How to Operate.

Welp, back into the blogging. It's been a while...


So I have these random thoughts a lot, and I like to think that it is just me and Jesus pondering, dreaming, and loving each other in conversation. I know that all my revelation and understanding comes from Him and from listening to His heart. All good things come straight from that heart. It is a beautiful heart FULL of love and compassion and tenderness and FULL of ways to love His children. He cares sooo stinkin much about His children that He just can't stop talking about ya, giving ideas of how to love ya. He is crazy about you!!

I know that it is talked about a lot...almost as a joke in the church... that we aren't supposed to go and love people in clubs and drunks and homosexuals and lalala because we could be too tempted in that atmosphere. We use it as one of those funny one-liners that make everyone laugh, cause we know how ridiculous is 'sounds' BUT the harsh reality is that even though we laugh when the pastor says that in reference to "dead churches," or maybe southern baptist, or whatever, we actually are just as scared to live out the reality that we actually ARE supposed to love these people. Where they are. Where they are. Why? Because that is my brother. My sister. And so if that was family, blood relatives, best friends in that place... I would run in there and desire to pull them out of that place. I think that is where the relationship kicks in. Abba, Daddy, how do I love this person...specifically...right now? That's what I love about Jesus is that it looks different for every person. They are His kids too, they just dont know it yet...

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort." 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 

"We don't need any more programs or multi-level growth strategies. We need to re-teach people how to operate in real life, how to love the people they pass by every day, and how to stop using phrases like "I'm just waiting for God to open a door" and start knocking on some instead." -Relevant Magazine 

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6

We let the fear of man stop us more times than we EVER should. We have to stop that.

Amen, Jesus it is by YOUR grace that we look to You and not to man. It is by Your Spirit, Your power.  

NEW ART!

ART. ART. ART.

20x24

$150

(Indian Ink, Acrylic Paint, Pastel, Mixed Media)

8x10

$35

(Indian Ink, Acrylic Paint)

11x14

$70

(Acrylic Paint, Mixed Media)

16x20

$120

(Acrylic Paint, Mixed Media)

16x20

$130

(Indian Ink, Acrylic Paint, Mixed Media)

3 piece

8x10

12x12

$140

(Indian Ink, Acrylic Paint)

16x20

$120

(Indian Ink, Acrylic Paint)

16x20

$95

(Acrylic Paint)

Contact me if you are interested in buying a piece! They will support missions organizations as well as future trips that I lead through YWAM :)

His mercies are NEW

"His mercies are new, new every morning!"

This is the coffee shop literally right next door to our office. Like i've said before, Jesus has spoiled us. What missionary doesn't just love a good cup of joe?

I finally remembered the name of the girl working today! And we talked for about 20 minutes longer than usual- which one thing I love about my job is I can't talk about it without talking about Jesus. Come to find out, she just moved to the area and doesn't really have a community of people who love Jesus around her- and I now get to be apart of creating that community for her! Be praying for that, especially as I am about to leave the country for 2 months...

I love this because when we open our eyes to the people that we buy coffee from every week, we begin to see that they are broken, hurting, in desperate need of the love of Jesus! Just like the people of any other country. Mmmm, I love that! Jesus give us Your eyes!

honesty

Hello, Hello!

Wow, it has been a while. And with that, where do I start?
It's in the times that every day you are learning and challenged and growing and seeking that you can't and don't want to stop to think or to ponder or to write or anything, because you just wanna seek more of His presence, more of His revelation. We fear that if we are to stop and think, our momentum will slow, and when you are stewarding the overwhelming presence of the Living God, nothing in you wants to halt that.
So these past few weeks have been just that. Roughly 2 weeks I would say. Still going! Learning and gaining and pressing into Jesus' heart for relationships. Man, does He love relationships. He is passionate about them, scandalously, recklessly, desiring for us to know intimacy with Jesus. He is so passionate and so willing to teach, that if we open our heart, mind, soul, strength, He is faithful to reveal to us His heart of relationship. Not just a quarter of who we are, to love with our hearts, but to really know, physically love, with all of who we are. Why He created them, how He desires to HONESTLY teach us how vastly and uniquely and intimately He has relationships with each of His children. It blows my mind to think that we no longer are bound to what the world here has to say about what they think any kind of relationship should look like. When we begin to send boundaries and limits on what Jesus has in relationships, we have lost trust that Jesus knows our hearts best, and we begin to let limits and boundaries control our relationships and bind us here. Here to this earth. And that sucks! I know I don't wanna miss the fullness of Him. To put up a blocker in what He teaches us in saying "Heaven minded."
When we try and control and love out of our own flesh, we lose trust that Jesus knows how to love each person far better than we do, so as we press into that kind of revelation and understanding we begin to truly be set free to love. And I am not just talking about a love that is of us, but a love that requires all of us. Heart. Mind. Soul. Strength.
If we take a look at the relationships Jesus had with people in the Bible...HE BROKE SOCIAL NORM. Everything that was legalistic, He came and set people free of that mindset. He loved the women He encountered in the way that He knew they needed to be loved, disregarding the religiousness that would have withheld it. That is intimacy with Abba. Have you ever thought about the risk involved in that? That He sacrificed what was "ok" in society, what they thought at the time was how they guarded and protected their hearts, when really it was blocking them from being openly and embarrassingly loved by Abba... to love these women so scandalously, if you will. He was not worried about what the religious people would say, He was not scared of what it would have done to His name (when yes, He actually did it for His name sake, that people would remember why and how He loved. He desired that to be bound to His name) because He was more concerned at that time with loving His child so specifically. Risky? Heck ya! So why should our relationships with each other be any different? If we are called to love like Jesus does, if our relationships with each other are supposed to look like the example Jesus set...why have we chosen to water down His goodness? Why have we chosen, because we have, to take safety over the fullness? Which is not looking anything like what we have made relationship now. I know I don't want to live bound anymore! I wanna know Heaven minded relationships.
Why are we loving in only the way that we know how, because we are choosing to ROB JESUS OF HIS GLORY AND GOODNESS AND FAITHFULNESS IN RELATIONSHIPS! Why would we ever want to do that? So if that is the case, we have got, I have got, to re-train my mind with relationships. I want to love people as Jesus loves people. Because I trust that it is SO MUCH better than my love!
We cannot be afraid to let Jesus have control of our relationships, cause when we do take control, we are no longer operating in the fullness of His inheritance as sons and daughters of the King, but we are operating out of what we have heard. Jesus wants us to experience that! Jesus is restoring our idea of relationships!
"All that I have is yours..." Jesus said that to the son. If we desire to know the heart of Abba in relationships, we have to be willing to sacrifice what we know... for what is Jesus.
Yes, we are called to live different, but have we missed the idea of different? Have we become like the religious leaders, holding fast to the things of the past and not willing to listen to Jesus? Scared of change because it is so different.
Phrases like living above reproach and guarding your heart? We have heard those and have taken people's opinions on relationships more than we have sought Jesus for what that looks like. In that, we are binding ourselves to religion and not setting ourselves free in Jesus. We have to realize that Jesus' "different" is specific to each child, that when we say one thing, one way, for every relationship we are taking control.
I desire my relationships to be full! To be life giving. To be Jesus. I desire truth, and in that Jesus' presence has overwhelmed me with revelation far beyond what I can explain, what I can write.
Isn't God SO GOOD?! Take this and ask Jesus what it means for you.
He desires to teach you and always see you grow in this truth. That we are set free to love. LOVE.

There is healing. It is freedom! It is so fun! His presence in these moments is so strong that we can't do anything but praise Him. To praise who He is. For who He is. For Him to ask us to come into His presence is love. Wow, is that love.

I am honored to be learning this with Phil. We are honored to be carriers and LOVERS of His presence. It is sweet. It is good. It is an inexpressible joy because Jesus' heart to teach us and to have us teach others of His heart for relationship with each other... in the testimony He has given us, is far beyond compare. The only way to explain it is Jesus.
Ask us more, we like it! It's an adventure we have with Jesus. We are because He is.

In the few and far in between moments that I have to stop and breathe, it's fun to let your mind wander. To really question things far beyond your ever understanding, but at the same time to be completely lost and soaked in.


Here is one of those moments from my journal,


"I think we REALLY have to learn to cry out for His presence. Yes, we are His children, but being a child is more than just receiving the gifts of a father. More than just expecting to ask for things once and having it handed to us on a silver platter. Imagine that the first time you asked your parents for anything, they always gave it to you. I know that Jesus is NOT our earthly parent, but at the same time, we have to learn to be fighters. To be carries of His presence and to fight for the value of that. The HONOR it is to be in His presence. So if we want to see change, are we willing to fight for that? How willing are we? Where do we draw the line of our selfish needs to trusting God in His love?"


And yet, we forget...it's not really about us. It's about the love of the Father. 
It is far more than just that "personal relationship with Jesus" God's salvation is about a Kingdom in which He is the King. About restoring and re-ordering the Kingdom under His rule.
We are moving and progressing toward the harvest, the work of the Father, not of us. That whether we plant and cultivate the seed or we don't, it is the work of Jesus that the seed grows, because the soil is inheritantly good. 
Because in that little seed, is the DNA of the greatness. The fullness. 


John 17:1-5


After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.


Well, really you should just read all of John 17, cause it's just that good.

For we are SURELY alive

Luke 15:31

"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours."

Rest in that this week. Step and walk into the inheritance of the King. You are the sons and daughters, so that we do not live in a mindset of poverty, but of a different kind of abundance that He gives.

Have fun :)

week one.

Well. After all the anticipation of the students coming... they have now been here for a week!!
We are past the awkward, "I don't know you" phase, and have moved into living life together. It is in some senses exactly what I expected, but in some ways so much harder than I thought.
I am already learning patience, and to be moldable myself. I'm being asked questions far beyond what I know- which is fun to have Holy Spirit teaching and correcting me in every situation. I love that!

If you are my friend on facebook or follow me on instagram, i'm sure that you have seen the pictures from EVERYDAY here. I love getting to document this journey that is not only theirs, but one that I get to experience with them.

Here are a few from the past week, just in case you missed them:

Me and Aleesha shopping for ONE WEEK of groceries. Insane. 

Our staff student wall, that Jael worked so diligently on.

First day showing their new territory (Shell Beach)

Teachings...

Sing along with kazoos!

My new pet fish: Aashi :) and the little boy at the pet store who helped me decide which one to get

Worship and Intercession

Cracked windshield! No one was hurt, just a crazy freak accident of the hood flying into the windshield. 

surf's up dude! two of our staff teaching the students how to surf

beach volleybal 

smores delight 

SKYPING WITH LEA!!

and in the midst of the school, also planning a trip to India. Joy to my heart!

a little place I like to call home.

I am so very excited to see what else Jesus has! It's going to be far beyond what we ever thought.

And i'm not sure if I had mentioned it or not...but for outreach, WE ARE GOING TO SOUTH ASIA!!

More stories to come :)