"So my dear brothers and sisters, stand strong. Do not let anything move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your work in the Lord is never wasted." 1 Corinthians 15:58
These are the words I have lived by for the past few days. And let me tell you something, I have never experienced as much joy as I experienced tonight at worship. There was literally one point where I was torn between tears and laughter because I was overflowing with joy. It excites me to the point that I want to tell everyone this verse. I want to post it everywhere. I was people to read it, and also believer it. I want people to know whether they are planning, running sound, doing lights, playing, PRAYING, just coming and participating that their work for the Lord is not wasted.
Work is one of those words that has a negative connotation accompanied with it. People rarely want to work. I never want to do my school work, especially reading, but if I can find a book to read that doesn't have anything to do with school, you better believe I will read that thing cover to cover in just a few days. It's the word 'work' that puts people off, especially me. I have found a joy in work lately though. Work doesn't always have to be negative, especially work for the Kingdom. It is such a pleasure to hold the responsibilities I hold in the different aspects of my life. The Lord is blessing me leaps and bounds through them all. I am creating new friendships with people that are just amazing at what they do and very few people ever know that. I am solidifying relationships with people that I have been friends with for a while and getting to serve with them is just making our friendship stronger. Every task that we may deem as small, from a simple prayer to pushing some buttons, is not wasted. The Lord sees it all. It isn't the act that we perform but it's the heart with which we perform it. It isn't success of an event but whether or not the message of Christ was displayed. I am so grateful to be where I am this year and I cannot wait to see what BIG, GREAT things the Lord has in store for me and my friends.
To wrap things up, I read Oswald Chambers this afternoon and one of the quotes I had underlined was "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." This was Chambers' rewording of Luke 10:19-20 which says
"Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven."
Here Christ had chosen 72 followers to precede Him into towns that He was going. The 72 came back from their various places and were so excited that "even the demons obeyed us when we used Your name." (verse 17). His response was simply that He had given them marvelous power but their excitement and rejoicing shouldn't be in the things they were doing, but just in the fact that they KNEW HIM. Such a display of how we should be as we serve. Our excitement and joy shouldn't be when we have a successful or smooth event, but rather in the fact that the Lord loves us....LOVES US and GIVES us the opportunity to serve Him. He gives us those opportunities. He doesn't need us to serve Him. Our service is nothing really when you think of the God who created the vast universe and the planets and stars and figured out how to make a human body run with such complexity. He lets us serve Him and that should be exciting and mind blowing to us.
I leave you with this song. I heard it a few weeks ago at church and have become obsessed with it. I love the first verse because it really embodies this passage that I was describing. Our lives should center, revolve, circle around Christ and our rejoicing should come in the fact that He is with us. So here you go.
"Because of Your great love, I can come into Your temple. Because I fear and respect You, I can worship in Your holy temple." Psalm 5:7-8
Is this real life?
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Here is the inspiration for the title of my blog tonight.
I know we have all watched and laughed hysterically at this video because the little boy is just so precious and everything he says is just hilarious. I have felt like him a little the past couple of days. No, not because I went to the dentist and had stitches on my teeth, but because there have been a lot of crazy things going on that have made me continually stop and ask, "Is this real life?" I just want to point on four things in this video that I have said or done over the course of the past few days. 1-Of course, the famous-"Is this real life?" 2-The part when he screams like a banshee, yeah I've done that a time or two. 3-I have asked myself over and over "Why is this happening to me?". 4-Finally, I've questioned "Is this gonna last forever?". Now let me explain.
Yesterday morning began in the most interesting of ways. My grandfather is suffering from Alzheimer's and he is continually getting worse as the days go on. This past week has been especially hard on him and my father who is acting as his caregiver. Yesterday morning I was woken up by loud noises, some shouts, and a couple of slammed doors. My grandfather had woken up thinking he was somewhere other than home. Never a good thing. It breaks my heart to see him suffer from this disease and yesterday morning, as he sat in his chair talking to someone that wasn't there, I began to realize the importance of savoring every moment you get to spend with the people you love and not wasting one second. I left for church feeling oddly blessed and encouraged. I want to put this song in here because it is becoming one of my favorites. We played this yesterday morning at the end of the service and every time I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes. The words are so true, powerful, and moving. And as I played this song yesterday morning, I thought of my grandpaw.
Now here comes the crazy. On my way to church, my roommate Laura calls me and tells me that a mirror fell off of the wall and sliced the pipe behind the toilet in half. Our apartment is soaking wet from the top to the bottom. Water was dripping through the floor of the second story into the living room, kitchen, and closet of the downstairs. I just laughed. Poor pineview. If you live here, you know what it's like. Somewhere between church and dealing with the flood, my twitter account got hacked which has just provided me with some extremely entertaining phone calls, messages, and tweets asking me what in the world I was trying to tell them. As I get to Athens, I am welcomed by a checkerboard ceiling, wet carpets, and no air. The water flooded the air conditioning unit and the heat was causing the apartment to fill up with a terrible stink. That terrible stink is contagious let me tell you. It took hold in the downstairs, the upstairs, and even inside of me. Yesterday I laughed about all of the crazy that was going on, and I woke up today frustrated and mad. Not very becoming.
The air was supposed to get fixed-it didn't. The carpet wasn't supposed to smell-it did. Things were piling up today. The children I nanny were putting on their worst attitudes for me. I was defeated by the end of the day. As I was cleaning out my room, where the temperature is averaging about 85 degrees or so, I ran across the sheet music for a song we had to do at BCM. I felt embarrassed for my attitude lately. It is frustrating not having air conditioning-but so many people all over the world live every day without air conditioning. The odor rising from my carpets is gut wrenching-but people are confronted with gut wrenching sights,sounds, smells all over the world every day. People don't always get their needs met-if I learned anything over the summer it was that. So I found this song and had to sit back and retune my attitude for a moment. The Lord provides our needs. He provides our NEEDS. I have food. I have shelter. I have wonderful neighbors and friends who are letting me sleep in their apartment each night. I have been given the chance to be patient and gracious and to be grateful for all the He has blessed me with. It's amazing how He uses things to teach us lessons. I was joking yesterday when I tweeted about our water pipe and used the hashtag #blessingsthroughbustedpipes?. But it's true. He is blessing me through this busted water pipe. And I'm learning the meaning of gratitude.
I know we have all watched and laughed hysterically at this video because the little boy is just so precious and everything he says is just hilarious. I have felt like him a little the past couple of days. No, not because I went to the dentist and had stitches on my teeth, but because there have been a lot of crazy things going on that have made me continually stop and ask, "Is this real life?" I just want to point on four things in this video that I have said or done over the course of the past few days. 1-Of course, the famous-"Is this real life?" 2-The part when he screams like a banshee, yeah I've done that a time or two. 3-I have asked myself over and over "Why is this happening to me?". 4-Finally, I've questioned "Is this gonna last forever?". Now let me explain.
Yesterday morning began in the most interesting of ways. My grandfather is suffering from Alzheimer's and he is continually getting worse as the days go on. This past week has been especially hard on him and my father who is acting as his caregiver. Yesterday morning I was woken up by loud noises, some shouts, and a couple of slammed doors. My grandfather had woken up thinking he was somewhere other than home. Never a good thing. It breaks my heart to see him suffer from this disease and yesterday morning, as he sat in his chair talking to someone that wasn't there, I began to realize the importance of savoring every moment you get to spend with the people you love and not wasting one second. I left for church feeling oddly blessed and encouraged. I want to put this song in here because it is becoming one of my favorites. We played this yesterday morning at the end of the service and every time I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes. The words are so true, powerful, and moving. And as I played this song yesterday morning, I thought of my grandpaw.
Now here comes the crazy. On my way to church, my roommate Laura calls me and tells me that a mirror fell off of the wall and sliced the pipe behind the toilet in half. Our apartment is soaking wet from the top to the bottom. Water was dripping through the floor of the second story into the living room, kitchen, and closet of the downstairs. I just laughed. Poor pineview. If you live here, you know what it's like. Somewhere between church and dealing with the flood, my twitter account got hacked which has just provided me with some extremely entertaining phone calls, messages, and tweets asking me what in the world I was trying to tell them. As I get to Athens, I am welcomed by a checkerboard ceiling, wet carpets, and no air. The water flooded the air conditioning unit and the heat was causing the apartment to fill up with a terrible stink. That terrible stink is contagious let me tell you. It took hold in the downstairs, the upstairs, and even inside of me. Yesterday I laughed about all of the crazy that was going on, and I woke up today frustrated and mad. Not very becoming.
The air was supposed to get fixed-it didn't. The carpet wasn't supposed to smell-it did. Things were piling up today. The children I nanny were putting on their worst attitudes for me. I was defeated by the end of the day. As I was cleaning out my room, where the temperature is averaging about 85 degrees or so, I ran across the sheet music for a song we had to do at BCM. I felt embarrassed for my attitude lately. It is frustrating not having air conditioning-but so many people all over the world live every day without air conditioning. The odor rising from my carpets is gut wrenching-but people are confronted with gut wrenching sights,sounds, smells all over the world every day. People don't always get their needs met-if I learned anything over the summer it was that. So I found this song and had to sit back and retune my attitude for a moment. The Lord provides our needs. He provides our NEEDS. I have food. I have shelter. I have wonderful neighbors and friends who are letting me sleep in their apartment each night. I have been given the chance to be patient and gracious and to be grateful for all the He has blessed me with. It's amazing how He uses things to teach us lessons. I was joking yesterday when I tweeted about our water pipe and used the hashtag #blessingsthroughbustedpipes?. But it's true. He is blessing me through this busted water pipe. And I'm learning the meaning of gratitude.
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