A year or so ago I would have sworn that I didn’t care what people thought, but I have discovered that so much of what I do is connected to what I think people will think. Or at least what I think they will think. I was having a conversation with a friend not too long ago where I stated that there was some style of something that I didn’t think I could pull off. She said she thought I probably could I just wasn’t used to it on myself. She is probably right. There are probably many things that I truly could pull off and really do like but I have tailored what I wear, what I choose, where I go, and the way I do much of what I do because of what I think others will think about what I choose. I told her I just don’t want to be that person who thinks I can pull something off only to have everyone else looking at me going…really? The truth is, I have held back in so many things, even though I would like to wear it, try it, and go there just because of fear of what someone else might think about it.

Well, I have decided I am tired of living that way. Bound. Afraid. Limited. God is taking me through a process of actually finding out who I really am in Him. Not who I have been expected to me. Not who I have made myself look like. But who I truly am. Who He made me to be. I am going to learn again how to enjoy life day and see the fun in life. Jesus came to give us life more abundant and for too long I have just been trying to get through the day. I am sure it will be interesting and surprising both to me and those who are watching me go through it, but I am so excited for the freedom that will come through this process!

I know, I know. It’s awful. I still feel bad about it. I took off. I left her there in her collapsed chair, laying on its side on the ground. I don’t know how long it took a teacher to find her, but eventually our teacher came up to me and asked if they could speak to me for a minute. I am sure my face was bright red. I got up from the lunch table and followed her outside. She began to ask me about what happened. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t find words and I just froze there, which was unusual because I was never quiet. She looked me in my eyes, took me gently by my shoulders and simply asked me, “Whitney, why did you leave her?” I told her the truth. I was scared. I knew I had messed up and I didn’t really want to stay around to see how bad my mess actually was. I didn’t want to know if she was hurt because that would have been my fault. I didn’t want to know if the chair was broken because I would have caused it. I didn’t want to know if she was mad at me. So I ran. I ran from the mess and moved on with my lunch.

I can’t help but see that same story played out in the lives of so many people today. We start out with an idea, a dream, a request or something that we are excited about, and somehow we hit some bumps and mess up. Sometimes the truth of the matter is that we actually fall completely off the path we were on. What we thought we were going to do never comes to fruition. We get disappointed, hurt, frustrated, and disenfranchised. And we run.

We don’t want to see how we may have hurt people along the way. We don’t want to take a good look at what might have happened as a result. We don’t want to hear what someone may have to say about what we have done. We don’t want to take time to learn how we could fix it, learn from it, or take responsibility for what happened. Too many time we duck our heads, turn our eyes and run for it. We go into survival mode and find the next new thing to throw ourselves in to and try our best to move on with our day, or even our lives. My prayer is that for the rest of my life I have, and each of you have, a “teacher” (perhaps a person or even the Holy Spirit) in our world who will gently call us to the side, look us straight in the eye and ask, “What happened? Why are you running?” We have got to be people who take responsibility for even the messy parts of our lives, face them and allow God to teach us through them so that we are not leaving people stranded and hurting in our wake. We are not perfect. We will mess up. We will hurt people and disappoint them, but there are ways to make things right and work through them instead of running.

So to Shannon, wherever you are in the world today: I am so sorry for running that day. I was wrong. I have learned a lot since then, and I do much better at turns!

When I question them I have found that most who claim they do not want to be legalistic actually have no real understanding of what legalism is. Legalism by definition means: “a strict adherence to the letter of a law, rather than the spirit of a law.” It seems to me that those who don’t want to be legalistic often have no interest at all in the spirit of a law. For the most part it seems that they have no interest in the law at all…they simply do not want to be held accountable to anything. I am not advocating a life obsessed with law, what I am saying is that there is a place for Holiness and we often use legalism to excuse to live ruled by the desires of our flesh.

Jesus was hardest on those who prided themselves in their own “righteousness” because He understood that the best they could offer God was equivalent to a filthy rag. I am having to hold back from giving a graphic illustration of what that translates to, but lets just say that it would literally make most people cringe in disgust. I once taught on this topic to a group of college students as a polite description I lifted an open borrowed dirty diaper into the air and said that we take our truly legalistic works and standards and hold them up to God and say, “Lord, be honored by this! Be pleased with what I have done.” See the problem is that we often do these things as though it will earn us the favor of God when the only thing that qualifies us for Heaven is blood of Jesus Christ. Let me repeat that: THE ONLY THING THAT QUALIFIES US FOR HEAVEN IS THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST. The place where it becomes legalism is when we lose the heart behind the action. We adhere to the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law. It is when we think we are more righteous or are earning something from God because of our actions. The law and a system of sacrifice was set into place so that unholy people could be reconnected to a Holy God. When Jesus came He paid for ALL sin once and for all. He says plainly that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. We no longer have to work to make things right, Jesus has done that for us. But Paul’s letter to the Romans makes it clear that the Grace Jesus made available to us does not give us license to continue living in sin. It says that once we accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we are then a new creation and dead to sin. It has become so true in my life that the more I pursue Christ the less appealing the offers of the world are to me. All else seems as rubbish compared to Christ. More and more I can say that. Legalism is when we are still trying to earn what Jesus already gave to us, Holiness is our response when we understand what we have already been given!

Once we receive Jesus we are then to spend our lives pursuing two things: 1) to know Him and 2) to make Him known, which is simply a different way of saying what Jesus said were the two most important commandments: Love God with all your heart, your mind and your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. When we understand that the heart of the law is all pointed toward those two things then it is not legalism but a desire to pursue a Holy life that reflects and represents Christ that should cause us to embrace certain restrictions or what we would refer to as “law” in our lives. It is not merely blindly following rules or regulations, but desire to represent Him well.

Jesus broke the rules of “religion” but when He was doing it He was emphasizing that we were to live Holy lives before God. Jesus didn’t use it as an excuse to do less for God, but to do more! He used breaking free from legalism to change the world! It just absolutely makes me cringe when I realize I have used it to excuse a movie or a song or to fulfill the desires of my flesh. Freedom from law should give me the freedom to be far more effective, not put me in the place to keep people complacent and stagnant. That was not what His blood was shed to give us. He died and conquered death so that the same power could be alive within us giving us the power to have direct relationship with our Father and the power to do greater works than He did. It’s time to start running as though we intend to win, not simply make it to the finish line.

This is not even close to all my thoughts on this subject, but I just felt it was time to get some of it out.

www.8second.worpress.com

A little over 5 months ago I made a pretty significant shift in the direction my life was taking. Actually, it was more like a sudden stop. In the midst of this I jumped on a business opportunity with a company called Enlyten. My parents, who have been very successful in many different venues of the business world, introduced me to it. What caught my eye was its cutting edge strip technology as a delivery system of a variety of products such as energy and antioxidants to the body. You see, I have always had trouble with pills. I have a terrible gag reflex that makes it very difficult. The melatonin strips helped me to experience a restful night sleep, which I don’t ever remember having before. But I shortly learned something about the company that really caught my attention and made it clear that what I was apart of was much bigger than finding a source of income or a product that boosted my energy levels.

At a company launch in Dallas I learned that Enlyten had partnered with a Christian non-profit humanitarian organization called JAM (Joint Aid Management), which had discovered an effective way to meet the nutritional needs of children in Africa and had been seeing tremendous results over their 25 year presence there. Their research shows that every 8 seconds a child dies for reasons connected to lack of nutrition. That should be sobering and unacceptable to us, but unfortunately too many people read that, think nothing of it, and do nothing about it. I pray that you are not one of those people who can hear about the reality of suffering and return to life as usual. Now, I am not suggesting that everyone sell all their possessions and give everything they have to the poor and suffering, I am just saying we can, should, and must do something! I have found my way through Enlyten‘s partnership with JAM. A percentage of all I earn goes to the feeding of children in Africa. This partnership was one of the main selling points for me, because they not only feed help feed them, but we also provide Antioxidant strips to the children which delivers much needed vitamin and immune support to their bodies.

As I said, there is an urgency surging through me to do more. I want to be part of changing the destiny of these kids. I am in the process of developing some innovative concepts and events to raise support for JAM and to make people aware of the need and vision they represent, as well as the involvement and partnership of Enlyten (specifically the Empowered Living Network). I am excited and passionate about what is stirring within me and look forward to telling you more about it and the difference it is making in the world!

I thought back on all of this while I was reading a particular passage in Genesis that at first glance may not seem to correlate, but actually God really used it to show me a principle. I was reading the story of Abraham sending his servant back to the land of his relatives to find a wife for his son, Isaac. When his servant reached the well he prayed to the God of his master and asked that God would make his trip successful. He requested that God would have help him to know that it was the right woman by having her be willing to not only give him a drink, but also to water his ten camels. When Rebekah came to the well he asked if she would lower her jar and give him a drink. She offered not only to give this to him but to give water to the camels as well. The thing I noticed was that he did not get all excited and tell her everything as soon as she offered to do this. It says that she quickly went and got water and continued to get it until the camels were satisfied. Remember, there were at least ten camels so this was no small task. He waited until she had finished doing everything she said she would before he asked to be brought to her family and revealed the reason for his journey. There are so many people saying they will do this or that and we get excited, but the problem is the lack of follow through.

Having helped in youth ministry for a number of years I hear kids all the time justifying their choice of friends and boyfriend/girlfriend by saying something along these lines, “They said they believe in God.” or “They said they are really trying to do better in that area.” etc. The problem is that we don’t often step back long enough to see who people actually are or if they are good for their word. I too have been the person to say one thing and not follow through. Our claims of good intentions are not enough. The servant did not get excited just because Rebekah said the right things, but because she actually had the character to back it up. I am not talking about being people who focus on our “works,” but on being people of integrity. Rebekah had no idea why the servant was there. She didn’t know anyone was watching. She was just doing life. Because she was a person who actually did what she said, the servant was able to reveal the plan and bring her into it. The follow through of her daily life opened the door to the great destiny that God had for her. It is my prayer that the integrity of my daily life would open the door to greater adventures with Him!

As I was laying in my bed feeling sorry for myself and what I’ll be missing it did occur to me that while that is my story of missing out on an experience with my nephew, this could be the story of so many people missing out on their experience with God. Perhaps they don’t have the flu, but are sick with the disease of sin. They want to be part of something great and significant and wonderful but are missing out on what God has in mind because they are confined to their old thoughts, addictions, and desires. I believe there are so many “parties” God has planned to celebrate the Great and Mighty works that He wants to do, but we miss out. While I am praying and believing for my health, that is not necessary for sin. We don’t have to wait for it to run its course or do enough works or self help and hope we can get better. We have the blood of Jesus that instantly takes the sickness of our old sinful nature and makes us a new Creature in Him. We don’t have to miss out on any parties, or any “new moves” that He is bringing about on the earth! And the good part is, while God is certainly “old enough” to remember what we missed out on, He chooses not to! He is just excited when we do show up!

I just wonder if we were to honestly evaluate our lives can we say He would be able to spare others on our behalf?