Category Archives: bible study

The scroll of God’s call

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Ezekiel 2:4 I am sending you to them who are stubborn and obstinate children, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD.’ 5 As for them, whether they listen or not—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them. 6 And you, son of man, neither fear them nor fear their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions; neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their presence, for they are a rebellious house. 7 But you shall speak My words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious.

8 “Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.” 9 Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me; and lo, a scroll was in it. 10 When He spread it out before me, it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, mourning and woe.

3:1Then He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” 2 So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. 3 He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

At the Great Commission Bible Institute (where David and I are the Site Coordinators this year), we have been making our way through the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, and most recently we were studying Ezekiel. As I sat in on class for a bit, something struck a chord in me and God sweetly reminded me of a truth in those verses. The verses above are from the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3; these are words from Ezekiel’s commission. God is calling this man to a life of being His messenger in a very dark time with a very hard message. The people of Israel had been repeatedly forsaking their God and refusing to heed His warnings to return to Him and escape the coming destruction. But after grace upon grace, the reality of being taken from their land and dragged into captivity was upon them.

The setting of this moment in Ezekiel’s life is on the banks of the Chebar river in Babylon among the rest of his exiled people, dealing with the aftermath. If things had gone according to plan in Ezekiel’s life, he would have been just beginning to fulfill his priestly work in the temple in Jerusalem: the fulfillment of many years of preparation and anticipation. And yet here he was… sitting on the bank of a river in a land that might as well have been the other side of the world from where he longed to be. So my guess is that he is bearing the weight of disappointment and disillusionment as the one thing he desired for his life was stripped away from him.

And in the midst of that hopelessness, God breaks into his world in a catasrophic way and begins to lay out a call on his life that is so different than what he wanted, but here it was, coming straight from the mouth of God. He was swept up into the presence of God in His glory. And Ezekiel’s response is to fall on his face in worship. Here’s where the commission begins; where God begins to lay out the plan that He has for Ezekiel. He lets him know the specifics of his calling, that he will be sharing a message to the rebellious people of the house of Israel. He lets him know that they will most likely NOT listen to him. He lets him know that according to all logical and human standards, he is going to fail (if you read the rest of the book you realize that not only is he going to seemly fail, he is going to seem absolutely insane to everyone around him). But He tells him to do it anyways. Don’t focus on the acceptance of the message, focus on being obedient to what I’m telling you to do. There’s a lesson right there that we all need to let sink in.

But the part that really impacted me was even yet to come. So after God lays out for him the details of what his call is, there’s this weird part about God handing him a scroll to eat. He spread out the scroll and let Ezekiel see all the pain and hardship that was written on it, and then God asked Ezekiel to “eat what I am giving you.” Ezekiel intimately shared in the brokenness of God’s heart in the moment that he ate of the scroll. The call on Ezekiel’s life was not an easy one to swallow, it would be bitter and painful and offer him no earthly sense of accomplishment, and yet God, in His ultimate goodness was asking Ezekiel to trust Him enough to say “yes” to His plan. So Ezekiel accepted the difficult task ahead of him; He stepped over the mountain of disappointment in loosing his dream career, and he humbly received the new job God had for him, knowing the pain it would bring into his life. And here is the beautiful part…. “and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.” God made it sweet to him. There is no way that commission would be sweet on it’s own. But God gave Ezekiel the grace that he would need to accomplish the difficult task.

The things God may call us to face in our lives may be scrolls inscribed with lamentation, mourning, and woe. But if we will be humble enough to receive them from His hand with trust, He will make them sweet to us as well.

Bring what you have and let Him multiply it

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Here we are on the brink of the GCBI school year. 2 students are already moved in next door. Everyone else arrives in the next 48 hours. This is really happening! I, for one, am so excited to get this started; no more talking ideas and plans and google calendar-ing…let’s get down the nitty gritty and get our hands dirty with relationships. We can’t wait for our whole GCBI family to be here!

So this morning I was reading Matthew 14:13-21, and I want to share what God encouraged me with.

Jesus has just heard about his cousin John being beheaded. He retreated on the lake to spend some time hashing out his grief with His Father. And as he is returning to shore he sees the crowd awaiting his arrival. He sees them and is filled with compassion and begins to heal the sick. After a while his disciples are getting a little frustrated; it’s getting dark, they’re hungry, people are getting crabby. They try to get the Lord to finish up the whole ministry thing so they can go get some food and rest. But Jesus sees an opportunity for an object lesson. You know the rest of the story, they bring Jesus all the food they can find, 5 loaves  of bread and 2 fish, and watch as five thousand people are miraculously fed. Here’s the kicker: There were 12 baskets leftover. One for each disciple.

I love this. First of all I love what we learn from the Lord about where to take our sorrow and grief. He gets alone with His Father, plugs into His source, allows Himself that time to pray His tears before God. Because of that He is able to come to shore and right away begin pouring Himself out onto the crowds again. Our intimate time spent alone with God is what allows us to be able to live a life for others. Strength and endurance for  ministry, an ability to get over ourselves and be about others is a fruit of having a vibrant private life with the Lord.

Then we see that the disciples haven’t quite grasped this yet. They are going on their own strength. They see the circumstances and think, “this will never work.” Where Jesus saw the crowds of people as an opportunity for ministry, his disciples saw the crowd of people as an inconvenience. How often does the Lord provide an opportunity for ministry in my path, and I see it as an inconvenience? Probably too often.

I think this is where Jesus sees a teachable moment for his disciples. He could have had manna fall from heaven or snapped His fingers and had 5000 hamburgers appear in people’s laps. But instead he had his disciples gather what they had and bring it Him. And they watched as God stretched what they had to accomplish something so much bigger than they ever could have imagined. They got to see a physical picture of how Jesus wants ministry to work. We bring Him what we have. He multiplies it and makes it work. How many people will He feed with the little you are able to bring Him?

And then my favorite part. The 12 baskets left. Jesus was sending the point home. If you trust Me and do what I say, even when it doesn’t seem to you like it could ever work…. If you will not trust your view of the situation as much as you trust My view of the situation…. If you will step out in obedience and live a life for others even when you’re tired, hungry, and crabby, I will make you full and satisfy you in ways you never could have done yourself.

This was God’s encouragement to me as we get GCBI started this weekend. Kirsten, plug into Me for strength, bring Me what you have and watch as I multiply it, and relentlessly pour yourself out for the people I put in front of you, and you will be filled and refreshed by Me.

The God We Don’t Want to Talk About (via By the Light of the Green Lamp)

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One of my best friends in the world, Erin Williams, shared this on her blog. We are kindred spirits and she put powerful words to a notion we share.

There's a story that comes from one of my favorite works of C.S. Lewis. It tells of Shasta, a young boy on a mission to save a kingdom. It's a mission unbeknownst to him. In his mind, he's just a kid on the run. In his flight, he meets a young girl named Aravis. They travel together with many an adventure, narrowly escaping one predicament only to be thrown headlong into another. Along their journey they encounter a lion. There are tales from tha … Read More

via By the Light of the Green Lamp

Brighter and Brighter

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The path of righteousness is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.

Proverbs 4:18

 

This morning I am thinking of the path before us and how true this proverb is;  the light continues to get brighter and brighter as we walk forward, asking God to help keep our feet on the right path. Sometimes we have to step out in the darkness of dawn, when it seems like there is only the hazy promise of light that is coming. But as we walk forward and plant our feet sturdily on the path we know is right; slowly, steadily, the light of dawn breaks and we begin to see the path before us with growing clarity.

So we are on the road again. And this proverb could be our anthem. When David and I left Sebring, FL in the middle of March we had a pencil sketch of where we were headed up the East Coast to continue sharing my music. We started off in the mountains of Western North Carolina where we tucked ourselves away in the cutest little cabin for a week of quality time with each other before we embarked on a journey of being in other people’s space. It was a deeply refreshing time with each other and with the Lord. Then we scooted up to Greensboro where a couple of our dear friends from Sebring are living right now. We got to see their world there and were introduced to a thriving community within their church. It was really special to see them doing so well. I got to share my music with them in a house concert on Friday night.

Then we were on to Richmond, where a friend from our year at Bible school lives. We did some exploring of this cool town and really enjoyed the time we spent with our friend and her family. They hosted a house show on Saturday night (which was preceded by watching the college basketball Final Four game since VCU, located in Richmond, was making an unexpected appearance so far along in the tournament). So after VCU lost I got to serenade their broken hearts (Naomi’s Song really hit home since they felt like they had been emptied;D).  Sunday night I shared in our friend’s youth group with a group of really amazing teenagers that love the Lord.

Monday morning we made our way to Springfield to stay with my friends that I recorded my CD with.  I got to play at their church, Frontline Arlington, again on Monday night. I led worship with their team and sang a few of my own songs as well. Tuesday was my birthday! Started out the morning with some excellent coffee and pastries at a cute cafe in Arlington and spent the rest of the day just hanging out and answering Birthday calls from the people I love. David treated me to some birthday shoes (super cute). And then our sweet friends hosted a little get together to celebrate with us and we got to meet some really cool people. An impromptu house concert ended up happening and our new friends were so pumped about what David and I are doing, and they all went home with CD’s ready to listen on their way home! It was a really great birthday. Today, as soon as I finish this post, we will go take in the sights of DC on this beautiful spring day (the cherry blossoms are amazing right now I hear).

Every day of this week has held opportunities to share my music, some planned and some not! It is exciting to realize that when we stepped out on the path forward in the dim light of dawn, the light of day has become brighter and brighter to direct us into each new step of obedience.

 

The results are His!

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One of the benefits of our time in Sebring has been the privilege of sitting in on classes at this year’s Great Commission Bible Institute. Some of it is review, some of it is covering material we didn’t cover during our year, but it is all so good. There is even more to be absorbed after having almost 2 years to study on my own and figure out where my gaps are in my understanding of the story. We sat in on a class a few weeks ago and dove into the book of Jonah. There have been a few thoughts about it that have been lingering in my mind and have inspired me to share because they pertain to the work of preparation that God is doing in my heart as we set out soon for the road once again.

After God brought Jonah through all the consequences of rebellion (think 3 days in belly of whale) and pulled his life back up from the pit, He confirmed his call. Jonah’s call hadn’t changed because he had proved himself unworthy… God already knew that. But He still wanted Jonah to go to the people of Nineveh with a message. And Jonah was finally ready to be obedient. He steped out to share God’s word, and what followed is what seems like an immediate response from the king and the people; a response of obedience and readiness to get right with God. This was a huge deal! Nineveh was the capital of Assyria… the nation that had taken Israel into captivity. They were know for their brutality and for their pagan practices. And yet they instantly recognized the truth of a God that had a claim on their life, and they recognized Jonah as a messenger of God.

As we covered this I was thinking, “why was it that easy? it’s never that easy!”

But the discussion began talking shape about how this chapter is a picture of what ministry looks like when God has gone before you and prepared hearts. That is when true ministry happens.

My responsibility is to show up and to be walking in obedience with Jesus. I need to have made sure that I am personally ready to share the words that God has given me to share, and then share them with a pure heart. And then the response is completely dependent on God. I am not a changer of hearts! But He is. So it has been my desperate prayer that God would go before me and do the work of preparation that only He can do.

Not only are the results dependent on God, they are are decided by God. The next part of Jonah’s story that struck me was Jonah’s selfish response to what God did. When he saw the way God decided to show compassion and turn His wrath away because of the genuine repentance of the people, he was mad! In one sense, he had a reason to be angry as he had seen his people abused by this nation. The last thing Jonah wanted was for God to have mercy on them. He wanted judgment to fall on them! But he is stuck in his own assessment of the situation and he can’t lift his eyes to the bigger picture. So the lesser known final chapter of Jonah is him throwing a pity party for himself because God didn’t move in the way he wanted Him to.

I found myself relating to this attitude a little too deeply! In fact, I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit and had to ask for forgiveness right there in class that day. Too often I have been nearsighted and let the physical outcome of my work in ministry decide whether or not I am going to feel successful. Sometimes God is doing something totally different than I think He is, and I need to be willing to trust Him in that. My sense of success can never be dependent on whether or not people respond in the way that affirms me. God’s view of success is SO much bigger than mine… as much bigger as His view of the universe is than mine, and right now I can only see the computer in front of me. Over and over His call to me has been to lay down what I think constitutes success and let Him be in charge of that. Don’t count people in chairs, don’t count CD’s being sold, don’t even count how many people said they were blessed. Even if none of those things happen, I can know that God holds the results and there may be deeper ones than I could even quantify with my petty lists. My only sense of success should come if I can lay my head on my pillow tonight and know that God is pleased with how I used what He’s given me. Obedience is my responsibility and the rest is God’s. It’s relieving, actually.

A Bride Who Is Ready

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In Jewish tradition, when a man and a woman were engaged to be married, the time of the wedding was set for whenever the groom finished preparing a space for them in his father’s house. The bride’s job was to be ready for him at any time. She didn’t know when he might be done and come to sweep her away to the wedding ceremony. If she wasn’t ready at any given moment, she could be caught unprepared. Even in the night, an oil lamp was lit to let him know that she was ready for him then.

Jesus said to his disciples in John 14, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

Jesus is calling His disciples His bride. He’s saying, ‘I’m going away for awhile, but don’t for a minute think that I’m not coming back for you.’ And here we are, 2000-something years later, and we have yet to be retrieved by our bride-groom. But His promise is as true as the day He spoke it. He has been preparing a place for us so that we may go and be with Him, and meanwhile the story continues here on Earth. So we wait for His return, we anticipate our wedding day, though we don’t know the day or the hour.

Though, as I look around, it seems that instead of anticipating His return, we have forgotten altogether that we are to be waiting for Him. We’ve become distracted and discouraged. Distracted by the deafening call of the world to buy into the thought that this is all there is, we’ve believed the lie that life is about you finding your own happiness and fulfillment, so go out there and make it happen. It’s all about the Here and Now.

But there is supposed to be a hunger in us. There is supposed to be a longing that can never be quite filled. Because He has set eternity in our hearts, and we are made to hunger for heaven, to hunger for the day we will be face to face with our Creator.

Yes, but the Here and the Now is so easy to grasp, so satisfyingly instant. So we become distracted. Then when the world’s promises for fulfillment fall short, we become disillusioned and cynical. This is so far from what we need to be as those who hope in Christ! He is calling us to lift our eyes and fix our gaze on Him, the author and FINISHER of our faith. He has yet to bring this story to close, but He will. And we must be ready.

Have we become a bride that has forgotten that our groom is coming for us; asleep…disheveled…fallen out of love? Because He has not forgotten about us.

It is my firm belief that as the bride of Christ in this nation, we must get serious about the work of preparation, clothing ourselves with truth, love, unity, and a seriousness about God’s Word. Jesus is coming back to bring us to the wedding, and it is our responsibility to make ourselves ready for Him. I do not want to be one who finds herself unwilling and unable to run out and meet Him because I have not cultivated my readiness for Him. I am determined to grow an intimate anticipation for the moment that we will get to be together.

This has been a growing passion in my heart for the last year. This is the heartbeat of most of the songs I have been writing. This is the message I want to deliver. So, in my quest to find beautiful and poignant ways to say this one thing, I was able to collaborate with my dear friend, Erin Williams, who is a talented photographer, and who has a similar heart and style. We created a photo-series that visually portrays the story of my song I’m Coming Back, which embodies this message.

Please check it out to see the fruit of a serious labor of love… There are some ridiculous and fantastic stories that could be told about the making of this video, but perhaps that will be for another blog. For now, just watch and listen.

I’m Coming Back//Photo-Story

Spring In Montana

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It is spring here in Montana. Well, today it is. The sun is shining into the breakfast nook at which I sit, the remnant of my breakfast still on the table, surrounding my computer. The mountains I am glancing up at between sentences are capped with snow and blaringly bright in the brilliant sunshine. There are trees outside, but no leaves yet, though some are the deep dark hue of evergreen. There is some green appearing in patches on the ground, as the grass decides that it will live again. This is particularly astonishing to me, as there were about 5 inches of snow on the ground yesterday. Today fits the bill for what spring is supposed to be. Yesterday, not so much. This manic rollercoaster between winter and spring, sometimes within one day, has left me trying to grasp ahold of a rhythm that keeps illuding me.

It also doesn’t help that I moved here one month ago from Florida… Spring, possibly even summer, in Montana is more winter-y than winter in Florida. I am by no means an expert in the seasons, seeing as I spent the larger part of my life in Hawaii, where we tell seasons by which coast the waves are hitting, and whether or not there are guavas on the road to Hana.
But even in the few years I have lived in places with distinct seasons, I have come to realize what a gift the seasons are, and how much I am designed to live within some outward rhythm that keeps me moving, yet keeps me grounded.

I’ve been thinking about these ideas for the last couple days after recently reading these words from CS Lewis’, The Screwtape Letters (in case you’re not familiar with the story, it is a series of conversations between demons, talking about how to keep people from having real relationship with God, whom they refer to as ‘the Enemy’),

“The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating pleasurable. But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by the union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.”

These words ring true for me. I feel those 2 things at work at the same time inside me. I have sometimes thought my inner conflict between the love of change and love of permanence was a personality disorder… how can I want to live on the road AND collect teacups. Those two things just don’t go together! And though those two things may actually not practically go together (RV+porcelain=bad), the ideas behind both are from God. I value new experiences and exploring the unknown, and at the same time I value knowing that some things never change and there is a thread of constancy through my life.
He has synch-ed me to a Rhythm in which I am always changing and keep moving forward, but He is my Permanence, the Unchanging One, the Corner Stone. He is my immemorial theme.

So on this true Spring day (I’ve got to end this so I can go outside and sit in the sun!) I am reminded of God’s kindness to provide for that part of me that loves an adventure, and the part of me that loves a good cup of tea in grandma’s antique cup.

The update goes like this:
-My upcoming CD, The Coming Glory, is going to be done in few weeks! Keep an eye out for your opportunity to get a copy very soon! If you haven’t downloaded the 2 freebie songs, find those links on my last blog.
-We have an RV!… well, a truck and a 5th wheel camper… close enough! Thank you thank you to Eric and Shawna Nickisch who have offered theirs to us for the duration of the Kirsten Melrose+David Nickisch tour 2K10!
-Plans are coming together for the Melrose/Nickisch wedding extravaganza in June!
-We’re starting to set actual dates for performances this summer. Please let me know if you’re interested in helping set up a church or house show in your area!

My Portion Forever

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A few days ago I was driving down the Sebring Parkway with everything I own in my car. On one hand I felt like I was doing pretty well to have simplified my life so much that I can actually fit it all in my car. On the other hand it felt like it was still way too much. The pile of it is now sitting in Terrah’s (a kind friend who’s let me stay for a month)  living room waiting for me to go through it and downsize again, an event that happens pretty frequently even though there’s not much to begin with. It’s a strange feeling to have so little rooting me to a place. I feel like God is getting me more and more ready to head out in a new direction (which at this moment is in the direction of Bozeman, MT to be around the man I’m going to marry in June :).  But it’s also another reminder that my roots are not in any place… my roots are in Him.

This nomadic lifestyle can feel lonely at times; this constant state of unsettled is not for the faint of heart. But this morning I found a glimmer of encouragment as I sat down at the table (Terrah’s table) with my mug of coffee (my mug…soon to given away to some lucky recipient) and I opened up the Word (God’s Word). I’m reading my way through the Bible again and I am at Joshua. There’s a whole lot of land-dividing going on at the moment. But every now and then there’s a mention of a group of people I find myself relating to more and more. The Levites.

This is how things are going for the Levites as I read Joshua…

This guy’s family gets this land. That guy gets that land. “Only to the tribe of Levi he did not give an inheritence; the offerings by fire to the Lord, the God of Israel, are their inheritence, as He spoke to them.” (Joshua 13:14)

Give this guy’s family that section. That dude over there gets this portion for ever and ever. “[But] the Levites have no portion among you, because the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritence.” (Joshua 18:7a)

 At first I felt a little sorry for them… did they feel left out?… do they feel like the last kid chosen for the kickball team? And then I read again “…the Lord, the God of Israel, is their inheritence, as He had promised to them.” (Joshua 13:33) God is their inheritence. God promised Himself to them as they walked out the job He had given them to do. God set it up so that there would be a group of people whose lives were completely and totally given to worship and serve Him. They were a people set apart to minister to Him. Every resource they had went toward the tabernacle… nothing for themselves. But God promised to take care of them as they served Him. He wrote into His law ways that the Levites would be taken care of; parts of the animal that was sacrificed would be given to them for food; cities to live in and pasture land to raise the sacrificial animals were given to them by each of the other tribes of Israel. The Levite’s life was not about personal wealth… everything they had was for the service of the Lord.

Now, I realize that I am not a Levitical priest… not a descendant of Aaron or Abraham for that matter. But as I give my life to Christ I am part of a “royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that [I] may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called [me] out of darkness and into His marvellous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) Peter was writing to Gentiles… people spread out and dispersed in lands that were not their homeland. He was writing to people with no permanent home, possibly shepherds who were always on the move. He was writing to landless people… promising them a permanent inheritence as they pour out their lives to honor God. 

So as I once again pick myself up and move to a new place for an indefinite amount of time… I am confident and rooted and settled. Settled on the fact that I will “obtain an inheritence which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for [me].” (1 Peter 1:4)

God is my inheritence and my portion forever.

Update time:

1. I’m going to Washington DC to record an album on Feb 4th-12th with Tony Alany at Browndog Studios. Please pray for us be united and efficient in our goal to get it all done in that week!

2. I am engaged! David proposed on Christmas Eve and I said, “Yep.” We’re getting married in June in Montana, which is why I’ll be heading up there in a few months.

3. We are going to be doing some travelling after the wedding, hopefully in an RV that someone is going to lend us ;) , throughout the states. I hope to make some plans to play music  in churches/livingrooms of people I know. If you want us to make a stop in your town, please let me know!!!

Me and Mo (or would it be Mo and I?)

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Moses. Now there’s a guy I can relate to. Every time I read about him I feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit.

He hardly ever had a home. A constant sojourner, his roots were in Heaven. Psalm 90 is accredited to him and it starts out, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.” He seemed to have his eyes and his heart fixed on the Lord, and not on building for himself a comfortable life here on earth.

His life was marked with a sense of calling, not because of him being anything special, but because he was God’s chosen man for the moment. When God tells him what He’s going to have him do, he thinks of every possible reason why he is not qualified, capable, or even willing.

My favorite encounter in this season of his life is when he asks God, “What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’” God’s response to Moses’ doubt is that He tells him to take his  shepherd’s staff and throw it to the ground. When Moses did this, God turned it into a snake. God used what He had already put in Moses’ hands, the very thing that Moses used on a daily basis as he led the sheep around the desert of Midian…but He required that Moses throw it to the ground, let it go. When Moses relinquished it God inhabited it and turned it into something that would be a testimony of God’s presence with him. This is the miracle of being used by God, all you do is throw what you have at His feet, and He comes into it and uses it to draw people to Himself. God was reassuring Moses that people would recognize God’s annointing, and they would know it was about God and not about Moses. 

Another thing I love about Moses is that sometimes he seemed like a failure. He seemed to do what he was supposed to do, and yet things only got worse. He is obedient in telling Pharoh to let the Israelites go, and yet Pharoh’s response is exactly what Moses feared it would be, and he treated them even worse instead. I’m sure Moses was a little confused, he’d stepped out into the ministry God had called him to do, and yet it didn’t seem like God was really coming through with His end of the deal. But God was working on a bigger plan than Moses could see, and it involved getting him to realize just how desparately he needed God… Moses needed his failures to learn some valuable lessons. God’s bigger and better plan seemed like failure for awhile, but it was so that He could, “multiply His signs and wonders (Ex. 7:3).” He knew how He was going to display His power with the most impact, and Moses had to let go of how he thought it should happen, and let God do it His way.

Moses’ failures are incredibly encouraging to me. For it is often that things don’t look how I think they should look and circumstances aren’t as I think they should be, but God’s working on a level that I can’t even see, playing out His plan to bring the most glory to Himself. And I am learning to submit more of myself to Him, letting Him use me however He pleases, and surrendering my near-sighted definition of success. 

This barely scratches the surface of Moses’ life and his role in God’s story, but these are the specific ways that I’ve been learning from his walk with God.

Determined To Go

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One of my new songs is called “I Will Go”, and I wrote it as I was reflecting on the life of Abram. I was thinking about the way God called him to leave everything he had known, and to set out on a journey towards what God had in store for him. God asked him to uproot himself from his land, his people, his home: everything that Abram had as a sense of security and comfort in his life. But God did not ask these things of him without presenting an incredible promise; He was asking Abram to exchange all that he could see for all that he hadn’t yet seen or even imagined for himself. God was saying, “if you step out of what is comfortable and trust me, I will do more with your life than you could ever do alone.”

 

But this stepping out had to take place first; the emptying before the refilling.

 

I was thinking about what it must have been like on the road, maybe in those first few days after leaving all he’d ever known. The reality starts to sink in. Everything he owns on the backs of a couple of camels. Remembering the voices of people back at home who thought he was foolish for leaving the safety of the known for the uncharted territory of a walk of faith.

 

“Okay, so you heard God talk to you, Abe, but don’t make any rash decisions.”

“What’s your 5 year plan? What’s this going to do to your career?”

 

 God hadn’t told him exactly where this was going. He had just told him to go. He had just told him that if he went He would, “turn him into a great nation,” and “bless him,” and “make his name great,” and that “in him all the families of the earth will be blessed.” And Abram took God at His word. But it wasn’t until Abram had taken the step of obedience and set out on the road that God said, “this is it. This is the land I will give to your children.” God’s call in our lives becomes more specific as we go, and as we show ourselves faithful to take steps of obedience, God reveals the bigger picture one piece at a time.

 

Abram’s story is my story. As I started to write a song about this great exchange I found myself using imagery that reflected my own journey of letting go of what I knew so that God could take me on an adventure into the unknown.

 

Abram’s story may well be your story. That is the beauty of the timeless principles that God reveals in His Word. It was true for Abram in 1850 BCE and it is true for us today in 2009.  It will look different for each person, but it is always true that an adventurous and passionate walk with God will require an exchange of what I can see for what God has yet to bring into my life.

 

May we become those who are determined to go when God says, “Go.” Because if we will walk in that kind of surrender, we will be used by God in greater ways than we can imagine!