at 2 a.m. that I just had to blog about? I actually think it was money, possessions, and the poor…that’s it. I was reading in John before I went to bed, the passage about Jesus being anointed by sweet Mary and he says that baffling statement, “It’s okay to waste this perfume on me, guys. You’ll always have the poor with you to help, but today I want your focus on Me.”

That used to baffle me, back when I sort of preached the gospel of “Ministry to the Poor and Equality with the Least of These is the Most Important Thing On Earth.” I went through a time, when I was making my last CD actually, where I was learning what is most valuable, what we’re really here for, and personally I was learning some lessons that I hope to have with me the rest of my life. I did need to sell and give away things that weren’t necessities, I did need to make sure in my heart of hearts I was not leaning on material goods for my security and peace, and I did need to learn to see the least of these, the orphan, the child in the sex trade, as my family. Absolutely. I will never go back to a place of not knowing and not acting. I’m glad I learned how to be involved. In the unseen realm, we are involved through awareness, knowledge, specific prayer, and entering into grief with Jesus over these tragedies and letting Him evolve our hearts in the way He chooses. In the seen realm, there are physical sacrifices we can make to reach out and do what we would hope someone would do for us if we found ourselves in such circumstances. For every loss we choose for ourselves, someone else can gain. I pray I never lose this mindset. While it is not my fault that human trafficking and starvation exist, I believe my life should look different because they do.
However, the most important thing I learned was to make sure I know the most important thing. Jesus said many, many things and He meant them all. His ministry to the poor, the example of His life (having no place to lay His head, etc.), and His statement that when we serve the poor we are really serving Him, are proof enough that He was teaching us to care, love, give, and expend ourselves and our resources for others even if that means we go without. But as I am learning in my own life right now, He also taught us to put the correct value on things, to prioritize our hearts, souls, minds and strength toward Him. I learned the long and drawn out way that I must have one allegiance, and that allegiance is not to the work I can do for Jesus/the poor/youth, etc.. That is devalued in comparison to knowing Christ my Lord. Yes, we show our love for Him through obedience, but I believe intimacy is necessary for obedience to even begin and certainly for it also to continue. Our connection to Him cannot be an afterthought or a token group prayer before we head out to do some good deeds. Our connection to Him also isn’t to make ourselves feel good and secure, like “God will bless whatever I put my hands to, because I have been sitting down to pray lately.” Look at John 15, look at the stories involving Mary and Martha. Paul basically said, “Everything I have accomplished, even the good, I consider a waste in comparison to truly knowing Jesus Himself.”
Keeping the Main Thing the main thing. It’s easy to get ahead of ourselves. It’s easy to look to productivity instead looking into the eyes of Jesus for our sense of worth, our sense of “I’m enough, I’m okay.” If God lays on our hearts a desire to commune with the poor, or whoever, our route to doing that will begin (and stay) at one place: digging in deeper in our submissive relationship with Jesus and prizing it above every idea, every exciting possibility, every job or ministry opportunity, every success and every failure. I cannot tell you how hard it is for me to daily pull away and surrender this thing of “What I Wanted to Do for God.” I lay it down to know Him, because I believe He told me to, and because I believe it is in actuality the ONLY way I can be of His service anyway. I trade it in to know Him, because I cannot serve two masters. I can’t love and protect my identities, my (spiritual) reputation, my resume, and my potential if I’m going to pursue Him. I used to think loving and serving Him was these things…but I am learning their value and the separation that is necessary.