Month: September 2014

Sandbars and Faith

Every summer growing up, my family would vacation in Florida. We always went to Navarre Beach on Santa Rosa Island because of its beautiful and secluded beaches and because it was right in the middle of Pensacola and Destin which provided several “touristy” opportunities nearby. The best part was definitely the beaches. There were miles of virtually undisturbed powdery, sugar-white shoreline which gave us great access to the warm gulf coast waters. (Can you tell I love the Alabama/Florida gulf coast?)

I remember one of my older brother’s favorite parts was swimming out to the sandbars. They’re very common all along the gulf coast and because of Santa Rosa Island’s location, we could always count on a few being along Navarre Beach. My older brother loved them, I hated them. You see, you almost always had to swim over a trench-like part of the seabed to get to the sandbar and that terrified me. Being much younger and much smaller than my brother, I couldn’t touch and therefore had no concept of what was below me…to top that off, I’d seen Jaws and was terrified of sharks.

The summer that I was 8, my brother and his friends wanted to swim out to the sandbar as they usually did. My brother asked me if I wanted to go out to the sandbar with them and I wasn’t about to have anything to do with that. My brother told me that I could “ride” on his back meaning that I could hold on and he would swim. I was still hesitant to do this but I trusted my brother.

I held onto my brother as he and his friends began to swim out. Let me tell you, at the time that felt like the longest minute of my short life. In my head, I’d made a huge mistake and there was nothing anybody could say to me in that moment that was going to calm me down. I just knew I was going to die.

I see the same thing happening in life sometimes. We are confronted with some opportunity that is scary because it’s new and different. It may even be that we’ve seen someone else venture out in a similar fashion and have a terrible experience. We hesitantly step out in faith because ultimately we trust in God but the second we hit any sort of speed bump, we lose that trust. We forget about the faith on which we leaned from the beginning and we refuse to be calmed by any scriptures, any words of affirmation.

Why? Why do we constantly question Him? Hasn’t God proved Himself to be faithful time and time again? Yet, as often as He proves Himself to us, we revert back to the the questions and complaints. It’s because of our human nature to expect failure. It seems unreasonable to expect someone to be completely and totally dependable 100% of the time. I know that I am terribly guilty of this. It’s often hard for me to give complete trust to anyone including God Himself…but I also recognize the fault in this. I recognize that I continually receive opportunities that I simply don’t deserve; I haven’t “earned” them and never could. They are simply reflections of God’s faithfulness to me.

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t die swimming to the sandbar. I made it out there with my brother and actually had a blast with him and his friends. After some time we swam back and, while I was still nervous, I felt better having experienced the swim once before. We made it to the sandbar and the shore unscathed despite my fear and lack of trust, much like how it has worked time and time again in my life with my fear and lack of trust in God. It’s not always easy to have faith but take assurance that God is looking out for you. The end result may not always be what you expected but it’s always going to work for your good and His glory and ultimately, that’s all that really matters.

Music Monday 9.29.14

“You Make Me Brave” by Amanda Cook/Bethel Worship

This is one of those songs that really hits me hard right now in my life. It’s a rocky time in my life where I feel like I’m not really on settled ground. I’ve experienced a lot of change and it’s taken a lot of trust on my part. I read Psalm 16:1 almost every day right now especially because I know I couldn’t do most of what I do without knowing that God is right there making me brave.

 

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify featuring all the songs from Music Monday, feel free to follow it along with the posts.

Music Monday 9.22.14

“In Christ Alone” by Shane & Shane

While I lived in Dallas, I attended a Tuesday night worship service for young adults called The Porch at Watermark Church. One of my favorite parts about the service was the worship (shocker). It was typically led by Shane & Shane and it was incredible every week.

A lot of people know “In Christ Alone” by Stuart Townsend. While I’ve always loved the song, I’ve become particularly drawn to Shane and Shane’s version because of the addition of the tag and the musical setting. They would do this song often at The Porch and I’ve been enamored with it ever since I first heard it. I miss worshipping with Shane and Shane and everyone at Watermark Church but I’m thankful for the time I got to spend there singing songs like this one.

 

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify featuring all the songs from Music Monday, feel free to follow it along with the posts.

Accepted

I was recently talking with my good friend, Becca Wilson, about the realization that college students aren’t staying connected to the church. In fact, research from the Fuller Youth Institute and College Transition Initiative has shown that approximately 50% of youth who grew up in the church are leaving their faith behind in their college years. As someone who is passionate about working with youth and young adults, this troubles me. As a college freshman and someone who is passionate about her faith, Becca wrote this recently and sent it to me. I loved it so much that I wanted to post it on my blog. After some convincing, she is letting me share it with you.

“I recently went through recruitment and was offered a bid to a sorority at TCU. At first it seemed cool, a fun social group to be a part of on campus. But I had a gut feeling and after some serious thinking, praying, and talking with several people on and off campus, I knew my gut just wasn’t going to shut up about this one. Now don’t get me wrong, the people are awesome; every single girl I met through the recruitment process and after bid day was so welcoming and really seemed to care about what I was going through. There was just something in my heart telling me that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, that I was meant to be somewhere else. I just realized that Greek life wasn’t for me. Since I made the decision to drop out, I have been happier and more confident in who I am and where I’m headed, and I am 100% sure I made the right choice. However, there has been one stressor that has come with my decision. Multiple people, including me, have worried about my decision because of one reason, and I’ve been thinking about it extensively the past couple days. As a college freshman, this little phrase is EVERYWHERE in my life right now and it has begun to bother me quite a bit:

“In college you’re going to want to have a group you can identify yourself with”

Why? Why do I need people to define me? Why do I have to be a part of a group just to feel important on campus, and why does that matter at all? Of course in the beginning, I was guilty of this mentality, for sure. In fact, I would go as far as to say it’s one of the main reasons I even decided to go through recruitment in the first place. Every girl in every house would ask me, “Why did you decide to rush?” And every time I answered, “I don’t really know many people here, so I just want an instant group of friends to associate with and to know I can count on.” I’m not saying this is WRONG, but I’m saying there is something to be said for the fact that we don’t NEED to find a group to define us. Having a group of people who genuinely love and care about you, who you can go to for advice, for accountability, and for guidance, now that’s something everyone needs. But the fact that we, as college freshman, or as anyone really, should feel that we HAVE to find some sort of group to call our own is simply false.

Instead of running towards people who will make us feel accepted, and make us feel like we are a part of something, we should be running to the one who will never fail us, Christ. Can’t I identify myself in God alone? Can’t I identify myself as a Christian, with the church, with the community of fellow believers? Fellowship is very important to me, so I’m not saying that Christ is the only thing I need in my life. I strongly believe that my faith would not grow without the help of others, but I’m talking about identification, not existence. All of this college stuff, all the sororities, the clubs, activities, parties, they’ll all go away. Christ won’t. So doesn’t it make more sense for me to identify myself in Him rather than a fleeting social group? Honestly, this concept scares me to no end. The fact that I may never find a social group to call my own, the fact that maybe I won’t fit in. But you know at the same time it’s awfully comforting. God will never go away. I wish I could bold that one hundred times and scream it because so many people just don’t live their lives in a way that exemplifies that.

I believe in Christ’s eternal and unfading love. Since I’ve been at TCU, my faith has been tested through the activities I’ve tried to put myself into. My life before now has been easy, I was in band, and I had a home church. My path was laid out for me. I had easy ways to make friends, and I felt I was somewhere I belonged. When that suddenly all ended and I had to start fresh, I was forced to put my faith and trust in Him to lead me where I’m meant to be and it’s been a hell of a lot more challenging than I ever thought. I’m not telling you that being in a sorority is bad. I’m not telling you that not being in a sorority is bad. I’m telling you that if we are to call ourselves believers, our identification in Christ alone should be enough. Worldly love, worldly acceptance, and worldly comfort are all essential to fulfill our social needs, but you don’t need a group to have a purpose. Our primary purpose is found in glorifying God and through our worship of and devotion to Him we are fulfilling that purpose.

If you’re like me, stop searching for a group. Stop stressing out over being accepted and fitting into a certain mold these groups have for you. If you find one that uplifts you and helps you grow spiritually, by all means do it. If you don’t, just know that you don’t need that to feel accepted. Christ has already accepted you and in the end, that’s the only “group” that is truly everlasting.”

Music Monday 9.15.14

“139” by Gateway Worship

I first heard this song a couple years ago when I was in a service at Gateway Church. David Moore, who wrote the song, and his wife Aleena were leading worship for that specific service. Obviously music is very important to me; it’s an epic force, it speaks to me and often times it overwhelms me. This is one of those songs that easily overtook my emotions. The text is based on Psalm 139 which is ascribed to David(biblical king, not current worship leader). The whole chapter is this marvelous reassurance of how well it is that God knows us and yet still loves us. Everywhere we go, He is with us, watches over us, and leads us in His path if only we ask.

The chorus is my favorite part of the song. It paints a beautiful picture of the redeeming love that we have in Christ.

Where can I run from Your love?
You searched me and know all my heart
If I climb to heights You’ll be there
If I make my bed in Hell
You’ll lead me home

 

I’ve created a playlist on Spotify featuring all the songs from Music Monday, feel free to follow it along with the posts.

Hope Out of Fear

I had PE during 1st period my freshman year of high school. I remember changing in the locker room, grabbing my bookbag, and making my way back into the gym with my friends to head towards 2nd period English. As we headed out, there was a group of girls that passed us and I heard them say, “It was some accident with a small plane…” I didn’t think anything of it at the moment and never would have remembered those words had it not been for what happened next. I walked into my English class and the teacher had the TV turned on to CNN. In the time I had walked from the gym to my English class, a plane had hit the second tower. Everyone walking into class was confronted with the image of billowing smoke coming from these two towers. We never pulled out our books, we never even thought about English, we just sat and watched.

I honestly don’t remember much of the events over the next few days. I remember feeling genuinely afraid of what might happen…the fear of what else could be done to America, the fear of what we might do in return, the fear of how this would affect everyone, and more than anything the fear of how it concerned our military. My brother was serving in the National Guard at the time and would later go on to fight in Afghanistan. I just remember there being confusion and fear from everyone.

A year later, there were, of course, several memorial services. Schools, churches, community organizations, news specials…everyone wanted to commemorate what had happened and make sure that we would never forget. I attended several of those services and was inspired by many of them but honestly, I couldn’t tell you a single thing about any of them now 12 years later, only that they happened.

Another year passed and with that came more memorial services, fewer in number but every bit as patriotic as the year before. Again I attended several but couldn’t tell you one detail about any of them. What I can tell you is what my AP U.S. History teacher Mrs. Smitherman said on that day. She spoke to our class on the exact importance of why we must never forget. She spoke of the hope that can come out of our fear…out of our pain. She spoke about using that hope as motivation to not just be a participant but an active creator of a brighter future…how we as the next generation can learn from the unfortunate events of the past to shape a better world for the generation after us.

I’m inspired by the fact that 13 years later people still talk about that day in 2001. They share posts with one another, talk about where they were, thank active and former members of the armed forces, and spend some time remembering those who died that day. And while it is so very important that we do all of these things to commemorate that day, it’s equally important that we spend some time thinking about hope. More than anything, a hope that we can put aside our differences and work together for a brighter and better future so that our children, our nieces and nephews, our grandkids will never have to experience something like this.

I had never visited New York before the twin towers fell so I never got to see them in person but on a recent trip to New York, I had the opportunity to see One World Trade Center. I had been to New York several times in between the time the twin towers fell and 1WTC’s recent completion so I had become accustomed to the typical skyline. This new building towered over everything else. I was reminded of the fear I felt that day and in the days after but I was also reminded of what Mrs. Smitherman told us. To me, this building stands as a beacon of hope…a symbol of what can be born out of tragedy and fear. I will never forget what happened and I will continue to hope for unity committed to a brighter and better future for us all.

world-trade-center

The Patience of Job

I started a new series of posts yesterday called “Music Monday”. The premise is that I will post a musical selection every Monday and talk a little bit about the lyrics and the meaning of the song from my perspective, basically how it edifies me and how I hope it might edify you. I have two problems, one is that I love music and can’t get enough of it; the other is that when I start something new I have a tendency to be really excited about it and get impatient waiting to see it come to fruition. Since yesterday, I have written 15 Music Monday posts that are now just sitting in my drafts taunting me.

Patience is an annoying thing. I bet you thought I was going to say that it’s a virtue…well it’s that too but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a pain in the butt when you have to practice it. I have found myself being confronted with several opportunities to increase my patience lately…test after test coming my way allowing me to understand patience better. Even in the times I fail the test, I always find myself learning a lesson after the fact so either way I’m growing from the experience.

I’ve always admired Job. How can this guy watch everything he knows, everything he loves be taken away from him and still have faith? The best answer I can come up with is wisdom and patience. Extreme patience. In spite of his friends mocking him and telling him to turn from God, he continues his devotion. He waits on God.

Job’s patience pays off. He remains faithful for many years despite his suffering and God rewards that faithfulness. The thing is, I think Job would have remained faithful to his dying day regardless of what happened. It’s hard for me to imagine losing everything like Job did. It’s even harder for me to imagine that I would have the wisdom and patience like Job did to respond in the same manner. I’d like to hope I would; I’d like to think I would but there is the cold hard reality that I am broken and probably could not even begin to touch the edge of Job’s integrity.

So, in the meantime, I’ll continue to work on it. Patience is annoying at times but it is also a virtue and we’re made better for practicing it. In retrospect, think about how patient God is with us. I know that I fail Him on a daily basis but He doesn’t spite me for that. He loves me and forgives me. Doesn’t He deserve the same from me? At the very least an attempt to reciprocate?

I’m not going to post all those Music Monday posts at once like I’m so very tempted to do…I’ll be patient and save them (you may not even care as much as I do about them anyway). I’ll continue to admire Job and pray that I can even begin to glimpse, in my own life, the wisdom and patience he displayed. I’ll continue to lean on God for understanding in my every day life and learn more to wait on Him.

Music Monday 9.8.14

I’m starting a new thing. Each Monday, I’ll pick a song that I’m just really into at the moment. I’ll include a link to listen and talk a little about it. Here’s the first one:

“This I Believe (The Creed)” by Hillsong Worship

Sometimes contemporary worship gets a bad rap for not being as sincere as traditional worship music. Hymns are considered to be more “high church” with deeper theological grounding. Ben Fielding and Matt Crocker of Hillsong Worship answer that misconception with this powerful song. Its lyrics are based on the Apostle’s Creed and it’s meant to serve as a worship anthem for the modern church. It’s simplistic and at the same time profound. Many worship songs are oftentimes written to be a statement on a certain subject, an accompaniment to a specific topic within our faith. This song was written to be a statement OF our faith. It’s a collective agreement of what we believe as Christians, it’s the very foundation of our faith and it’s put to some excellent music.

Weird Kid

I was a weird kid. The only reason I use “was” is while I’m definitely still weird, I’m no longer a kid. When you’re a kid, everyone always asks you what you want to be when you grow up. All of the typical answers are baseball player, ballerina, doctor, astronaut…you know, all those jobs that seem really cool to little kids. In first grade, I remember my teacher at Creek View Elementary School, Mrs. Lovelady, asking everyone in class that very question. As she cycled around the class, everyone was giving those typical answers that you’d expect, then she got to me. I proudly proclaimed my desire, at the age of 6, to be a district attorney. I was a weird kid.

I always wanted to be a lawyer. I liked arguing, I liked talking, I had a keen interest in history and politics (yes, at 6) but, more than anything, I liked attention. And I didn’t just like having some attention, I liked being the center of attention. I loved the idea of standing in front of a courtroom and everyone watching me as I talked and argued about legal matters. As I got older, I would actually daydream occasionally about winning court cases. Let me reiterate, I was weird.

Obviously that’s not at all how my life turned out. I did spend the next several years with the same desire to be an attorney, all the way up until my senior year of high school. It was then that, with some nudging from my dad and my high school choir director, I reluctantly decided to give music a shot. In college, I fell in love with the idea of working in music and knew that’s what I supposed to do. Unfortunately, it was with the same mentality as wanting to be a lawyer…I fell in love with the idea of being the center of attention on the stage instead of in the courtroom.

By my junior year of college, I realized that I enjoyed performing and I liked having the attention, but I didn’t feel passionate about performing. I don’t typically like doing things “half-way” but I found myself perfectly content with it when it came to the stage. With some guidance from a couple of my professors, I came to realize my love for conducting. It was the end of my junior year and I didn’t really have any interest in doing music education so changing my major wasn’t an option at that point. Fortunately, I did land the opportunity to serve as an assistant conductor for one of the choirs.

I entered the field of conducting with the mentality of how much I was going to enjoy being, quite literally, the center of attention. I was going to get to make music with other people while being the focus of the rehearsal and the concert. In hindsight, I now see how I had slowly evolved from being a weird kid to being a weird jerk.

I entered graduate school with the same mentality; however, it was during graduate school that things began to change for me. For the first time, I started to truly appreciate working with others in a way that would give all of us glory. Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted plenty of the attention, I was just more willing to share it with others. While this new appreciation began to develop inside of me, I got my first job as a church music director in Texas.

I don’t recall any “lightbulb moment” or epiphanies. There was just this steady evolution inside me over time as I worked with my choirs at school and worked with the minister and musicians at my church. Eventually I got to a place where I realized, “Hey, this isn’t about me.” What a concept to grasp.

I left that first church and got a job as the youth choir director at a church in Plano, TX. It was here that I really and truly learned what it meant to be a servant leader. I fell in love with the youth of that church. They helped me to discover this passion inside myself for seeing them grow closer to Christ. They helped me realize that it really isn’t about me, it isn’t even about them, it’s really all about our ability to glorify the One who created us, gave us life, and gives us breath.

It was during this time that I received what I consider to be the greatest compliment I could ever receive. One of the youth wrote me a letter and shared that they had struggled with their belief in God, even considering becoming an atheist at one point. They went on to tell me that during one of our nightly devotionals on choir tour, they were able to begin the reconciliation of their faith because they “could see and feel Christ through (my) teaching”. As I read the letter, it became one of THOSE moments. I was alone in my office as I read the letter and I was overcome with emotion and just began crying. It wasn’t about glorifying me, it wasn’t about praising me; I was just the vessel through which the message was being delivered, I became emotional because I realized the powerful effect we can have when we get out of God’s way and let Him use us and speak through us.

I’m not one for definitions. I like things being a little ambiguous, I like gray areas, and I love playing devils advocate. Despite all that, I have decided to define, from this point forward, what success is to me. You can take it or leave it. I have decided that as long as people see or feel Christ through interaction with me, my life can be counted as successful. It’s not how much money I make, what possessions I have, it’s not even about bringing hoards of people into the church or making people happy. If I can shine the light and life of Christ into this dark and dying world, then I have done what I am supposed to have done.

It’s a process. Don’t think that I have this all figured out and that I am now completely able to set my own ambitions, cares, concerns, etc. aside and always have that mindset. Some days are easier than others and some days I find myself unbelievably impatient and frustrated with God. Then there are the days where I stop and remember that it’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s about Him and what He has done for us. Soli Deo Gloria.