Being Who You Are: Salt and Light

"To become new men means losing what we now call 'ourselves.' Out of our selves, into Christ, we must go. His will is to become ours and we are to think His thoughts, to 'have the mind of Christ' as the Bible says. And if Christ is one, and if He is thus to be 'in' us all, shall we not be exactly the same? It certainly sounds like it; but in fact it is not so. It is difficult here to get a good illustration; because, of course, no other two things are related to each other just as the Creator is related to one of His creatures. But I will try two very imperfect illustrations which may give a hint to the truth. Imagine a lot of people who have always lived in the dark. You come and try to describe to them what light is like. You might tell them that if they come into the light that same light would fall on them all and they would all reflect it and thus become what we call visible. Is it not quite possible that they would imagine that, since they were all receiving the same light, and all reacting to it in the same way (i.e. all reflecting it), they would all look alike? Whereas you and I know that the light will in fact bring out, or show up, how different they are. Or again, suppose a person who knew nothing about salt. You give him a pinch to taste and he experiences a particular strong, sharp taste. You then tell him that in your country people use salt in all their cookery. Might he not reply 'In that case I suppose all your dishes taste exactly the same: because the taste of that stuff you have just given me is so srong that it will kill the taste of everything else.' But you and I know that the real effect of salt is exactly the opposite. So far from killing the taste of the egg and the tripe and the cabbage, it actually brings it out. They do not show their real taste till you have added the salt.

The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of 'little Christs', all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented--as an author invents characters in a novel--all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to 'be myself' without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call 'Myself' becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call 'My wishes' become merely the desires thrown up by my phyiscal organism or pumped into me by other men's thoughts or even suggested to me by devils. Eggs and alcohol and a good night's sleep will be the real origins of what I flatter myself by regarding as my own highly personal and discriminating decision to make love to the girl opposite to me in the railway carriage. Propaganda will be the real origin of what I regard as my own personal political ideas. I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call 'me' can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own."

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us that we are the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world." That's who we are. Who we are, who I am, is found in Christ. C.S. Lewis said that "our real selves are all waiting for us in Him."  My real self is waiting for me in Christ.

I feel like I've been really working at discovering "my real self" in Christ. I also feel like it's going to be a life-long process. But if it brings me closer to Christ and who He is, I don't think I'll mind spending my whole life discovering "me." It's going to be a journey. A journey toward Psalm 37:3-7. A journey toward Christ. A journey with Christ. A journey for Christ.

How exciting! :)

Peace.
ps. in case you were wondering, I got my acceptance to YWAM recently! it's official, and I'm in the process of raising money and preparing myself...! yippee!

You Make Me New, You Are Making Me New

There are probably a hundred things I could write to you about today, friends. God is so good. And faithful. I can't get over Him.

Ya know, if you haven't read Psalm 51 before, I'm going to encourage you to do it. Right now. It's a beautiful prayer for restoration. My Bible tells me that this is a psalm of David, written when Nathan came to him after the adultery committed with Bathsheba.

David is an inspiring person. I am inspired by him all the time. I think he and I understand each other; like our brains work the same. His story (read 1 Samuel 16 - 2 Samuel 24) and his psalms never cease to teach me something, touch my life, and open my eyes to who I am and what I need. So I love this psalm. Last summer when I was on summer-long staff at Camp Lebanon, Psalm 51 was something we all had to memorize.

Reading it this summer..."Create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me" takes on a whole new meaning after what has gone on in my life in the past year.

I want to talk about restoration. It's a beautiful thing I've recently been learning about. :)

David wrote Psalm 51 begging God to restore him; to restore the relationship he had with his Creator before he went through such sin and rebellion. And that has become my prayer in the past couple of months. As I continue to pursue the woman God created me to be (with the help of Psalm 37:3-7 and some amazing friends), I've been noticing that I need to keep asking God to restore me or put me back together. I've given up so many huge parts of me and parts of my heart in the past year that, at times, I've lost hope in what God can do with me. What could God possibly do with me now? I'm not whole anymore. I'm broken and used. I forced myself into a pit that God can't even get me out of. As I would say those things to myself, I could feel a check in my spirit saying "You know that's not true. You know God can restore you. Don't limit Him. Just ask."

So I did. I asked. And I think I asked at the perfect time...God's timing is so beautiful...because right after I asked Him to restore my brokenness, I packed up to go be a camp counselor for a week at Lebanon.

Words won't do much justice for what I experienced last week at Camp. It was so incredible! I saw God move in beautiful ways: through me, through the 11 girls in my cabin (go Sweden!), and through the staff I worked alongside. Senior High week is the most anticipated week of the summer for Lebanon staff. We get to change up the schedule, plan surprises, film silly videos, and have the deepest of conversations with campers close to our age. It's a fun, stressful, crazy, moving, changing week for all.
Through all the crazy, I experienced the most rest and peace last week than I have in the past year. God gave me the most amazing girls to counsel. He gave me joy and contentment. He answered prayer. SO MUCH prayer. God is so good.

The Spirit moved. And I love the phrase, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." I experienced freedom last week; freedom from my fears, my failures, my doubt, my rebellion, my sin, and myself. And it feels so incredible! All I want to do is be on my knees all the time and thank Him for being so faithful and gracious. In His faithfulness and love, He has shown me what it means to be restored.

Can I get an AMEN?! Woohoo!

I feel ready to move forward now. Like truly ready. I know I've spoken a lot about "moving forward" in my previous blog posts, but all of that was talk within my own strength. I don't operate that way anymore. My strength comes from my Creator now. And it's so crazy good. Seriously: the joy of the Lord is my strength. It's a real thing. So now I feel ready, as I continue to trust in the Lord and do good; to dwell in the land and live securely; to take delight in the Lord and commit my way to Him; to make my righteousness shine like the dawn and be silent before the Lord; and to wait expectantly for him (Psalm 37-3-7), I feel more and more equipped to hop on a plane and go to Texas.

That's right, friends. I have sent in my application to YWAM in Tyler, Texas. I haven't gotten the official acceptance, but I did receive a positive phone call from them a couple of days ago. I'm beaming just thinking about it! I'll provide more details in the future, but if it's truly God's will for me to go, I will be arriving for my YWAM DTS on September 25. :)

Could you pray for me as I move in this direction? I love you all, very much. And I'm so thankful...God has made beautiful things.

Peace.