All You Need is Love

My life, primarily in my brain, goes through this cycle. Simplicity, a little less simple, complicated, frustrating, back to simplicity. I have come to realize that one of my core convictions is simplicity. I believe that life with God is simple. I also believe that God is far beyond what my brain can comprehend, his power is greater than anything I can fathom, his knowledge is far beyond anything my human brain could ever withstand, and life with Him is often beyond words. I do not believe life with God is easy, but I do believe it is simple.

God made my brain. He made me human. He made following Him something that would work with all those considerations. I like to overestimate my ability to comprehend with my human brain and then I end up in a whirlwind of assumption and question, but really God made things quite simple.

All you need is love. God is love. I need God. God loves me. I am saved. God loves others, when I love others I'm loving God. So simple it makes my head spin.

This morning I was reading in Hebrews 6 and I got stuck in two verses where I just couldn't get over the simplicity. Follow my train of thought for a minute. "Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God's promises because of their faith and endurance."

Love is the end-all. It all started with God's love for me. That's why Jesus came. Now God says we are to love Him and love others and if we do that we will fulfill the law, or basically, we will live the life God desires for us. So these verses...

How do I know that my hope is not in vain? "Keep on loving others...in order to make certin that what you hope for will come true."
I fear becoming spiritually dull or living a mediocre life. "Keep on loving others...Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent."
I want to imitate those who have faith and patience and inherit God's promises, but how do I get from here to there? "Keep on loving others...you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God's promises because of their faith and endurance."

So let's review. Loving others => hope fulfilled, being spiritually alive, living with faith and endurance, seeing God's promises fulfilled.

It's so simple! Love people. You want to follow God, you want to live the life He has for you which by the way is filled with hope and is for your good (Jer 29:11), then LOVE PEOPLE. That's it. Love God and love people. Simple, so so simple.

And one last note. There is the danger of complicating love. What is love really? How do we really love people? What does it really look like? etc. etc. etc. But I would bet that loving is far more simple than we'd like to believe. Let's try not to over complicate it.

Titles

Just a quick note on the name change. For years now my blog has been titled "The Illiterate Scholar." I started the blog right before I moved to Japan. Having just finished college and headed to a place where I would essentially be illiterate was why that name came to be. I've been back for some time now and the name seemed a bit odd to me at this point so I decided to change it.

"Expecting the Impossible." I've always loved the verse in Ephesians 3:19 that says that God is able to do far more abundantly that we can even imagine. In my life I watched that be true over and over. At this point of the journey there is no turning back, each day lived would be an utter failure if it weren't for God's power and ability to sustain and care for me. I took on a foster son who I've now adopted with an expectation that God would have to do the impossible to make it all work.

I am expecting the impossible because God is able, God is love, and in this life and world the impossible is necessary, it's where there is hope.

quick update

I came here to write about a little epiphany I had. I looked at the blog and realized I haven't written in over a year! To me that's a clear picture of how quickly time passes, and reminds me of how very much had happened in the last year. I won't go back to fill in all the details or share all the lessons learned, there is simply far too much. Not to mention, some of the reasons why I didn't write before are the same as why I won't now, too much, too complicated, too difficult, still processing and unable to articulate... Maybe some day I will be able to share all the lessons learned in the last year but right I will give you a wee little nutshell of what's gone on.

First and most importantly, I am finishing the adoptions process for Micah. As of June 23rd I will officially be his mom for forever! I am very excited about this. It has been a journey like no other and this is not the end of it :) That is both an exciting fact and a bit daunting, but I'll focus on the exciting part and trust that God will continue to take care of us just as He has been doing. Hmm, I will leave it at that. There is so much more to this part of my life, and such much more to this journey, but for now I will leave it unsaid.

Also, in the last year my friends and I started a Bible Study/Church plant. We have seen God do amazing things and it has also been extremely challenging. That seems to be how life goes.

God has been teaching me about being real with Him, about trust, about desire and trusting Him with it, about rest, about family, about seeking to please Him and releasing trying to please others...the list goes on and on and on.

Now that you have a little update on my life, I will continue on with why I came here in the first place and share about some immediate things God has been showing me.

Let's be honest

Considering how much we tell our kids the importance of honesty and how the Bible teaches that we shouldn't lie, the body of Christ doesn't always do the best job of being honest. I don't believe that it's an intentional thing, but also not terribly surprising considering the Bible also tells us that our hearts are deceitful (Jer 17:9). However, we gotta get honest if we want God's power fully working in us.

I've always thought the concept of lying to God is stupid since He already knows everything. Problem is, I don't always realize what I'm doing. I have a strong conviction about the power of our words. There are things that I absolutely refuse to declare over myself. For example, I will not say, "I always get sick," (which I honestly don't), but if I have a cold, I'm lying to say, I'm perfectly healthy right now. Gotta admit I have a problem I need the Lord's power to overcome.

There are things I want to do and want to be. I want to be bold, I want to care more about other people than my own comfort, but I can't force myself to become those things if they aren't what I already am. If I could, I wouldn't need God. All I have to offer God is who I am at this very second, and praise God, He says that's enough through Jesus' blood. What kind of fool am I to come before God and say, Lord here I am strong and ready to take on the world and bring Your kingdom, if the truth is, I am weak and desperately want to win the world for Jesus, but don't know how to muster up the courage and strength to do it. If I won't admit I'm weak, I don't leave room for God to pour out His strength on me. He tells me His strength is made perfect in weakness, but how often am I willing to actually offer my weakness to Him?

I was listening to a message, or maybe reading my Bible, I don't remember...something about Jesus, and God put this phrase in my spirit, "Let God have your foolish things." I don't like to be foolish, or admit that I'm foolish, but God says He'll use the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. Problem is, it takes humility, and humans just have a hard time with that. Paul says, "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom." (1 Cor 2:1). If I were Paul and God told me to go preach to these people and I knew I didn't have eloquent speech, I would probably want to go get some lessons or something before tackling the task. But God doesn't need prepared, super wise or skilled people, He needs willing people cause all that stuff He already has to offer us and can do it much better than we can. (That is not to say we shouldn't do things to be prepared etc., but we should not depend on our ability to do those things, we should depend on God to use our willing selves.)

So I've been working on being honest with God. I've been working on offer God my foolish things so He can take them and shame the wise. Quite simply I have nothing I am able to offer God other than who I am right now, with all the weaknesses I have, and all the strengths and skills He's given me. Offering God a fake me, that I think is more desirable, is dumb.

Here's me God. Here's my half compassionate self that I wish were more compassionate  take it, transform it, use it. Here's my partly bold unafraid self, take it, transform it, fill it with your never-ending love make it more courageous, use it. Here's my mostly selfish self that wants to be Godish, transform it, use it....the list goes on. I can only offer him what I have and what I have is not yet complete, but He promised he'd continue the work to completion :)

Right Perspective

This morning I woke up to be with the Lord. I cozied myself into a blanket in a our chilly sun room and was singing. I don't know about you, but I often come across things in my life where there's nothing I can do to change a situation or address a problem and in that regard I started singing "Jesus, I call on Jesus, name above all names, holiest one. Emanuel, God is with us, blessed redeemer, holiest one." God often speaks to me in song, but this one I was declaring. I was recognizing who my God is and the power in His name. Then He spoke. I started singing another song that I haven't heard or sang in a long time. "God is bigger than the air I breath, the world we'll leave. God will save save the day, and all will say my glorious, my glorious. And all You ever do is change the old to new..." He interrupted my cry to Him and said, "Sara, do you really know who you are calling on?"

I know I have a good God. I'm confident of His love. I'm confident of His care for me, and I see miracles on a regular basis, but even so I call out to Him with this thought of, I know this is hard God (this situation etc.), but you're God so you can figure something out. He's GOD. My situation may look challenging and it may seem like a solution will be hard to come up with, but He's GOD. For Him it is EASY. I am calling on the God that created the world. Out of a void, He made not only a something, He made a perfectly designed world complete with a vast variety of living creatures on it. Out of the DUST he formed a HUMAN. Regardless of what my situation, issue, feeling, brokenness, relational issue, financial state...He is GOD. For Him it's easy. He doesn't have to labor over plans and strategies, to God it is simple. He knows exactly what to do. "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" Rom 8:31

He heard you already

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" Matt 7:11

I've read this. I've contemplated it. God's given me some understanding of it and then I got a little guy to help me really get it. 

There have been a few times when I've asked God for something and then asked Him again and then again and then He told me to quit asking cause He's already on it and I need to trust Him. So when you're three, your favorite thing to do is ask questions. Lately, my little guy will ask for something, which I will tell him I'm getting, and then he will ask me over and over and over and over from the time it takes me to get that item and bring it to him until it is right before his eyes. I find myself now responding to his continual questions by asking him, "Did you ask me that already?" "yes" "Did I say I would do that?" "yes" "Do you think I am going to do that?" "yes" "Ok, then you probably don't have to ask me anymore, because you're right I will do that for you, it just takes me a minute." On a screen that could be read in a condescending way which is not how it goes, just a conversation, but as I hear myself remind him over and over that I am going to do what he asked and he really doesn't need to keep asking, I thought about me and God. I do what my little guy does all the time to God. "Hey God! Are you going to do it? You going to do it? You going to do it? You going to do it?" And already He told me yes. I can relax and rest in Him cause He's trustworthy. He WILL do what He said. Hm. I can enjoy where He has me and know there is so much more He's said is to come to pass in my life. In the same way when sweet boy has asked me for a glass of juice, he can relax and enjoy his food while I get it, instead of checking in on the status of his juice ever two seconds. 

God is as trustworthy as they come. If He said it, He will do it. 

One day I woke up a mom...

So a few months ago I gained a precious three year old boy. That's a story for a different post, you are welcome to ask if you want to know more about that, but what I'm really writing about is this one time Jesus reminded me that He loves me with a little lump of poo.

Earlier today I went to get him out of my roommates room to have him have some potty time. We're  potty training so we're in the "sit on the potty all day long" stage where we spend time sitting on the super awesome, colorful, music playing potty to practice putting our pee pee in there. Clearly when I say we what I really mean, is him. He practices. I'm already quite adept at using the potty. I put my pee in there and I put my poo poo in there and sometimes when I come out he asks me which one. Anyway, the timer went off and I went to get him. He happened to be playing cars with my roommate and didn't like the idea of interrupting his play time, so decided that chucking a match box car across the room as hard as he could was a better idea. I happened to disagree which landed him in time out. Now I felt that throwing a car was an unreasonable response and it happened to make me quite frustrated. So we talked, he said he was sorry and we moved to the potty. As he sat on the potty I was having a conversation in my mind about how I have to be quick to let things go, but how really I'm still frustrated. Not so much that he threw the car, it happens, but that he's learning appropriate responses to things and these types of responses still happen more often then I like. So as I wait thinking about how I need to not be frustrated, he poos. First time in the potty. Unless you've potty trained a kid, you probably don't realize how very very exciting a little poo in the potty is. God is gracious to me. As I tried to not be frustrated it all faded when God had my little guy drop a gift in the potty.

You can look forward to more adventures into motherhood with a three year old...Tis the season.