You Saved Me

"What if I lost everything that I had,

like a castle built upon the sand?

That's who I would be if I didn't have you my King.

But I called out your name and you, you came!

You saved me, you saved me, you saved me

And from the start, you overwhelmed my heart.

You are my hope in the day of disaster,

and in the days of peace you are my master.

Everything rises and falls on you my King.

You alone, you alone, you alone can heal me.

You alone, you alone, you alone can save!"

We say this quite often, that the Lord saved us through His sovereignty and He is the only one who can save and heal us, but that is vastly different than believing and living it. This truth is one of the most comforting to me right now. I have learned the hard way through many years of experience that everyone will fail you. Depressing, I know...but so true. And oddly enough, that's the way it is meant to be while we are here on earth. If the people that God places in our lives did not ever fail us, then we may not recognize our innate need for a relationship with God...He never fails. Got that? HE NEVER FAILS! There is nothing more encouraging than knowing that no matter what we do, God will never leave us or forsake us.

In light of God's unfailing love for us, it becomes apparent that He alone is the source of our salvation, justification, and sanctification. No matter how much responsibility we place on other people, no matter how much we depend on them, they will never be able to provide us with the freedom from sin and shame that Christ came to earth to offer to us. We have been cleansed and made righteous by Christ alone.

I will end with some of my favorite quotes...some applicable to this topic, some not:

• If you get your highs from the praise of men, you will go down to their depths at their criticism.
• If somebody is not making fun of your dream, your dream is too small.
• We are what we consistently do, not what we occasionally achieve.
• As you get closer to the heart of God, your burden will increase.

Time

Every single person is given 24 hours every day...groundbreaking, I know. But really, it's an interesting thing to think about. God has blessed us each with the same amount of time every day, but unique desires about how we want to spend it. Can you imagine how crazy it would be if everyone wanted to do the same things every day? Life would be terribly boring. Connected to these desires are the skills, talents, abilities, and gifts that God has given us...all unique...all fitting together...all constituting the body of Christ. We could have such an impact on the world if we sought God's direction and worked together. Our time would be so much better spent, our thoughts would be so much more productive and creative, our impact on the world could be so much greater. This is the way that God has created us...the essence of synergy.

It may seem like we have all the time in the world to accomplish what God has sent us to this earth to do...which, by the way, I don't think is one specific purpose, but a process of purposes...there are different stages of our ministry here, each of which prepare us and the people we are ministering to for the next step. But I will save that for a different post.

James 4:14-16 says "How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like a morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, 'If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.' Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil." The long and short of it is: God is sovereign. We may think we know what we want to do with our lives, but ultimately He is guiding and directing our lives...and His ways are so much higher than our ways. We may think that we have big dreams that are unattainable (BHAGs: Big Hairy Audacious Goals), but the truth is that if we submit our whole lives to the Lord, He can do so much more with us. Submitting and surrendering may seem like signs of weakness, but this is the life that God has called us to...through submitting and surrendering, we can accomplish so much more because of God's power within us. When we are weak, then we are strong.

Now the only plans I am making are to seek the Lord and follow wherever He leads me...my life means nothing if I follow my own paths and desires rather than the path toward the Kingdom.

All Business

You have full permission to call me a nerd after this...but not just any nerd, a business nerd. The School of Business is by far the best program at Liberty...not only do we have the best classes and professors, but we have our own dress code and even our own hallway...which consists of 4 classrooms. Don't laugh...contrary to approximately 25% of the things I say, I am not being sarcastic.

With the exception of one class (Operations Management, aka: the hardest class you will ever take), I have loved each of the business classes I have taken. Organizational Behavior 1 and 2 are the best and most applicable, which is what has spurred this very random and seemingly pointless post. (For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, Organizational Behavior is basically a class that overviews the inner workings of companies and the people who work for those companies.) Every single Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, when I arrive back at my dorm at 3:30, I hope that Brittany is here so that I can tell her about the crazy simulation our professor had for us that day.

For instance, today we had group presentations. My group was to be the last group to present...and our presentation was scheduled for next Tuesday...you know, one week from today. Therefore, being the college students that we are, we have not met as a group to prepare a presentation...or even read the chapters we were supposed to present on. We got to class and the group who was scheduled to present today did so, followed by two groups who were supposed to present on Thursday and were consequently unprepared (they are typical college students as well)...then, my group members and I come to the horrific realization that we are going to have to give a 25 minute presentation on chapters we have not read without a clue about what our class activity will be. We go up to the front of the classroom, with heart rates of approximately 250bpm, and the professor asks the class to choose two of us. The class chooses the two guys in our group. The professor says "OK, guys, you will be presenting. Ladies, please step out into the hallway." Uh oh...Elizabeth and I, being the girls in the group, were clearly the ones with the notes that we had frantically scribbled down from the book. We go out into the hallway, celebrating ceaselessly and exchanging multiple high-fives, and listen to the guys. It actually turned out rather well, and the presentation was not for a grade...so crisis averted, for now.

So there it is...a typical day in the School of Business. :)

The Way We Are

Over the past few days, as I have had various conversations with friends, I've noticed that there are vast differences in the way everyone has grown up: family situation, relationships formed along the way, the things we have struggled with, the different things we have been involved in, and so on.

Yet despite all of these differences, God is the God of us all. He may mean specific things to each of us, but He is still the Lord of every single one of His creations (which is everyone who has ever and will ever exist, if you were wondering). He died on the cross to save every one of us from our sins. How incomprehensible is that? It blows my mind to think about how complex it is for God to keep up with all 7 billion people who live on this earth right now...He hears every single one of our prayers, He knows us better than we know ourselves, He has had the stories of each one of our lives written since the beginning of time, He is more faithful and more trustworthy and more true and more genuine than anyone we will ever come in contact with, because He created them too.

Ok back to those conversations with friends. I have never met 2 people who have had the same situation growing up...everyone has had different experiences and has been exposed to different things. I have friends who grew up in Christian homes with great family relationships and have been following the Lord since one day in Sunday school when they were 6. I also have friends who come from broken homes filled with pain and emotions that no one should ever have to deal with and have had relationships with God that ebb and flow like the tides of the ocean. And, of course, everywhere in between.

That being said, I am absolutely astounded that God can take people from total opposite backgrounds and cross their paths for a while, building and growing their friendships beyond what we would have ever thought. We serve a God who can take people from their painful pasts to a place where they recognize His sovereignty, grace, love, mercy, and perpetual care for them. Only our God is worthy of all of our trust and faith...only our God can trade beauty for ashes...only our God is our shield, who protects us from the evil one every single time. He never fails.

By the way, I promise that not all of my posts will be this intense...ok, that may be a lie. :)