Help!

I've tried to start this post several times, but the written word fails to provide the urgency I would like to convey. I think it is fairly safe to say that the greatest humanitarian crisis of the past several decades is the nightmare communist state of North Korea. I wanted to write about the striking comparisons between the hugely popular Hunger Games dystopian novels/movies and the North Korean crisis, but apparently someone else has also noticed the similarities. It's a great short article that I encourage you to read if you have time.

I myself am an unashamed fan of The Hunger Games novels/movie. The testament of Katniss's (lead protagonist) selflessness, courage, and loyalty in the midst of atrocities is inspiring. But there are real people like Katniss in North Korea whose government abuses them. There are also people in North Korea who do not know the concept of love or friendship. It's survival mode in many starved areas where the government turns a blind eye. Prison camps that hold thousandsare ridiculously evil. Think Nazi cruelty, except this has gone on for decades. Propaganda is rich with lies and layered with threats. Freedom of religion and speech are foreign concepts to a NK citizen. Freedom of any sort is a contorted, hazy dream.

But hope is there too, and it is determined to win. North Koreans are, more and more, able to access entertainment and information from the outside world via jump drives. People are beginning to receive new ideas about the outside world. Even with no access to internet, limited access to radio and television and a constant watchful eye from their "Dear Leader." And there is more to get excited about! A non-profit called LINK (liberty in North Korea) dedicates their work to rescuing and resettling NK refugees and making the North Korean plight known all over the world. Click here for just one rescue story.

Please consider contributing to this life-saving effort through LINK on my fundraising page! Any small, one-time donation will help. Consider it as a birthday present or just an opportunity, but don't be guilt-tripped into this. Helping North Korean's is one of my passions, and I realize that people may have different passions to which they are contributing. I'd also appreciate some FB advertising, if you have it. I currently do not have Facebook, but I know it is a good platform for this kind of thing. So if you want to put this link in your status update with a quick blurb, by all means feel free! www.stayclassy.org/happybirthday

Till We Have Faces

Till We Have Faces

a Facebook satire 

Note: this blog post, though it may contain nuggets of truth, is written with loooooots of sarcasm and exaggeration. I thought it would be funny to write something about my summer break from Facebook from the viewpoint as if Facebook was my boyfriend. I used as many Facebook-oriented words as I could, italicizing them. This is not to be taken seriously. ;)

Dear Facebook, 

It's been three months since we broke up. I always knew we would be in a relationship in the end, of course. We just needed time away from each other for a while. So I set up a wall between us. But now the friend management department isn't doing so well. I guess the summer wasn't the best time to split up. Without you, I have to keep up with friends through your emotion-less cousins, Texting and Email. Texting and I are . . .  well . . . let's just say it's complicated. Ya know, a love-hate kind of thing. I know you understand that--you get that a lot. 

I miss you, Facebook . . . how I could browse through profiles you oh-so-conveniently arranged for me anytime I wanted. You definitely saved me a lot of time in keeping up with people, showing me their status updates and photo albums. And you are so empathetic. People fire all their problems at you constantly and you take it all in stride--what a great listener! I'm telling you, you would have made a great psychologist, but no, you had to go major in Business instead. No matter. You still make a lot of money. You'd also be a pretty good tabloid journalist, considering how much gossip and misunderstanding you stir up.  

But let's talk more About Me. Not my hobbies or my activities. Not my workplace or my hometown. Since we separated, I have felt so free in some ways. I guess when stalking tendencies decrease, so do worries! Huh! Who would'a thunk! I've become good friends with your uncle Skype. I know you do business together on Facebook chat, but I like Skype more when he's not "under the influence" (your influence, that is.) Sorry to compare you to drugs and alcohol, but you do get pretty crazy sometimes! Anyway, Skype is a lot more easy to understand without you distracting me, that's for sure. 

You do more than just distract me, though. You don't stand by me when I'm not strong and you won't be my friend when I can't carry on. I take it all back about you being a psychologist! You'd be the absolute worst. I'll give you some credit for listening to my rants, but all you ever do is repeat my own words back to me! It's like I'm talking to myself in a mirror! Then some friends come over with sharpies and write comments all over my mirror (aka my FB profile.) I go through life and the only time those comments are real is when I come back to that mirror and see those words running across my face like temporary tattoos. Some comfort you are. I swear, you could at least CALL ME MAYBE! 

It's alright. I will survive and my heart will go on. I find solace in the way people like my pensive quote, encouraging Bible verse, or hilarious photo I post sometimes. The more my friends like my words and pictures, the more they like me. That's my philosophy. So I tag as many people as I can in as many photos as I can. It can get tiring, but it is sure worth all those likes from friends who may not have looked at my photo album otherwise! 

I have never met anyone as jealous as you are. You expect me to sit with you wandering through my friend's profile when that same friend is physically in the same room. You're a trippy character, Facebook, you know that? The nerve you have, talking about my friends all the time when I could talk to that same person face-to-face if my eyes weren't stuck on you, wuh-oh-wuh-oh stuck like glue!

You and me baby, we're stuck like glue.

See you in the fall,

Lindsey

Disappointment Debunked

"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."

~ Aslan in The Horse and His Boy

I suppose I should have expected it, and in a way, I did. Seven days of enacting all the planning and excitement of VBS has plumb wore me out. This was my fourth year directing VBS at my church. God planted the wildly huge idea of VBS in my brain at the ripe age of fifteen. My church is small--like 80-people- in-the-congregation-on-a-good-day small. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with smallness. But we do, as in other areas, desire to grow in this area. Lakeway Community Church has had its share of ups and downs, like every other church. Our Sunday morning kids ministry has been on the downswing for a while now. We have around 3 "regulars" from birth to 5th grade.

The secondary goal of VBS in my mind has always been to attract kids to our scant children's ministry.  You know what? I have not seen that goal realized. Let me tell you--it is disappointing.  We have a widely un-churched region right next door, and our ministry is somehow faltering. This is highly discouraging to someone who has been going to the same church my parents helped start since the year I was born.

But the primary goal of VBS is far more important than the second. This is what energizes me personally. Through VBS, we have the opportunity to share the incredible love of God. We only have a week to cram in all this wonderful truth, but the message remains clear, and, especially this VBS where trusting God has been the primary theme, the Bible points have really hit home. I want our VBS to take kids one step further in their relationship with God, whether it is that very first step or somewhere along the path of fostering a relationship with the Creator and Savior of the universe. I believe that goal was realized, and I praise God for that! And we sure had fun too!!!

Disappointment in efforts is inevitable. From my experience, if you are afraid of disappointment, it most certainly will come. Fear of disappointment does not stop my action-hungry heart, but when it comes, I must make an extreme effort to focus on what matters:

who God is and what He has done in my heart.

That is all that I can ever really know of my "effect" on any person or thing. All the rest is guesswork, because I'm trying to look into other people's stories. Sometimes I get super distracted, trying to act "detective" and play God in deciphering what has worked and what has not, who is pleased and who is disheartened. It doesn't work. It just doesn't. Stop the analyzing. Be still.

The fact is, if I am seeking to follow God, I know He can fill in the gaping holes in my weak, mangled efforts.

We don't all get to see God do something as spectacular as bring long-dead bones back to life (Ezekiel 37.)

This is the battle against disappointment: when what we see doesn't match up with what we believe. Bring these dead bones to life! Stir up some action--visible results please! Yup--that's what I want!

In order to hear and comprehend the mighty roar of the Lion, I must put my hope in my mighty God and not in my own "achievements" or "disappointments." Only then will I find strength to soar on wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31.) Then I will be able trust God, leaving my fears behind.

Get a peek into our Sky-flying VBS week at LCC by watching this slideshow. :D

Distrustful Tendencies

Actually, it's not rabbit OR duck season. I do love Looney Tunes, though! VBS season, though drawing to a close for most, is reaching its climax at my church. In two days, our little church will be transformed into a sky-themed adventure. Our overarching theme is "everything is possible with God!"

I am the VBS director kind of overseeing the whole thing, and I am also leading the beginning and end of each day with singing and teaching. We will be learning one of these Bible points each day:

• No matter who you are...trust God!
• No matter how you feel...trust God!
• No matter what people do...trust God!
• No matter what happens...trust God!
• No matter where you are...trust God!

I love that we are teaching and learning these awesome points at Sky VBS. Trusting that God is loving and good is crucial to the Christian faith.

However, trusting God is extremely difficult sometimes. I have such a hard time trusting God that I feel inadequate . . . even hypocritical, teaching it. Suddenly a burst of panic gushes through me and I know Satan is stoking this negative response. I remember all the times I haven't trusted God, moments of pain and fear and sorrow.

Is God really trustworthy? 

That is Satan's favorite question to plant in our minds. Satan may be cunning, but he's very uncreative. He pushes this question over and over, knowing that if we believe this lie that God is not trustworthy, it will be so much easier for him to get at us.

 What is it about trust that the human race just doesn't get? We are afraid to trust because we don't want to get hurt, we don't want to be wrong, and we are afraid we are missing out. Adam and Eve had the first ever trust issue. They didn't trust God was providing the best for them, and so they rebelled, thinking there was something better they were missing. Where did it end? Pain and death. 

Though God had handed Saul many victories and crowned him king over Israel, time and time again he refused to trust God because he thought that he knew better. What happened to Saul? He was humiliated and killed himself. 

David didn't trust that God had satisfied all his desires, so he ran with his lust and committed adultery with Bathsheba and later the planned slaughter of Bathsheba's husband. The result was the death of the first son born of Bathsheba and David.

The Pharisees couldn't believe that Jesus was the Son of God. They couldn't see past all the rules and regulations they followed with absolute precision. They refused to trust that this man was God Himself, because it seemed too ridiculous to be true. Well, we can all attest that the Pharisees led pretty miserable lives because of their trust in principles instead of in God incarnate. Who knows if some of them eventually trusted in Christ or not?

None of the disciples trusted Jesus' words about Himself. When Jesus was crucified, they were so wrapped up in the "finality" of death, that they failed to grasp that He would come back to life, thereby promising resurrection to all who believe in Him. Even when He returned to them in bodily form, Thomas still wasn't able to trust Jesus' words. Thomas didn't trust his own eyesight, for goodness' sake!  

Let's face it, we all want proof that God cares about every facet of every person's life! I want proof that God loves the North Korean child in a prison camp, a place where the kid cannot even grasp the concept of love, a place where his own mother steals food from him, a place of starvation and torment. Get Him out of there, God! We all want proof that God is good, loving, trustworthy, and reliable in every circumstance, time, and place! Well, ya know, we simply do not receive proof sometimes--at least not in specific situations. However, there is a reason God has left us His Word, for there lies a multitude of evidence of God's love and mercy in the most dire of situations. 

• God did not destroy Adam and Eve when they rebelled. He set a plan of restoration in motion.
• God gave Saul countless opportunities to come back to Him. Unfortunately, due to Saul's response, his was not a happy ending.
• God forgave David and gave him hope, continuing to bless him.
• Jesus instructed the Pharisees and was harshly insistent on some topics, because He wanted them to come to Him. 
• Jesus, resurrected, ate with His disciples and offered Thomas to touch the wounds in his side. The result of their trust in Him no matter what was 11 cowardly people transformed into 11 of the most courageous followers of Christ the Bible has recorded. And they all would attest, I believe, to a life full of joy and hope and purpose. 

I'll let you in on a formula we all potentially trust at some point. If we place our trust in this formula it will rip us apart:

something bad is happening and God isn't stopping it = God doesn't care and if I was God, I would handle this better

True or false?

You decide.

A New Sense

Yeah, I know--I just posted yesterday. This is just so cool, though, I had to write about it! Watch this video--it is of a deaf woman who has had a cochlear implant and is just now hearing for the first time. The question she gets most is "how are you able to talk so well?" She attributes it to the speech therapy classes she took when she was deaf.

The emotion is evident in her entire persona. As she hears the nurse, she breaks out into a huge grin and is overwhelmed by joy. Tears inevitably conquer as the sound of her own gasps and sobs startle her. She begins to laugh at the strangeness of it all. She's literally been introduced to a whole new dimension that we take advantage of, gaining the fifth sense she should have had from the moment she was born.

This woman's encounter with physical restoration and inexpressible joy helps me to imagine what our spiritual restoration in heaven will be like. I imagine we'll be introduced to a whole new dimension...a dimension that was always present but was impaired to our sin-ravaged senses: a real sixth sense. This sense, too, is one that should have been with us from the second we were born. Obviously, we messed it up, similar to how we can mess up our ears by going to loud concerts on a regular basis. 

Thankfully, God had a plan of action. He prepared to enter a life-altering surgery that He would start to operate in us the nanosecond we placed our faith in Him. He will continue working until the day we die, and indeed, we are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16.)

When we grasp this heavenly sense, we will finally understand how much we have missed. We will understand how God has been faithful from the beginning of time, and His love, unchanging and eternal, will wash over us with astounding clarity and completeness. Right now, we feel his love like we feel the rain, based on circumstance and other flighty things. In heaven, nothing will hinder our perception of His love, and I think it will hit us like a thousand waterfalls. We will be overwhelmed, like the lady in the video, except to an even greater degree.

Hallelujah and Amen! Not only do we have something indescribable to look forward to; abundant life is now!

---John 10:1-10---

“I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! 2 But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. 5 They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.”

6 Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, 7 so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me[a] were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. 9 Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved.[b] They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. 10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

For Richer, For Poorer

Which picture draws more compassion from you? 

Dunno about you, but my heart definitely breaks more for the African children than the prim lady with the chihuahua. 

But it draws a question from my mind: why?

Why do we forget about the rich? Jesus said it's more difficult for a rich man to place his faith in him then for a camel to go through the eye of the needle. Why are there virtually no ministries to draw those who are financially wealthy? There is nothing inherently wrong with having money, after all. It's the love of it that destroys us. The church probably sounds like a judgmental money-hating institution to people who own millions.  

It's easy to feel compassion for starving or exploited children. It's not so easy to feel compassion for a snobby, spoiled kid. It's easier to love a homeless man than a family who has loads of money in an economic crisis. For me, anyway. I think sometimes we forget Jesus hung out with rich people too, e.g. tax collectors. He didn't exclude anyone who hungered for His love. 

Hold on a minute, though! I'm not saying minister to the rich, and forget the poor! Jesus said religion that is pure and faultless is ministering to widows and orphans in their distress. Personally, I am passionate about helping the exploited citizens of North Korea, and I'm sure I'll write a blog post about it sometime. Let us never neglect the rampant poverty in this world. Rather, let's love the rich too, recognizing their spiritual condition may be even more dire than the cruelest clutches of the physical world. Easier said than done!  

What's your opinion? Do you think Christians are doing well ministering to the financially well-off? 

Symphonic Mystery

Zephaniah 3:17 

The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.

Maybe it was on American Idol, on the streets of downtown Chicago, or even in your own house--perhaps you had no idea or maybe you had an inkling that person had it in them from the moment you glanced their way. Whether you can pinpoint a specific person or not, there's no doubt that we all have favorite styles of music and vocal tones. Justin Bieber, Tim McGraw, and Jon Foreman, for example, do not sound the same (at least, let's hope you don't think they do.)

What a rich array of vocal capacities with which God has gifted so many of His children! I find it funny that my friends are all over the spectrum in terms of musical taste. Some people love the rich, creamy vocals of Michael Buble. Others prefer the honest, clean voice of T-Swift, the rustic, rich sound of Tracy Chapman or Adele's sonorous vocals. Maybe grunge, folk, eclectic, hip-hop, or gospel style make you feel alive.

For me, my favorite female vocalist would be Audrey Assad and one of my favorite male vocals comes from Dave Barnes.

I imagine that God has the most resonant, quiet, raspy, solid, ethereal, deep, airy, gentle, powerful, twangy, brilliant, beautiful voice the world has never heard.

I imagine Audrey Assad and Dave Barnes and all of my other favorite artists blended and perfected into a voice that commands my utmost attention and awe. When I hear it unbounded for the first time, there will be tears and laughter and worship and near incredulity.

If the most talented mixer in the world blended every great singer's voices together in the same song, it would  sound awful. The melodies and harmonies may mesh, but the vocal tonal qualities would be too different to be compatible!

Somehow (because He is God after all,) and it is not beyond the scope of imagination, I believe God's voice retains all qualities, somehow unifying them into a symphonic mystery that is a delight to every ear--and best of all, His rejoicing and singing is over us!

Zephaniah, of course, is talking about God singing over Israel, but I bet it applies to us, too. God obviously loves music. He sure put an awful lot of it in this world! It would be no surprise to me, then, that God sings to   and about His beloved children day after day. What a joy that my Savior delights in me in such a way!