A Lesson of Grace

"Pass up your papers."

Crap! My heart was racing as I gave in my quiz which was a full page full of words...words that didn't answer the quiz question.

I had thought the recitation teacher was giving us the full class time to write an essay so I spent the 20 minutes given writing up the mishaps that led up to the topic I was suppose to write about. I handed in my paper and pulled out another one. I spent a quick 10 minutes writing up the right answer and anxiously waited for class to end to ask the teacher to take it (I am almost confidant I have anxiety issues). 

I told him about what happened and how I messed up. The teacher wasn't willing to take my paper...but he was willing to give me a second chance. A chance, quite honestly, I didn't deserve. 

The teacher was showing me grace, the same grace God has shown me throughout my life. Even today, this second chance was an answered prayer. (you would've thought I would go through such anxiety without asking God for help)

God is faithful to all of his children. He is willing to give us that second chance no matter how un-deserving we are of it. And that's because he loves us unconditionally. 

No matter what we do, no matter what stupid decisions we make, he still loves us.

Break My Heart til it Makes Me Move

Human Trafficking has become a huge thing within my fellowship here at school. For the past 2 years, we've planned (or in this case, is planning) large events to raise awareness for the cause. This cause is also something that God has specifically placed in my roommates heart.

Just last week, there was a human trafficking screening held by some other club on campus.My roommate invited me to attend and I decided to go to gather more information for the event we're planning. As we were coming out from there, my heart was in pieces. My heart broke for all those girls in the documentary, hearing their stories. I was talking to my roommate about how badly my heart hurted for those girls and she asked me if it was because I didn't expect it to be that intense coming to the screening. And it's weird because that wasn't the case. I went there knowing exactly what I was going to see. I did a lot of research on the cause for our last event, I've shed many tears learning about this reality but my heart still broke as if it was the first time I heard about it. I asked my roommate if she was just numb because she has done so much research.

She said "No, I'm just past the point of just having my heart break for them, I want to do something about it."

Having our hearts break for what breaks God's isn't enough.
Sitting here just feeling bad does nothing for the sins of this world.

I understand not everyone will be called to go out and put their lives at stake for human trafficking or live in a 3rd world country building up a church. But God did create all of us to share the gospel, to tell others about him, to LOVE the people he created. How can we say we love someone when we are the ones refusing to show them how amazing our God is? To let them know that Jesus is the only way they can have eternal life? To watch them lead a life that may (I'm not the one to judge) just lead them to a place of eternal suffering?

What so many people fail to understand is, where they are right now is a missions field. You do not need to travel 5000 miles to touch the lives of the lost. There are lost people right here where you live. It can be your friends, your family, coworkers...there's so many people out there who haven't gotten the chance to hear about God. We have all been called to reach out to the broken and help God bring back the lost. We may not succeed, they may not be our's to save, but just planting that seed is enough. God will handle the rest.

Enough

My roommate went to Urbana during the Winter Break and she was telling me about her experiences there. She ended up sharing this video with me which I only got to watch it today. The speaker's name is David Platt, he's the writer of the book I'm currently reading. This message is basically the beginning of his book, its exactly what I read but I realized I missed a point which God used this video to reveal to me.

In his message, Pastor David Platt asked this question "is Jesus enough?" and it hit me, I've always known that Jesus is more than enough, I've sang worship songs on that a bajillion times whether its for Praise team or in the audience during worship, I've even told people that when they were going through difficult times..but does my action live up to it? I don't think so.

Being born in the U.S, I was blessed with a lifestyle that really isn't at all that difficult. There's so many things in my life that I can rely on, nothing I do really takes a lot of faith. My parents provide me with money for school, a warm house to live in, food..and so much more. I have a church family I can count on when I'm facing difficult moments. But at what point is God really all I have?

People who live in countries where loving God is illegal, those people gave up everything to follow him. They put not only their lives in danger, but also the lives of their family members. Some of them tell their family that this is the last time they will see each other because what they are doing for God at the moment may cost them their lives. Because they know how precious God is, they were willing to give up everything for him.

I'm not saying its better to live in a country where persecution exists but what if we took a step back and really see just how blessed we are. Those who live in a country that persecute Christians go out to share the gospel even if it cost them their lives. They're not doing this because they  have nothing to live for, they all must have families and people who love them very much but yet they are willing to risk it all for the sake of other's knowing God. Because they understand just how great God is and how much their people needs him, they were willing to give up everything to share what God's done. What about us? I know so many Christians who can come up with a ginormous list of excuses as to why they can't outreach to people..me being one of them. "I don't want them to judge me, I'm scared, I don't think I'm called to evangelize..." Ok so people look at us funny, some of them may reject us, we may hear some very uncomfortable hurtful things but how bad is that compared to knowing where those people will go after they die and doing absolutely nothing about it. Sharing the gospel is not a gift like tongues where only a few people will have it...its a calling God has given us all.

Like the story in the bible about a man who found treasure in a field. He sold everything he had to buy up that field because the treasure was worth much more than what he owned. Jesus is worth much more than the treasure he found in the field, so shouldn't we be willing to give up everything to follow him? Shouldn't he be more than enough for us so that we wouldn't have to indulge in material items to be happy? We have so much to give, we just need to have the willingness to give it up. Pushing ourselves aside so God can be the center of our lives. God is so great, he's like the entree in a meal, everything else we have is just the special garnishes he blessed us with. We don't have to have them, nor do we deserve them but we NEED God. He is more than enough.