Category Archives: GCBI

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.

A new season has begun!

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So here we are in Florida, having gone from one end of the country and back again. We have finally laid some roots. We unpacked our car with the distinct pleasure of knowing that we will not need to pack it up again for at least 2 years! I put dishes in cupboards and toiletries in cabinets! Woohoo! Simple pleasures, I guess.
We are here in Sebring, FL to work with The Great Commission Bible Institute, a 10 month discipleship and Biblical studies program committed to taking a small group of young people, equipping them with the ability to understand the Word of God, and sending them into their circle of influence to make an impact for Christ. We’ll be living on campus with the students and in charge of their day to day life and ministry activities. We also get the distinct privilege of having one on one discipleship relationships with each student, helping them to get the most out of their experience of having one year devoted to letting the Bible shape their worldview.  We are so excited to be a part of this program because it was life-changing to both David and I when we were students in 08-09. Now we get to be a part of that in other people’s lives.
We are also excited because it means we get to invest into a community; we have spent the last year traveling from place to place, staying with new people every week. What an adventure it has been! But, oh, how we have longed to have more than a few days to invest into people’s lives and then move on. We have missed that all important piece of life that God has designed us to have: Community. And as we have had a community deficiency this year, we feel especially passionate about making it a priority now that we are in Sebring. We want our lives to be shared. We want our doors to be open. We want to sit down to meals with our fellow Sebring-ites. We want to be poured into and to be poured out into the lives around us.
So what does this mean for my music? I don’t know exactly yet. I know that I am still ready and willing to share the songs God gives me whenever the opportunity arises. I know that I want to continue to write music as the Spirit leads. So we’ll see what happens with that. We also have summers off, so maybe there will be a chance to have some mini tours during the summer months… also a good excuse to escape the heat of the Florida summer :) .
So please continue to follow what God does in our lives in this next chapter together!