"Lord God and Father, I call upon Thee to enter all the avenues of my life today, and to share every detail of it with me, even as Thou hast called me to share with Thee Thy life, and all the wonders of it. As I am to share the destiny, glory, and future affairs of Thy Son, so would I now have Him share this small destiny of earth which is mine, the joys of it, and all its small matters, that we should be one, Thou and I, even as we are in Christ."

I am encouraged by the words of Jim Elliot and have made his prayer mine. I have realized that I am to live by the day, by the moment even, continually remembering Christ and my desperate dependency on Him, that I might fight the sin of self-sufficiency and rely on His all-sufficient grace.

"They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves." -Jeremiah 2:5b

"Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me," declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. (v15)

Our culture and the 'blessings' of America have helped to mask my self-sufficiency so much to the point that I hardly realize it. My friend Kristin just returned from India and I was speaking of this, and she gave me a great example. Every time her team did anything in India, they had to stop and pray and re-focus. They could not rely on themselves with language barriers in unfamiliar territory. She said when they wanted to go anywhere they had to continually put their faith in the Lord that they would have a safe driver who would understand them enough to get them to their destination. Here in the states, if I want to go anywhere I just jump in my own car and head out and usually without even thinking about my desperate dependency on him to get me where I'm going and do whatever I please.

"They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves." -Jeremiah 2:5b

"Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD yor God and have no awe of me;" declares thge Lord, the LORD Almighty. -Jeremiah 2:19b

I pray to understand my weakness that His grace may be strong in me every second of the day that I may be faithful with the things of right now for his word says, "Now is the time of the Lord's favor; today is the day of salvation." Now and Today. Who knows about tomorrow but the Lord?

July 30, 2006

i feel like the ER is the valley of the shadow of death.

one of our patients died my first day of work and i did CPR for the first time on my second day of work. i switched off doing chest compression with 2 other nurses. needless to say, it was no picnic. the patient didnt make it. i think ive kind of been in shock for the past few days. O Lord, that your rod and staff would comfort me!

what testing of my faith and growing me to maturiy these experiences will bring. this is only the start of what is to come. i pray he will grow me and make me strong for the day i leave my country, my people and my father's household and go to the land he will show me like he did Abraham. medical work can be very ugly and disheartning but he must make me strong for when i go and work in places that have far less the medical technology and hands like we do here in the states. i know nothing yet of the valley of the shadow of death. there are countries of which people live in death of soul and body, undernourished, suffering in illness of all sorts, not to mention the oppression of darkness that come with false religion. i must rejoice in my own discomfort that i may be made perfect in suffering as did my Savior. Make me strong, O God, that I may be content in every circumstance and not give way to fear.

June 19, 2006

the cross

ive been thinking about the cross. 2 things i realized that has made a huge impact on my understanding of the love of God through Jesus on the cross:

1. Satan fell from heaven because he was prideful in his own beauty and in the thinking that his way was better. Self-worship/self-sufficiency.

Implication: Most of us would not hesitate to agree with the fact that the wrath of God to be bestowed on Satan is deserved. But do we realize that we deserve the same wrath and hatred from God as Satan himself? Why do I say this?! --Is not his sin in a sense the very sin we commit? Choosing to "be in control" of our own lives and going against the pure and holy commandments which God has given us? Do we not doubt his character and sovereignty when we complain about our lives? (this is just one example). By this we say to God that our way is better and him and his ways are unworthy to follow. We follow our own desires and worship ourselves, slapping our very Savior in the face and saying that we ourselves, not him are worthy of our own worship. This is very humbling to me. Only by God's grace did he choose to count my sin unto Christ and not Satan's.

2. God the Father poured out all the wrath (hatred and condemnation) on Christ that we ourselves deserved.

He so loved the world that God crushed his Son for our sins. As Isaiah 53 says, he was marred beyond human likeness. Unrecognizable in his own body because of the physical punishment upon him. Not to mention the emotional and spiritual agony of the hatred of God against him.

Implication: One would think that God loved us more than he loved his Son! Think of the Trinity. The ultimate bond of love and holiness and perfection of the Trinity. God the Father severed the Trinity for the sake of man! Can you believe it?! Severing of the Trinity! A breaking that only God himself could do. Can you imagine him hating himself? That is essentially what he did. A holy, perfect, sovereign, almighty God accreditted our sins to himself and justified his wrath by pouring it onto himself! Just so that we might be reconciled to himself.
Is he not deserving of our worship? Are we not all passers-by of the cross, slapping our Savior in the face, with doubt that he has loved us and has forgiven us?! Gives a whole new meaning to "forgive them Father for they know not what they do."
"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not along with him graciously give us all things?" -Romans 8:31-32
How great is the love that the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! I have earned nothing, yet i have been given everything.

just some food for thought.