What I'm Thankful For

Thanksgiving...a day to reflect on all the blessings in our lives and focus on what we are thankful for. I find myself thinking back on the past year with a smile on my face. Lots has happened, both good and bad, and yet I have learned how faithful God really is and how exciting it is to be a part of His plan.
It was about this time last year that I was contemplating my future. I remember a conversation I had the first week of December last year with my friend Corrie while I was in Mexico. For the past 8 years or so my heart has grown more and more interested in mission work and what God is doing all over the world. I was really wrestling with the idea that we have so much here and so many people will go to bed hungry. I was wondering why God was breaking my heart for the world. It was a confusing time and I really felt lost. I loved my job working with teenagers. I really did like Cincinnati and I liked my church, although I was wondering if it might be time for me to move toward full time missions.
So Corrie and I really prayed for clarity. I had no idea in that moment where God would take me over the course of a year. In February, Corrie and her husband John moved to Nigeria from Mexico. I prayed about joining them for the summer to "get my feet wet" in more of a full time mission capacity. I applied to be an intern with Back2Back and was accepted. Still, I had no idea where God would take me in this adventure.
In June I took a group of students to Mexico and then in July I turned right around and headed to Africa. It was probably some of the best weeks of my life. I loved the culture, the people, and of course the children we were working with. And over the course of five weeks God showed me a ton...about me, about orphans and about His plan for this world. I was shocked as He not only gave me a heart for the people of Nigeria, but He gave me a deeper hurt for the kids that I work with. He shared truth with me about the lost and that we are all orphans until we come home to the Father. And He gave me vision for student ministry here in Cincinnati.
It was the opposite of what I expected. But it has been a blessing to come home and share that vision with our team and be on the ground floor of something I know God is building here. And in all of this, missions is still very deeply on my heart. Africa is still very deeply on my heart.
My hope is that I can mobilize a generation of students and their parents to care about the world. My prayer is that God will move in them to break their hearts for those who are lost and hurting. This is the hard part...because in our culture, it's so easy to just close our eyes to what is going on even in the middle of our own city. Its easy to sit in our little suburban bubble and not see past our own neighborhood. But this is why I think God brought me back here. To make sure that everyone knows what is possible.
And the opportunities keep coming. I will leave Monday for Monterrey again to build these thoughts into the lives of 25 women. In February I am going to Belize with an amazing group of doctors, nurses and others who are excited about making a difference in the world. And in June I get to take a group of students back to Mexico to impact the lives of some beautiful orphans.
My life is so blessed! So, if you want to know what I'm thankful for...it's that God takes simple lives like mine and allows me to be a part of His bigger story.
I don't know what the future holds. I'm here for now. But I do know the guy who writes the story and I'm totally confident that whatever the next chapter holds, it's going to be awesome!

Being Overwhelmed and resting

I know those two words don't go well together. "Overwhelmed" and "Resting". But I'm coming to realize that life in this world is nothing more than a challenge to balance the two successfully. It's been a super busy season for me over the past two months. There have been times where I have been running around from event to event or meeting to meeting and there is no break. It seems some days like I need more than the 24 hours that God has given us in each day to make sure everything on my list got done. Most of the time, everything does not get done. There have been moments of fear because the last thing I want to do is let anyone or anything slip through the cracks. But in all of it there has also been tremendous joy in the work that God has blessed me with and the people He has surrounded me with.

So the other day I was just thinking...how can we balance the reality of us getting overwhelmed with all that is pulling at us in life with the reality that God gives us rest? I'm not sure there are many quick and easy answers to this question, but here is where God has been leading me with it all. There is a difference between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. In the kingdom of this world we are pressed on all sides. There is always another task to do, another person to meet with, or another errand to run. This will always be so. The enemy loves to keep us busy...because as long as we are running around like crazy with deadlines and appointments and whatever else, we cannot spend time hearing from and focusing on God. The Kingdom of God has a very different agenda attached to it. In Psalm 46:10 it says, "Be still and know that I am God." Many of us have heard this passage before in reference to taking a bit of a sabbath and resting in the knowledge that God is Lord and has everything in control. We know that God speaks in the silence and quietness of rest. However, the rest of that verse hit me when I read it. It says "I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth." This brings a bit more power to the theme of God being God. And it brings a bit more focus to the purpose of our days. When I think about my day to day, I ask myself the question of how much of it is focused on the main thing? The main thing is that God is exalted and glorified in the earth. What I'm finding is that the days where I am getting overwhelmed are the days when my focus is more on me than on Him. The days when I find rest are the days when my focus is more on Him than on me.
Remember, He WILL be exalted...regardless of what I do. But His invitation for me is to find rest in the simple quietness and stillness of His presence. And then, I have the strength to go out and face the kingdom of this world with a more focused mindset. In that mindset, I'm able to recognize that it's God working and not me...and if I ask Him, He will direct my steps to the tasks that are most necessary for the day...keeping me from getting overwhelmed by the pace of this world.