And we fall apart...

The best-laid plans of mice and men really do often go awry.

Have you ever noticed how everything we do is in an effort to improve it or to keep it from falling apart?  I mean, think about it: you brush your teeth several times a day so that your teeth stay healthy and free of cavities.  You work out at the gym so your body doesn’t become weak and worthless.  You go to work so you can have money to keep yourself provided for.  We put countless hours of effort into trying to maintain some level of stability in our lives and world.

Yet in a single blink of an eye, it can all fall apart.

Everything is hanging in a delicate balance, just waiting for the opportunity to break.

The first time I thought about this was when I saw a video of a bridge that was washed down a river within a matter of minutes.  How much time and money had gone into making that bridge?  How long had it endured the weathering of continual use day after day?  Whatever the answer, nature apparently didn’t give a whoop.

What I’m referring to is the second law of thermodynamics.  A good way to explain it is that nature is irreversible.  (Thank you Wikipedia!)  There is no rewind button on life, no way to undo time.  Of course, that is obvious; but think about how life would be if we could go back and perfect all of it!  We could rectify mistakes, avoid tragic events, embrace those special moments longer…just undo and redo everything until it’s all picture-perfect.

But how, if we lived a life of always redoing things, could that be called life?  How could we need a Savior if we could save ourselves?

I know I’m asking a lot of semi-rhetorical questions, but they’re questions my heart keeps asking me, and I suppose I’m hoping to answer them by asking you.

Do you ever feel like crying for no reason?  Or actually, it’s not for no reason; it’s for a reason you don’t know and can’t seem to figure out.

Yep, that’s me.

But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.  I can handle a tear or two.

Growing up is a hard thing to do.  Looks easy, hurts like CRAZY.  It’s like the difference between learning how to train for a marathon, and actually getting up at 4:30 every morning to run until you feel like there are a thousand and one needles thrust into your body.  (No, I’ve never tried…but maybe I should…)

Okay, it’s time to bring this back to my original point.

My point is actually a question.  Or two.

How much effort and work is really worth it?  If it’s all going to be stripped away from us in the end, why bother keeping it in good condition until then?

Why spend hours on the house of cards when you know perfectly well that a simple little breeze can wreck it in an instant?

Dear goodness, enough with the questions!!!

I think I really need to pray about this.  Colossians 3 does talk about putting your heart and soul into every single thing you do, and God gave us gifts and talents that we’re supposed to use for His glory.  How that totally plays into what I’m wondering about isn’t so clear in my mind yet.

But one thing I know for sure is this: We were put on this earth to praise and honor God.  There is absolutely nothing else worth living for.  Maybe I’ll never understand His plans or timing, and maybe I’ll just have to trust Him for my next breath for the rest of my life…but it’s all worth it if I one day hear “well done, good and faithful servant”.

I want to be everything God sees me to be.  Nothing withholding, nothing less than my best.  Why live half-heartedly when I could give it all I’ve got?

                          

Bucket Listing......Again??!

Hi everyone!  Long time, no write!

So let’s just cut to the chase.

I think what I’m going to do is update my bucket list every Wednesday from now on.  Or maybe I’ll just do it once a month…hmmm…

FIRST though, updates!!!!

How was your Christmas?  Mine was quite lovely, and even though it was literally 4 days ago, it feels like about two weeks.  How does that work??

Yesterday we had a surprise birthday party for my girl Morgan (You should follow her blog! HERE.)………which was great!  It ended in helium highs…which is always great, too…

I watched Despicable Me for the first time tonight!  It was quite funny.  About a minute and 17 seconds into it, I was wondering what in the world I was getting myself into, but it turned out to be rather adorable.

Aaannnd I made a gingerbread house today.  (I did it with Nicole; I feel that is worth mention.J) It was EPIC.  I shall attempt to post a picture…

Anyway, onto the bucket list updating!

(Sorry it’s not going to be in a cool font.)

21.       Make a cooking video!  This could either be really cool, really awkward, or really lame.  I’m gonna aim for the former.

22.       Climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument, and Leaning Tower of Pisa; there’s actually lots of famous landmarks I’d like to climb to the top of.

23.       Start my own business.  (Of what variety?  Who knows!!!)

24.       Change somebody’s life.

25.       Be a voice in an animated movie!!!!!  Tell me that wouldn’t be the coolest EVER.

26.       Record an album in Music City USA.  (Nashville anybody??!)

27.       This is kind of an edit of #18…but I’d like to go scuba diving.

28.      Fulfill every single thing on this eventually-very-lengthy bucket list!  (Hmm, I’d better make sure everything’s good…)

29.       OH this one’s cool…Own a house that has zillions of secret rooms, passageways, staircases, and chutes/slides!  That’s been my (almost) dream house ever since Sean and I realized we could bounce off each others’ imaginations.

I think I should pause here, mostly because if I plan on adding to this thing once a week (or month), THIS IS GOING TO GET RAAATHER EXTENSIVE.  But that’s okay, right?  It’s okay to dream. J

 P.S.  In case you hadn’t noticed, in 3 days, it will no longer be 2010……does that not boggle your mind?  It legitimately feels like we just started this year.  Wow, it’s crazy to see how much all of us have changed, grown, and matured this year.  God, I just love you!

Oh hey, it worked!  The little guy on the right there is wearing sunglasses, I think.

Bucket Listing!

I need to start a bucket list.  How does one go about this?!

Hmmmm…I think I’ll just make up my own rules for bucket-list-making.  As follows:

Rule One:

Desires should rarely be easily attainable. 

Rule Two:

Timeframe is irrelevant!  You can write down things that you won’t be able to accomplish until you’re 103, if you so choose.

Rule Three:

You must write down anything and everything that comes to mind.  Don’t think; TYPE.

Rule Four:

List should be numbered, but not necessarily in order of importance (see Rule Three).

Alright…LET’S DO THIS.

Jesseca’s Bucket List

1.     Take a photography class, and quite possibly become a photographer.

2.     Go indoor skydiving (or outdoor, depending on whether or not my bravery level grows over time).

3.     Doorbell ditch??!

4.     Eat the best chocolate chip cookie known to man.

5.     Design a line of clothing that will be known worldwide.

6.     Live to see the day the iPhone is no longer the coolest phone in the world.

7.     Swim with dolphins!

8.     Go to Disneyland, Disney World, Discovery Cove, Universal Studios…did I miss anything?

9.     Go on a very lengthy and extensive tour of Europe.

10.      Go to culinary school and see what I can do.

11.      Model a pair of jeans or two.

12.      Shrink.  I know that’s not possible or reasonable…

13.      Write a song that musically and lyrically expresses exactly what I’m feeling.

14.      Take a personally guided tour of the White House by the First Lady.

15.      Get married on a mountain.

16.      Go to ORU!!!!!!!

17.      See a Broadway show…on Broadway.

18.      Go snowboarding, skiing, surfing, wakeboarding, waterskiing, boating…

19.      Get a pet llama.  Or maybe just a pet horse.

20.      Ride an elephant and camel.

Well, there’s my start!  I gotta go have pizza with two of my favorite people, and then wrap some presents…It’s almost Chriiiistmaaasssss!!!

Imagine...

…A little boy, about ten, leans forward in his seat.  The man with the scroll is reading aloud those beautiful words, articulating every one like they were individual works of art.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…”

The little boy quietly shifts his weight; he’s been here for quite some time.

“…to bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim freedom for the captives…”

He could listen to the rabbi’s voice all day.  There is such power in those words, such sweetness.  The boy’s heart is throbbing with the passion that flows from the words to his soul.

“…a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning…”

Still intently focused on every word from the teacher’s mouth, the boy is well aware of the curious stares from the grown men who stand about him.  Some of them have befriended him; they are amused by his custom of never missing a single reading.  Others try to just ignore the little boy who remembers every word ever spoken here.

“For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing.”

 Why does something feel different today?  The boy is baffled; it feels like he’s on the edge of something, waiting for the final push over the edge.  Or maybe it feels more like a seed, ready to burst from the sprout it can’t contain any longer.  Whatever it is, he knows it will change him.

“…He has clothed me with garments of salvation…”

Salvation…there’s something about that word…

“…and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness…”

That’s me.

His heart stops.  The whisper rings in his ears, silencing the world around him.

That’s me.

It’s not so much of a whisper this time.  The little boy’s eyebrows furrow as the words slide down into his heart.  He can feel their roots slicing past the innocence and purity within him, binding themselves around the unquenchable hunger he’s always known.

That’s me.

He takes a quick glance at the men around him; can they hear it too?  Surely they do!  It was so clear that time.

I am the Savior of this world.

Suddenly, the boy is flooded with words, feelings, pictures, sounds that are utterly indescribable.  He feels like he’s falling, but undoubtedly flying.  Oh, he’s never felt such anger before!  And where is such delight found?  The beauty envelops him; his eyes close in the overwhelming magnitude of what stands before him.  Swirls of light, crashes of waves, whispers of angels…

There’s a hand on his shoulder.

“Will you sit here all day?”

The rabbi’s scroll is rolled, the sun slipping beneath the horizon, his mother watches from a distance.  The look in her son’s eyes is unmistakable…she had seen it in the angel’s.

Perhaps this child truly was a miracle.

*          *          *.

Hebrews 5:8 says Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered.  He was human.  He had to find His identity, just like you and me.  He probably didn’t have the answer every time, but He had the Holy Spirit to guide Him.  And He left the Holy Spirit in the earth so He could guide us too.

I don’t know what else to say!  Except that I hope this new perspective of Jesus can make Him more relatable to you.  He loves you.  He loves you!  He’ll wait as long as it takes for you to realize the magnitude of His love for you; and when you do, He'll be ready to give it to you.

Scripture taken from Isaiah 61.

A whole bunch of non-random randomness.

Hey y’all!  I figure the last few blogs I’ve written have been pretty deep…so I think I’ll write one with the intention of making you laugh!

So, first off, if you weren’t at Winter Blast, you NEED to hear this story.

Once upon a time, the bus got stuck in the snow…on the side of the road…for the THIRD year running.  Woo hoo!  Ummm…HOW, might I ask, does this happen??!  I’m sitting at the table, kinda sad that we have to leave in a few minutes, when someone informs me we’ll be waiting for another hour or so.  “Oh, the bus got stuck again.”  After we waited for a bajillion cars to stop passing, the tow truck finally pulled the bus out of the snow and approximately 23 of us survivors got on.

Then we found out that as a result of the stuck-ness it had just experienced, the bus had a flat tire.  We stopped maybe three times to try and get it fixed, but no luck.  Quote our “Vietnam veteran” driver: “It’s not smoking, so I think we’ll make it.”  How comforting.

 Okay, I know that’s not really a funny story but it was rather amusing at the time.

Ummm…hmmm…what else is new?  Oh!  It’s almost Christmas and it hasn’t blizzarded (sp??) yet!  Wonder of wonders for Colorado, right?  I just hope this doesn’t mean it’ll snow in June again…that’s just WRONG…

If you haven’t noticed, I really like ellipses.  It makes pauses in writing so much more tangible.  I have to make sure I don’t use them too much, though!  It’s nice to be on such good terms with a writing notation…

 So this morning, I was putting some peppermint mocha creamer in my coffee, and I officially realized that I’m a cream-and-sugar sort of girl.  Coffee just isn’t right without the stuff!  Then again, I have to drink decaf, which would not be considered “coffee” by certain coffee connoisseurs.  However, I don’t think anyone, coffee connoisseur or not, would like to see me wired on caffeine—it can get scary.

Well, I hope I made you laugh!  Or at least smile.  (Ask people who know me—making people happy is my goal in life.  Well, one of them.)

Sianara, my friends!  Go revel in the Christmas spirit and don’t get too freaked out about finals!  And if you haven’t started shopping yet (like me), you’ve got precisely 11 days to get ‘er done!

How much do you want it?

Or, to be precise, how much do you want Him?

That’s what God kept asking me this weekend.  Youth retreats seem to be the best opportunities to spend time with God because (1) if you live in Colorado, you’ll most likely be going to the gorgeous mountains that He created where (2) you don’t have anything else to do except seek His face and wait for Him and (3) you’re surrounded by amazing people who want Him too and you end up strengthening each other’s faith. 

In the days leading up to Winter Blast, I desperately began wanting to just bless God while we were there.  If nothing else happened, I just wanted all of us teenagers to come together as one voice to glorify the name of Jesus and make God happy and the devil mad.  As I found out later, a fight inevitably came with such an expectation.

Ever feel like God couldn’t hear you?  Or that your prayers were streaming out of your mouth just to evaporate, because if they were visible, surely God would respond?  Or maybe you’ve felt an ominous sense of discouragement and hopelessness that you couldn’t seem to get rid of, even though you have an entire Bible full of God’s promises, love and hope.

Well, I must say that I felt all of the above at some point this weekend.  And presently, I have so many thoughts floating around in my head that I would really appreciate it if I could grab each one, pin them down on the table, and analyze their content.

But since I don’t seem to be finding success in that area at the moment, I guess I’ll have to settle for trusting God with it all, and completely not worry about it.

Maybe that was His goal.

I’m starting to realize that the more we chase after Him, the more He makes us fight for the relationship we have with Him.  It doesn’t come served on a silver platter.  Sure, He says in James 4:8 to draw near to Him, and He’ll draw near to you.  But in the process, you have to have your heart broken.  You have to have everything you rely upon ripped away from you so He can become your only source of life and joy.  Sometimes you’ll feel like He’s far away from you, but it’s only because He wants you to find out how much you need Him and want Him.

The concept of this seems unfair.  Isn’t He supposed to be loving and kind?  Why would He want us to fall and feel lost from time to time?

Only because that’s when we learn that He will always catch us.  He won’t let you fall all the way.

 And really, it’s not unfair that He makes us fight to get near Him.  Besides proving how truly desperate we are for Him, He comes through every time and we just end up being closer to Him, right?

We’re on a staircase called Life.  We know that God is always at the top of it, and we want to get closer to Him, so with every passing day we climb a step or two.  It can get tiring climbing stairs!  We fight and keep climbing and eventually reach a plateau.  It’s at those places where we feel closer to God than ever, yet know we could still be closer.  We look behind us at the battles and laugh at them, and rejoice in the bliss of victory.  But then we look up and realize there’s another flight of stairs at the end of the landing…and guess Who stands on the first step, calling to us?

It’s mystifying how God works.  Without those times of rest, we’d be absolutely exhausted, but without the fights we wouldn’t have a single reason to rely on our Creator.

I guess for now, I’m content with not understanding everything.  I’m okay with feeling sort of lost, because I know I’m not and that God has everything under control.  I will continue to fight until I feel like I can’t anymore because He’s worth every tear and moment of pain.  And one day, who knows?  Maybe I’ll mature past the times of questioning and understand why exactly I’ve been where I’ve been.

Eternity in Your hands.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

I’m not even kidding, God is SO cool.  God led me to this verse last night while I was struggling to seek His face.  (Why does it have to be a fight sometimes?)  It slit right to my heart.  I didn’t necessarily feel a whole lot; it wasn’t like one of those huge, instant revelations.  But I knew that the verse was meant for me to read at that particular time.

I was still thinking about it today and tried a couple of different times to write something significant about it, but nothing seemed to come out right.  So I tried to just set it aside and work on some schoolwork.  I pulled up my health homework, and started looking up the Scriptures that I was supposed to write out and draw inferences from.  (Gotta love home schooling.)

And guess what the first verse was!

Yep.  Matthew five, verse eight.

I think I almost screamed.

God never fails to amaze me!!  And you know what’s even cooler?  It says in Isaiah 55:11, “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”  And in Titus 1:2, it says that God cannot lie.  So let’s pull out our good ol’ geometric reasoning and conclude something here:  God said that the pure in heart shall see Him…and He can’t lie…and the words which He speaks will always come true…so, that means that if my heart is pure before Him, I’m going to see Him.

I hope I didn’t lose you.  But this all goes back to my first post about waiting on Him.  Isaiah 40:31—“Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength…”  Lamentations 3:26—“It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”  Micah 7:7—“Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me.” 

God is so faithful.  He hasn’t left you or me out to dry.  Wait…wait…wait.  One day you’ll look up and realize that without all that waiting, you wouldn’t even be in the right place to receive what God wants to give you!  He’s there to fight for and with you, and guess what…He’s already won the battle, for it’s His, not ours!  Isn’t that great news? 

I honestly don’t know if this is making sense to anyone.  I’m not even sure it’s making sense to me quite yet.  I know all of the above with my brain, but I’d really like to know it with my heart.  And when I say know, I mean believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But back to the topic that started me on all this!

If you’re wondering how to be “pure in heart”, here’s what you do:  pray.  See? Simple as that.  “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  (Psalm 51:10; I hope I’m not boring you with all the Scripture references.)  He will forgive you, wash you, cleanse you, refresh you, all in His ever-perfect timing.

He loves you and can’t wait to show you His face.  So keep pressing in; He won’t let you down.

Deuteronomy 7:9—“Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”

P.S.  Is anyone else excited for CHRISTMAS!??  Only 16 more days!  Shhh…I haven’t gotten a single present for anyone…

Oh well!  It’s the spirit of Christmas I love the most anyway.

And just because I can say it:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!

Give it all, try to take some back.

If you’re like me, your own faults seem to be broadcast before you on a huge marquee, lit up in lovely flashing colors.  It seems like together they form the ever-present mountain that you know is there, but refuse to look at.  You try to run around this mountain of self-flaws, try to dig under it, try to jump over it; but the harder you try to leave your it behind, the more it seems to get in your way.

Fortunately though, God has a much more balanced view of our lives.  He knows us better than we know ourselves, and thank GOODNESS because otherwise…we wouldn’t have any hope for figuring out our lives.  But He sees every single precious gift that He crafted in us, tucked behind the faults we’re so set on emphasizing.

And speaking of gifts!

There’s a story/parable/analogy I’d like to tell you.

A man died and went to heaven.  At the gate, he met an angel who said, “Before I introduce you to God, I need to show you something.”

He proceeded to lead the man to a huge warehouse that seemed to go on forever.  Once inside, the man saw that the entire building was full of shelves, shelves that held rows and rows of presents; some rows were empty, others were scant, and still others were full of gifts.  Each box was different, and each bore a different name.  The man was confused.

“What are all these gifts for?  Who’s going to receive them?”  With a sad look in his eyes, the angel proceeded to tell the man what the warehouse was for.

“Every gift here was hand-crafted by God, each designed for a specific person.  But in order to receive all your gifts, you must take them while you are still on earth.  Otherwise, they end up here, never to be opened.”

I read this when I was little and it has stuck with me ever since.  God is offering us the best of life!  James 1:17 (NIV) says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  And also, He wants you to have all these wonderful gifts; why should you feel guilty for embracing the talents and passions He’s blessed you with??

For example.

Say you spend two weeks working on some big, elaborate present for your best friend in the whole world.  Christmas comes and you are just psyched to give them your labor of love.  Grinning from ear to ear, you hand it to them; they pull it out of the box, excited…then promptly frown and say, “It’s gorgeous!  But I’m not worth it.  You should give it to someone who deserves it more.”

Wouldn’t you be crushed?!  You just took two weeks of your life, love, and TLC to make a present SPECIFICALLY for them and they just handed it back to you!

I hope my point is made.

So join me in embracing the gifts, talents and passions God has given us!  Who cares about the faults?  Trust me, you’ll always be able to find one in yourself.  So why don’t we just leave those be and enjoy (thoroughly enjoy) the blessings God wants us to have.  You might just make His day while you’re at it.

“I won’t find what I am looking for if I only see by keeping score, ‘cause I know now You are so much more than arithmetic. ‘Cause…if I add, if I subtract, if I give it all, try to take some back, I’d have forgotten the freedom that comes from the fact that you are the sum…and You are the one I want.”

                        —Brook Fraser, Arithmetic

     Oh! One last Scripture:

    

     “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

                        —1 Corinthians 15:56-58 (NKJV)

"I've tried to let go, I really have..."

     “The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.”…Psalms 34:18.  Okay, so if you’re feeling discouraged and know you need a good Scripture pick-me-up, READ PSALMS 34.  Dear goodness, it’s a wonderful chapter.  (That wasn’t how I intended to start this, but I just had to mention that…)

Humility.  It’s an art, I’m quite certain.  In this world, it’s all about me, me, me; we think we’re entitled to drive a car, we think everyone should think like we do, and heaven forbid that we be forced to stand in line for more than 4.32 minutes.  On Sundays, we stride into church, sit in our lovely pews, then tap our watches, like, “Hey, umm…God?  You have about 20 minutes to show up, ‘cause…I’m starving.”

I have a newsflash though, honey.  Psalm 37:7 says, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.”  Or how about Psalm 27:14? “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”  Psalm 46:10—“Be still, and know that I am God…” (I’m getting the feeling that David must’ve done a lot of waiting on the Lord in his life…and he had plenty of time to do it too!  He probably didn’t have much to do whilst tending sheep.  Anyway.)

But oh man, does this next one hit me!  It grabs my heart and squeezes just hard enough to hurt, just gently enough to leave me awe-struck:

Isaiah 25:8-10—“He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken.  And it will be said in that day: Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us.  This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.  For on this mountain the hand of the Lord will rest…”

But…what if we didn’t wait?  Would death still be swallowed up forever?  Would all our tears be wiped away?  Would God’s hand still rest on the mountain He helped us climb?  People!  I am sorry, but where is our fear of God?

Look what we could miss if we stayed so focused on ourselves; doesn’t just the thought of that make your stomach hit your feet?  Thinking about the gifts we’d never gaze upon, the people we’d never meet, gives me that feeling you get when you just know the main guy in the movie is gonna end up dead.

I look around and see all this…brokenness.  People, beautiful, human people, my own age, fight through this life, desperately hoping they aren’t just another nameless face.  Am I so proud that I can’t even take a moment to notice them?  What reason have I to whiz right by, pretending to not care?  I may not have met these people, but God has.  And honestly, I’d rather be ten minutes late to my oboe lesson if it means seeing one certain person in heaven someday.  In someone’s moment of need, they should be way more important than myself.  (By the way, I don’t play oboe.)

Don’t get me wrong, though; there’s a time and place for everything.  (See Ecclesiastes; though I wouldn’t read the book unless you’re feeling pretty optimistic!)  There is a time to grab your closest friend and cry your heart out until there’s nothing left.  There’s a time to say, “Hey, I’m really, really not okay.”  And there’s a time to tell the world that you are the happiest person alive, too!  See, all in good timing.

I guess what I’m trying to say is…letting go of your own desires and will is so hard to do; in fact, it’s impossible.  Unless you have God to take the reigns from your limp hands when you can’t even let go.  But guess what?  He’s there.  Look up.  Surrender.  Don’t look back.  He’s got everything under control.  You’ll be eternally glad you let go.

All Scripture from the New King James Version.

Prayers and Answers and Things Like That

I woke up this morning feeling generally irritated.  So I started praying in my still-semi-conscious state.  “What am I going to do to get over this stuff?  I don’t want to do school, I don’t really want to do anything that requires work.  Yet I want to work my heart out at the same time, because I always feel more satisfied when I work really, really hard and get a lot done.”  Et cetera, et cetera.  So God answered my question with two questions.

Typical.

“Who in the Bible knew they had to do something that they didn’t want to do?  And how’d they get through it?”  Thanks, God.  You’re always challenging me to do more.  And be better.  And get closer to You.

So I thought about it.  David?  Yeah, he fought Goliath and everything…but that wasn’t the answer.  Noah?  He built the ark, which wasn’t necessarily a slam-dunk, but I don’t really recall the Bible addressing his inner hesitancies.

Then it hit me.  Of course!  Jesus.  When He was praying in the garden of Gethsemane, the last thing He wanted to do was die for the sins of who-knows-how-many trillion people.  His flesh didn’t want to be separated from God for 3 days so that the above mentioned people could spend their eternities with His Father.  Remember what He prayed?

"Papa, Father, you can—can't you?—get me out of this. Take this cup away from me. But please, not what I want—what do you want?" (Mark 14:36, MSG)

I’m quite certain that at that moment, every fiber within Jesus was screaming, “What am I doing?!  I am about to let these people kill me!  I’m about to be scourged and crucified and have a face-off with the devil in hell.  Oh, remind me again why I ever came down to this sinful world!”

Talk about the ultimate pain!  He was so agonized over what He knew He had to do that He was sweating blood.  That’s not just metaphorical—it’s a medical condition known as hematohidrosis, something that occurs under the most extreme forms of stress.

And I thought I was stressed out!

Compared to what my Savior went through for me, do I have a single reason to complain about anything?  He gave His life so that I didn’t have to go through my entire life separate from my Creator.

Anyways, back to the questions God asked me.  I answered the first one: Jesus.  The second question was “what did He do to get through this unwanted task?”  The answer: He prayed like crazy.

“The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].” (James 5:16, AMP)  And we are the righteousness of God in Christ, thus making those who are saved, righteous men and women whose earnest prayers will be answered.

I guess I just witnessed an example of that…and I didn’t even know it.  I prayed, God answered, and now I know what I need to do: pray my heart out and He’ll give me strength and strategy to get through.  Isn’t it crazy how God works?