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"When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."
^They don't say "wait for someone to give it to you."
You have to make it yourself.
I understand that in the future, music will probably not be my main source of ministry. God has made it clear that He will be using me in other ways to spread the gospel. I honestly didn’t expect it to go in that direction; in fact, I used to think that the path that He’s put me on was one that I would be utterly incapable of carrying out. Funny how that worked out.
But right now, I’m listening to potential Joyful Noise songs and there’s still that tugging in my heart. A cheesy way to describe it, but something inside me sings even though nothing may be coming from my mouth. There is something so raw about music. So powerful, so loving and so full of meaning.
I think I will talk about JN in another post at some point in time. But for now, I will sorely miss this unique way of singing God’s message to people who are thirsting to hear it. And also, I just really love music.
I feel like crying out to God, saying “This isn’t fair! This wasn’t what I wanted.”
But then I remember Jesus praying for the cup to pass from him, and Jesus dying an excruciating death on the cross anyway. That wasn’t fair. His sacrifice was anything but justified and He still did it for the people He loves.
And that puts things into perspective. But sometimes, closed doors just hurt when you’ve been pounding on as many as you can.
When it seems like there is just way too much to do, too many burdens to bear, too many failures, too many things going wrong, too many uncertainties, too many disappointments, too many things that look to be hopeless… God is still merciful.
His grace is overflowing. don’t forget to look for it amidst the struggle, because it’s there. it always is, always has been, and always will be.
"Deserts enrich our lives immeasurably. Each desert holds seeds of repentance, possibilities of recognizing how mixed our motives really are. And, with the rain of grace, each desert holds the possibility of our reclaiming our one heart’s true desire. Even if we only touch the edges, our deserts teach us about the limits of our personal power and point us toward that constant center of ourselves where our dignity is found in our dependence on God."
Gerald May, Addictions and Grace (via imsicknasty)
relevant. especially when it seems like the world is the Sahara these days.
It’s easy to talk the talk. It’s easy to say that we’d give up EVERYTHING for Christ and let go of all the values of this world and find pure joy in holding on to Jesus alone. We Christians are really good at spouting jargon about laying down our lives, bearing the cross, denying ourselves, putting everything at the feet of Jesus, etc…
But when it comes down to it, can we? Are we willing to? Do we really? When push comes to shove, are we willing to give up that extra spending money for God, or that 4.0 (3.95 if we’re being more realistic)? Are we actually willing to put some things aside because God is taking precedence over every part of our lives? I don’t just mean that we talk about putting God first and then proceed to skip reading the Word or praying for days at a time in order to get an A on an assignment. I’m not talking about denying ourselves by spending two hours playing games instead of the usual three, in favor of 10 more minutes of prayer and 50 more minutes on catching up on the work that we’d originally neglected to do.
Jesus told us many times. Following him requires sacrifice. suffering. pain. weariness. strife. For me, in my privileged, first-world-problem life, I’m often fooled into thinking that getting a B in a class instead of an A qualifies as suffering. That’s what inspired this post in the first place; the fact that I’m not doing as well academically as I was before because I chose to focus on ministry-related things instead of school for the last two weeks. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, to be honest. And that is….paltry. Getting lower than a 4.0 at a prestigious university is hardly a sacrifice — yet I’m having so much trouble even giving that up for God.
It’s time for me (and we) to practice what we preach and tell ourselves every day. Time to believe and act on it. Let’s actually live our lives for Christ.
I missed class on Monday because I was sick. I emailed with the professor about anything I missed, and she later sent out a general class announcement that we’d be meeting in Schenley Park for class Wednesday.
Ran to Schenley Park for today’s class 5min late to find no one there. Texted my classmate to find that they had all met in the classroom first for a presentation (which the prof hadn’t told me or included in the announcement). Class is in Scaife (maybe 10min away from SP, but it’s a huge park). Started the trek back, only to have it start thunderstorming and pouring. No buses, so I walked back wearing flipflops and shorts while rain was blowing sideways. Squelched into class coughing with everyone laughing sympathetically because they knew I’d gone to SP first. Total minutes late for class: 30.
Praise God that I had an umbrella ^_^v
Anonymous asked: What happens if I moved your Bible from where you usually put it to some random place else in your room?
I’d find it rather creepy that you were able to access it in the first place, to be honest…
So much joy in doing it. But also, tiring.
