Ski Lessons & Jeremiah
I am happy to say that I made it back safely from Colorado and managed not to break anything while skiing!
Tuesday morning, we hit the slopes bright and early. I was helping one of the girls learn how to ski because she had never been before. I'm not going to lie-I was petrified. Mainly because if she didn't learn how to ski, it would reflect bad teaching. I'll be honest, we had a rough start. For some reason, Sabrina had a tendency to move sideways instead of down the mountain. This is actually kind of hard to accomplish, considering that the mountain slopes downward. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what was going wrong. On top of the mysterious sideways sliding, her left boot kept popping out of her ski, which meant she fell quite a bit. [Or vice verse...she would fall, causing the ski to come off] Anyhow, it was slow going. Eventually, one of the guys saw us and stopped to take a look at her ski. Turns out her binding was messed up. Since it was set at 22 cm instead of 18 cm, like the right one, her boot wasn't fitting into the binding as snugly as it should have been. So we trudged up the mountain (which actually wasn't that great of a distance...if that says anything about how far we got.) Our youth minister was able to fix the problem, thankfully.
Once the binding was set correctly, Sabrina picked up on skiing very quickly. By her third trip down, she was able to ski down the entire slope without falling! I was ecstatic! This success does not necessarily mean that I'm a good teacher, but it gives me hope that maybe I'm not a complete failure in this area either.
There's plenty more to share, which I will probably post randomly over the next few days...the trip was a blast, as always. I just love getting to spend the entire week with my church family! I don't get to see them as much since I'm in school, so it's nice to fellowship with them on occasions such as this.
While traveling, I was able to get in some good reading time, which was definitely a bonus. I was able to read three books: Wrapped In Rain by Charles Martin, Betrayed by Rosey Dow & Andrew Snaden, and Finding Ruth by Roxanne Sayler Henke. All three were great works of Christian fiction. Some of the things I read in these novels, along with blog entries that I've been reading, have made some really good points about patience and contentment.
I like to think that I am both patient and content, when in reality, I probably don't display these qualities a good portion of the time. Harmony and I were talking just last night about patience. She's anxious to be done with school because she knows her plans for after graduation and she can't wait to live them out. I don't blame her one bit. I was telling her that sometimes I feel just as anxious, simply because I don't know what plans God has for me once I'm finished with school. There's a part of me that's anxious to find out what God has in mind; to go where He wants me to go and do what He wants me to do. I love that God is mysterious. I love that He has a grand scheme for my life, and He's willing to show it to me little by little in His own good time.
God could take me anywhere in the world, have me do anything, and I would be totally fine with His plan. He could also tell me to stay put, and I'd like to think I would be content with that as well. I think it's good that I'm excited about what God has in store for my life. I can remember a time when I was younger and ever the worrier. Seriously, when I was about eight years old, I felt like I was supposed to become a doctor, marry a preacher, and go to Ethiopia. Then I had the realization that to get to Ethiopia, I would most likely have to fly on an airplane. And that thought terrified me. (I felt the fear was justified a few years later when 9/11 occurred. But that's not the point.) The point is that when I was eight years old, I considered the possibility that God might send me somewhere away from my home. Maybe even far away. Maybe even to a place that's not very safe. I came to a point where I told God that even though I was scared, I knew He was in control and I would try to do whatever He wanted me to.
I still feel like God might be preparing me to go somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm very close to my family and I love them dearly. I'm so thankful that I have a place I can come home to; a family that loves me and prays for me constantly. I know I'm extremely blessed to have such a support system. That being said, it's not that I don't like being at home. I actually cherish the time I get to spend with them-even if it can be crazy at times. It just seems like I have something deep inside me that yearns to go. However, I don't want it to be a desire that I've conjured up and not something that God wants. If His plan is for me to stay, and not to go, I want to be content in that. Just as content as I would be if I were to go somewhere, shedding my fears and following by faith.
I honestly think it takes just as much faith to stay in a place as much as it does to leave it. I was reading in Jeremiah recently and in Chapter 42, the people in Jerusalem were freaking out because the Babylonians were coming after them. At the beginning of the chapter, all of the army officers and all of the people (from least to greatest) approached Jeremiah, a prophet who was their go-to guy for finding out what God had to say about things. They came to him in desperation, begging for a game plan. They had no clue what to do, no idea how to save themselves.
So they approach Jeremiah and ask him to have a talk with his God. They say, "Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do." (vs. 3) Jeremiah agrees to do what they ask. He assures them that he will tell them everything the Lord says, and that the Lord won't hold anything back from them. (vs. 4) Then they go on and request that the Lord be a witness against them if they don't follow whatever plan He sends them-whether they like it or not. "We will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God." [vs.6]
Ten days later, God told Jeremiah what should be done, so Jeremiah gathered the people into a huddle to share the game plan with them. This is what God said via Jeremiah:
Uh-oh....there's a however. This is probably important.
Whoa. So these guys are all huddled together, afraid for their lives because the big, bad Babylonians are headed their way. And God is telling them to stay put? And moreover, if they decide to flee, all the things they fear of staying will find them in Egypt? Ironic, huh? If they stay, God builds them up. If they leave, they are doomed.
Well, this wasn't exactly the plan they were hoping for. They were all geared up to leave, to move, to go-but that's not what God asked of them. They came before God begging for a solution, promising to follow whatever answer He gave-but they came with the preconceived notion that God's answer would be to leave. They couldn't fathom that staying would be a solution.
I can totally visualize the conversation:
And that's about how it went. The people accused Jeremiah of being a liar and told him there was no way God would tell them not to go to Egypt. They even went so far as to say he was conspiring with the enemy to mislead them. That's a low blow. So they packed up everybody and went to Egypt, despite Jeremiah's warning. [ch. 43]
I think that's what we do sometimes. We come before God, asking Him to show us His will, ready to go wherever He wants us to...but not expecting that the answer might be to stay. Or maybe, we are willing to do whatever He wants, as long as we get to stay in the place where we are comfortable...when in reality, He might want us to go elsewhere. It can go either way. The last thing I want is to come before God with a conditional willingness to serve; with a heart that has preconceived expectations, that is filled with selfish desires.
There's a verse, Psalm 37:4, that is one of my favorites. It says: "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Contrary to popular belief, this is not a free pass to get whatever we desire. The key to this is that we must desire His will for our lives. My heart must be filled with His desires, not my own. Mine are selfish and only hinder His awesome plan for my life. I constantly remind myself that this is the case-it's easy for desires of self to slip into my heart and corrupt the plans God has placed there. I constantly have to come before God and ask him to help me rid my heart of selfish desires-plans that I come up with that are doomed to fail-so that His desires are the only ones found there, in order for His purpose to be accomplished.
I was told by one of my Sunday School teachers to never pray for patience because God would surely give it to us. I remember thinking that I had to be really careful and not pray for it. I was afraid God would send a bunch of trying situations my way in order to develop patience. However, I've found that there are lots of trials in this life-lots of things that try our patience-and they come whether we ask for them or not. And whether we like it or not, patience is a quality we all desperately need-whether we're trying to teach someone to ski, waiting to graduate, or simply getting anxious about the next stage in life.
In the book, Finding Ruth, the main character wallows in her home town, waiting for a chance to leave. When she finally gets the opportunity to leave, the only purpose that it serves is to show her that home is where she belongs. The message that constantly creeps into her mind as God is working on her heart is: "Wherever I am, I am content." This comes from Philippians 4:11 where Paul is talking about how he has learned to be content, no matter the circumstance.
God promises that He has a purpose for my life, a plan perfectly constructed just for me. I want to live that out, whether it means going or staying. My prayer is that I will be willing to do whatever it is God wants me to; that I can patiently await the fulfillment of His purpose in my life, and that I'll be content with His plan, both for right now and the future.
This post was extremely long, I apologize. I've had a lot of thoughts swirling through my head. If you stuck with it and made it all the way through, thank you for reading. I wish I had prizes I could give away. Unfortunately, I don't. I would still like to know that you came by for a visit though. So do me a favor and post a comment. Say hello, tell me you love/hate what I wrote, tell me your thoughts on this topic, tell a joke, share some random trivia. I like to laugh. And learn new, useless things. :)
[How many of you thought I met a guy in Colorado named Jeremiah when you saw the title? Be honest.]
Tuesday morning, we hit the slopes bright and early. I was helping one of the girls learn how to ski because she had never been before. I'm not going to lie-I was petrified. Mainly because if she didn't learn how to ski, it would reflect bad teaching. I'll be honest, we had a rough start. For some reason, Sabrina had a tendency to move sideways instead of down the mountain. This is actually kind of hard to accomplish, considering that the mountain slopes downward. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what was going wrong. On top of the mysterious sideways sliding, her left boot kept popping out of her ski, which meant she fell quite a bit. [Or vice verse...she would fall, causing the ski to come off] Anyhow, it was slow going. Eventually, one of the guys saw us and stopped to take a look at her ski. Turns out her binding was messed up. Since it was set at 22 cm instead of 18 cm, like the right one, her boot wasn't fitting into the binding as snugly as it should have been. So we trudged up the mountain (which actually wasn't that great of a distance...if that says anything about how far we got.) Our youth minister was able to fix the problem, thankfully.
Once the binding was set correctly, Sabrina picked up on skiing very quickly. By her third trip down, she was able to ski down the entire slope without falling! I was ecstatic! This success does not necessarily mean that I'm a good teacher, but it gives me hope that maybe I'm not a complete failure in this area either.
There's plenty more to share, which I will probably post randomly over the next few days...the trip was a blast, as always. I just love getting to spend the entire week with my church family! I don't get to see them as much since I'm in school, so it's nice to fellowship with them on occasions such as this.
While traveling, I was able to get in some good reading time, which was definitely a bonus. I was able to read three books: Wrapped In Rain by Charles Martin, Betrayed by Rosey Dow & Andrew Snaden, and Finding Ruth by Roxanne Sayler Henke. All three were great works of Christian fiction. Some of the things I read in these novels, along with blog entries that I've been reading, have made some really good points about patience and contentment.
I like to think that I am both patient and content, when in reality, I probably don't display these qualities a good portion of the time. Harmony and I were talking just last night about patience. She's anxious to be done with school because she knows her plans for after graduation and she can't wait to live them out. I don't blame her one bit. I was telling her that sometimes I feel just as anxious, simply because I don't know what plans God has for me once I'm finished with school. There's a part of me that's anxious to find out what God has in mind; to go where He wants me to go and do what He wants me to do. I love that God is mysterious. I love that He has a grand scheme for my life, and He's willing to show it to me little by little in His own good time.
God could take me anywhere in the world, have me do anything, and I would be totally fine with His plan. He could also tell me to stay put, and I'd like to think I would be content with that as well. I think it's good that I'm excited about what God has in store for my life. I can remember a time when I was younger and ever the worrier. Seriously, when I was about eight years old, I felt like I was supposed to become a doctor, marry a preacher, and go to Ethiopia. Then I had the realization that to get to Ethiopia, I would most likely have to fly on an airplane. And that thought terrified me. (I felt the fear was justified a few years later when 9/11 occurred. But that's not the point.) The point is that when I was eight years old, I considered the possibility that God might send me somewhere away from my home. Maybe even far away. Maybe even to a place that's not very safe. I came to a point where I told God that even though I was scared, I knew He was in control and I would try to do whatever He wanted me to.
I still feel like God might be preparing me to go somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm very close to my family and I love them dearly. I'm so thankful that I have a place I can come home to; a family that loves me and prays for me constantly. I know I'm extremely blessed to have such a support system. That being said, it's not that I don't like being at home. I actually cherish the time I get to spend with them-even if it can be crazy at times. It just seems like I have something deep inside me that yearns to go. However, I don't want it to be a desire that I've conjured up and not something that God wants. If His plan is for me to stay, and not to go, I want to be content in that. Just as content as I would be if I were to go somewhere, shedding my fears and following by faith.
I honestly think it takes just as much faith to stay in a place as much as it does to leave it. I was reading in Jeremiah recently and in Chapter 42, the people in Jerusalem were freaking out because the Babylonians were coming after them. At the beginning of the chapter, all of the army officers and all of the people (from least to greatest) approached Jeremiah, a prophet who was their go-to guy for finding out what God had to say about things. They came to him in desperation, begging for a game plan. They had no clue what to do, no idea how to save themselves.
So they approach Jeremiah and ask him to have a talk with his God. They say, "Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do." (vs. 3) Jeremiah agrees to do what they ask. He assures them that he will tell them everything the Lord says, and that the Lord won't hold anything back from them. (vs. 4) Then they go on and request that the Lord be a witness against them if they don't follow whatever plan He sends them-whether they like it or not. "We will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God." [vs.6]
Ten days later, God told Jeremiah what should be done, so Jeremiah gathered the people into a huddle to share the game plan with them. This is what God said via Jeremiah:
"If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you...Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear. Do not be afraid, declares the Lord, for I am with you and will save you and deliver you from his hands. I will show you compassion so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your land. However..." [vs. 10-12]
Uh-oh....there's a however. This is probably important.
"However, if you say, 'We will not stay in this land,' and so disobey the Lord your God and if you say, 'No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the trumpet or be hungry for bread,' then hear the word of the Lord....'If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you to Egypt, and there you will die. Indeed, all who are determined to go to Egypt to settle there will die by the sword, famine and plague; not one of them will survive or escape the disaster I will bring on them." [vs. 13-17]
Whoa. So these guys are all huddled together, afraid for their lives because the big, bad Babylonians are headed their way. And God is telling them to stay put? And moreover, if they decide to flee, all the things they fear of staying will find them in Egypt? Ironic, huh? If they stay, God builds them up. If they leave, they are doomed.
Well, this wasn't exactly the plan they were hoping for. They were all geared up to leave, to move, to go-but that's not what God asked of them. They came before God begging for a solution, promising to follow whatever answer He gave-but they came with the preconceived notion that God's answer would be to leave. They couldn't fathom that staying would be a solution.
I can totally visualize the conversation:
"Okay, God...I'll go wherever you want me to."
"Stay."
"Excuse me, God? I must have misunderstood. I thought you said to stay...haha,
there's that famous sense of humor."
"Stay. I will rescue you."
"Come again?"
"Stay and I will build you up."
"Sorry, God. I was all gung-ho when I thought you would send us away from here...but I just can't believe this. Jeremiah must be a big fat liar. That can't possibly be the answer. I'm outta here."
And that's about how it went. The people accused Jeremiah of being a liar and told him there was no way God would tell them not to go to Egypt. They even went so far as to say he was conspiring with the enemy to mislead them. That's a low blow. So they packed up everybody and went to Egypt, despite Jeremiah's warning. [ch. 43]
I think that's what we do sometimes. We come before God, asking Him to show us His will, ready to go wherever He wants us to...but not expecting that the answer might be to stay. Or maybe, we are willing to do whatever He wants, as long as we get to stay in the place where we are comfortable...when in reality, He might want us to go elsewhere. It can go either way. The last thing I want is to come before God with a conditional willingness to serve; with a heart that has preconceived expectations, that is filled with selfish desires.
There's a verse, Psalm 37:4, that is one of my favorites. It says: "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Contrary to popular belief, this is not a free pass to get whatever we desire. The key to this is that we must desire His will for our lives. My heart must be filled with His desires, not my own. Mine are selfish and only hinder His awesome plan for my life. I constantly remind myself that this is the case-it's easy for desires of self to slip into my heart and corrupt the plans God has placed there. I constantly have to come before God and ask him to help me rid my heart of selfish desires-plans that I come up with that are doomed to fail-so that His desires are the only ones found there, in order for His purpose to be accomplished.
I was told by one of my Sunday School teachers to never pray for patience because God would surely give it to us. I remember thinking that I had to be really careful and not pray for it. I was afraid God would send a bunch of trying situations my way in order to develop patience. However, I've found that there are lots of trials in this life-lots of things that try our patience-and they come whether we ask for them or not. And whether we like it or not, patience is a quality we all desperately need-whether we're trying to teach someone to ski, waiting to graduate, or simply getting anxious about the next stage in life.
In the book, Finding Ruth, the main character wallows in her home town, waiting for a chance to leave. When she finally gets the opportunity to leave, the only purpose that it serves is to show her that home is where she belongs. The message that constantly creeps into her mind as God is working on her heart is: "Wherever I am, I am content." This comes from Philippians 4:11 where Paul is talking about how he has learned to be content, no matter the circumstance.
God promises that He has a purpose for my life, a plan perfectly constructed just for me. I want to live that out, whether it means going or staying. My prayer is that I will be willing to do whatever it is God wants me to; that I can patiently await the fulfillment of His purpose in my life, and that I'll be content with His plan, both for right now and the future.
This post was extremely long, I apologize. I've had a lot of thoughts swirling through my head. If you stuck with it and made it all the way through, thank you for reading. I wish I had prizes I could give away. Unfortunately, I don't. I would still like to know that you came by for a visit though. So do me a favor and post a comment. Say hello, tell me you love/hate what I wrote, tell me your thoughts on this topic, tell a joke, share some random trivia. I like to laugh. And learn new, useless things. :)
[How many of you thought I met a guy in Colorado named Jeremiah when you saw the title? Be honest.]
Hi, Sweetie! I LOVE what you wrote.
ReplyDeleteIt blesses my heart to read about what is on YOUR HEART. I smile, I cry, and I thank God for you and who you are. I don't want to embarrass you; but as I've said before, Grandmas have certain rights!
Love, Grandma