Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Road Through Ephesus... Saving Gift Ephesians 2:8

I love fall.  I love the colors, the coolness in the air, and the bonfires.  When the weather starts to turn a little cooler and I can wear my jeans and sweatshirts, I fall into an instant good mood.  Summer's funa and all, but nothing beats fall.  I realize that I haven't posted on the Ephesians portion of this blog for awhile now.  I still don't have my laptop back, and it just meant that I had to set up everything again when I finally got a loaner laptop (they had already had my computer for 4 weeks at that point... it'll be 6 this Saturday).  But, I am back, for now at least (this loaner seems to be rather tempermental at times).

So without further ado, let's jump back into Ephesisans 2!

Ephesisans 2:8

"God saved you by his grace when you believed.  And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God."

Allow this verse to penetrate the walls of your heart.  Let it resonate within you.  This is what our realtionship with God really all comes down to.  "God saved..."  Really you could stop the verse there and be done.  It pretty much sums everything up and it's a complete sentence.  Because that's really what's important here... "God saved..."  I love that this verse starts with what God does.  I love that it could technically end there too, but it doesn't.  God explains.  Because, let's face it, us humans can be down right dense at times.  Sometimes it takes reiteration of the point for it to sink in (and even then it can take us awhile to grasp it).  And since I love to look at synonoms to further understand, check this out:  God rescued, God delivered, God redeemed, God reclaimed, God restored, God bailed out, God liberated, God unshackeled, God salvaged, God saved...  Wow.  The picture that all those words together paints is breath-taking.  Do you see it?  Is your heart as enthralled as mine is? 

What makes my heart beat even faster is the who he did this for...  now add the next word of the verse onto all those synonoms for saved:  God resuced YOU,  God delivered YOU, God redeemed YOU, God reclaimed YOU, God restored YOU, God bailed out YOU, God liberated YOU, God unshackeled YOU, God salvaged YOU.  Doesn't that make your heart beat just a little bit faster with the knowledge of how much God loves you?

The last part of this verse makes me aboslutely giddy: "...it is a gift from God."  I don't know about you, but I love gifts.  Birthday gifts (which is happening soon), Christmas gifts, gifts for absolutely no particular reason... I love them all.  And I don't know about you, but usually I only give gifts to people I really care about.  If you're not that important to me, you usually don't get a gift (as always there are exceptions).  But think about God's gift in that light.  You are important to God, so he gave you this gift of salvation.  Wow.

But what are you doing with this gift he's given you?  What am I doing with this gift he's given me?  Am I living my life as if I have been given a precious and priceless treasure (which I have been)?  Or do I treat it like the kid who opens up underwear on Christmas morning?  Do we treasure this gift or do we let it sit in the top of our closets for years because we feel we have no use for it?

Sadly, too often, I think that I take this gift for granted.  I don't live like the gift I've been given is precious to me.  Too often I live my life on my terms without regard to the gift that God has given me.

What about you?  How are you living?  This week, together, let's live with a constant gratitude for the gift God has given.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Life...

I haven't had a computer for the past few weeks because it's been in for repairs.  It's still in for repairs, but they finally gave me a loaner after my dad called and yelled at them :-)  So when I finally get my computer back the repair shop will have had it longer than I did.  This is sad.  Very sad. 

My thoughts have been all jumbled up for the past few weeks.  I can't process without writing.  And it's way easier to type than to write by hand, though I have resorted to that a few times to keep from screaming.  So, now here I am.  Hands on the keyboard.  Processing emotions. Processing life.  Hanging on to my sanity.  I have missed this.  Tonight I just have the urge to write.  I feel like if I don't, I'll explode.  And I don't have time to do that since I have to work tomorrow.

Since I haven't had a computer for the last four weeks, this post might be totally and completely random.  Deal with it.

I went home this past weekend.  It was Heritage's Grand Opening service.  And it was amazing.  There are seriously no words to describe what God is doing through and in that church.  I miss it so much.  I think when I came back to Indiana, I left part of my heart in Michigan.  I wanted to minister there with everyone else and see what God is doing there.  I want to be a part of it in the day to dayness of it all.  So coming back to Indiana was hard.  But then, on my way home, I saw the coolest thing.  And it had God's fingerprints literally all over it.  I was driving along and had made it to about the Michigan Indiana border when it started raining a bit.  But then, I just glance over to my left and I see a rainbow.  I was so excited about that!  But as I continued driving the rainbow became stronger and stronger.  It was literally the brightest, most vibrant rainbow I have ever seen.  And then the second one appeared.  Yes, it was a double rainbow!  And you could at one point see the whole span of the first rainbow.  I have never seen anything like it.  It was God telling me that it was okay.  He understood where my heart wanted to be, but his promises were still good in Indiana and that's where he has placed me for now.  It was awesome.

Then I was about a half hour out from my Indiana home when I got a call from my aunt telling me that her friend's son wanted to know if I wanted to go to a college group with him to meet some people.  It would start about the time I would get back.  Now normally I would have said no, I needed some time to relax and recoup before work the next day.  Instead, before I really had time to process what I was doing, I said yes.  I hung up the phone wondering what I had just done.  I had gotten up early for church and had been driving for several hours, I really did not think I had the energy to go to this event, but now I was committed.  Well, I just have to tell you that I am so glad I did.   I met some really cool people who wanted to get to know me.  I felt like I fit with this group, like I belonged.  I felt like I had come home.  It was wonderful.  Even if I didn't get home until 11 and I think my hair still might smell like bonfire smoke.  It was worth it.

My great great aunt is in the hospital.  They've given her less than 24 hours to live at this point.  Her blood pressure is so low that they can't even get a reading on it when they tried to take it.  She's almost 92 years old and an amazing woman of faith.  Part of my heart is just breaking over this news.  Another part is happy that she won't be in any more pain, that she'll see her husband again, and that she'll see Jesus face to face.  But my heart hurts at the same time for the fact that we won't be seeing her for much longer.  I remember cooking with her up at her cottage.  I helped her and my great grandma (her sister) make fried chicken... and let me tell you, it was the best chicken I have ever had!

I'm working through emotions and what seems to be coming in the near future.  And then I'm working through the daily emotions I have.  Working with these high school students on a daily basis makes my heart break and rejoice all at the same time.  It breaks for what these kids are going through and that they don't know Jesus.  It rejoices over small victories: relationship building with them and good test grades.  I never thought I would say this, but I think these students have stolen my heart.  And that makes the pain and joy all the greater.

Sadly, I have to sign off for now, because my loaner computer is about to die.  But I promise it won't be this long again before I write again.