the only thing that counts...

Galatians 5:6 has really been getting to me recently. To be fair, I was already pretty messed up because of all the stuff we've gotten into by becoming a foster family and from reading the book Guerrilla Lover by Vince Antonucci. But then when he used this verse in the last chapter it has just hung with me. 


The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself though love.


Now how on earth are we supposed to get around that? The answer is we're not. If we want to be what we claim to be--followers of Jesus Christ--then there's no avoiding the outward expression of those beliefs with not just random acts of kindness, but a life characterized by unselfish compassion. James 1:27 has been hounding me about it for years (or probably decades, since the Bible I used as a teen has this written in the margin: dirty hands, clean hearts). 


Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.


It's in the Bible practically everywhere you look yet it's hard to find when you look around the church. I guess that's not true. I do see people serving each week for an hour or two or giving generous amounts of money, but I guess what I mean is that I want to see that on every day of the week. That we the church would give our WHOLE lives to Christ and not just the few hours per week we decide to allocate to our Creator. That we would get our hands dirty up to the armpits and allow the way we express our faith as love to bleed over into every single thing we do. 


So here's my big ask: come get dirty with me. Let's go live out our faith as a group that boldly carries the message of His great love and mercy into our world. Let's pick someone or a group of someones that God has placed into our paths and just literally love the hell out of them.


For Brannon and I, it has become profoundly clear that who that means for us is our foster daughters' mom. She sincerely wants to be a good mother to her girls but she doesn't know the first thing about it. And as much as Brannon and I would love to just fill that gap, we have found that our efforts are always going to come up short. We can never push hard enough to get that plane off the ground. 


So, I would like to invite all of my friends, in person, online, and otherwise, to come join us on this mission. We will send out an event invitation on Facebook and then ask some of you in person. (If you haven't friended me on FB, please do.) We'll start off by getting together over a dinner party and just share the details of the situation (no physical family to speak of and no Christian family but us). Then we'll brainstorm what we need to do to love her. Then we'll figure out which people are going to be good project managers or administrators and who will be good movers and mentors and chauffeurs and phone callers and givers and everything else that she needs. Then we'll just do it. And we'll keep doing it not just until she gets her girls back, but until she has developed her own permanent Christian family (which of course by that time may include some of us). And all along the way we'll meet, and party some more, and hold each other up, and walk alongside each other, and laugh, and cry, and just generally become more like Jesus. 


So come and go on a mission with me. It will be really hard. It will seem slow and frustrating. You might lose interest in TV or sports or whatever other hobby you may have had. But you'll feel more alive than maybe you've felt for a long time. And you'll be living the life that is really life. You'll come to know God better than ever. Plus, you'll get glimpses of the face of Jesus over and over as the body of Christ comes together and does what we were called to do. What we were made to do.


Pray about it. Ask God if this is what He wants you to devote a season of your life to (because I'm not just asking for a couple of hours a week). And if this particular journey isn't your next step, then ask God what yours is and jump into it with both feet. And share what you're doing with us to encourage us along the way. 


Who's in?

guerrilla love attack

Today was Gabby's birthday party. Back around Christmas, someone from work anonymously gave our family a big gift card to Incredible Pizza which we saved for today. (Didn't sound like fun during the Daniel Fast and this seemed like the best way to make it a memorable event!) Well, memorable is exactly what it was. Not only did Gabby have the time of her four-year-old life, but I think we executed a near-perfect ambush on their mom Ashley and her friend James. After sending out a message to my LifeGroup, some family, and close friends, we ended up having over 40 people and an seemingly endless mound of presents to demonstrate very tangibly just how much God can love a displaced little girl and an aimless young mom.

Some tactical wins to share from this attack:

• Ashley visited a different LifeChurch.tv campus and got to see that God is there to welcome her into His house even on a different side of town and with all new people. 
• Her friend James who gives her rides (she's never even had a drivers' license) has never stayed any of the previous times. This time though, he came to church and sat with us. He seemed to have a fine time and commented on how much he liked the security for the kids. 
• Gabby got to feel what family really feels like at a birthday. The only people she could call family before was her mom and her mom's step-dad who lives in another state. Anyone else she's ever known as family has demonstrated something far different than God's love than what she saw today.
• I got a text this afternoon from Ashley who asked me to "tell my people thanks." She said she had a really great time.
• On our way back home, Brannon and I were talking about how overwhelmed we were with the number of people who came and how cool about it all everyone was. Then he said he just realized that all of those people came as much for us as they did for Gabby. We are so tremendously blessed and grateful for friends that would dump the money on food and games but also on presents for a little girl some of them had only met once. 
• Like I did on the first week we had the girls at a Christmas party for foster families, we saw the face of Jesus again today. It's so beautiful to see the body of Christ unite around a mission of love and awesome that God would honor even a relatively small group of 40 believers and incarnate His image for a misguided young mother.

my new favorite blog

God brought me across the path of a remarkable lady named Deborah Shropshire recently. She is a pediatrician who oversees the care for the shelters OK County Department of Human Services (I don't know her exact title, but it's a big deal). Her blog is so gripping and informative and inspiring to me and is about all that God has us in the middle of right now. I'd love you to check out Fostering Hope Project.

famous blogger mention

I saw my famous blogger friend in Atlanta in November. To be fair, I became friends with him shortly before his meteoric rise to fame so he was just a regular blogger at the time. As fun as it is to catch up with him, it is even funner (that's a word in my book) to read about it in his very famous blog. Since I know many of you can relate to this topic, I give you:

Stuff Christians Like #719 Pastors Who Mess You Up

talking it over

At our church, we're several months into a campaign called Talk It Over. Basically, it's just offering opportunities and prompts to get people to talk about the message they hear on the weekend and process it until it becomes a personal action step. It's basically trying to determine what God is saying to you personally through the message. Anyway, what I've come to recognize in the process of going through the feedback we get about the videos and discussion questions and study guides we've been sending out, is that the vast majority of people really never talk about anything that matters.

Weather? Check. Sports? Check. Hobbies? News? All of that is so surface really. Even things we get heated about like politics and the economy won't really matter a few decades from now. So instead of getting people to talk about the message, our first step is to get people to just dip their heads under the surface and get used to talking about something that really matters. To get up close and personal about what's going on in them spiritually.

One thing we've found that as really pushed that envelope for us is having the foster kids. They are like a breathing billboard for something that matters. Everywhere we go, even with complete strangers, we end up talking about stuff that matters. Today even, someone I would have normally just talked gardening with and left it at that ended up sharing about her own past with an abusive home.

So then, short of passing out foster kids at the door as people leave church, what have you found gets people to talk about important matters in your life? What gets you to open up and let your guard down? Or do you? What have been your experiences recently with Talking It Over?

choreography

On Wednesday, God brought a woman into our LifeGroup that was an encouragement, was able to provide key information and contacts I need, and was just a wonderful new friend and resource. Then a guest post on my pastor's blog gave me just the right framework to really get my boys excited even more about this adventure God has called us on. Then tonight, as a friend's going-away party we met another lady who is also all of those same things the first woman was (plus she's neck deep in fostering too). At every turn it seems God keeps bringing people across our path and even reconnecting us with people we already knew that are joining the story of this rescue we've stumbled into.

A lifetime ago, I was a dancer. People who know me today probably can't imagine me with pointe shoes on let alone tap shoes. What's weird though is that I'm not at all the kind of person to enjoy just dancing at a party or with my husband or anything at all un-choreographed. I would dance on a stage in front of any size audience as long as I already knew the steps.

And that's how I've lived for a long time. Dancing only the steps I already knew. Staying in my own circles. But now, the music keeps beckoning me to just dance without knowing what comes next. And it has been wonderful. But even in the swirling dizziness of it all, I keep noticing little patterns and rhythms in it. I am starting to realize that I am dancing a waltz that was choreographed long before I ever put on my first ballet shoes. It isn't just aimless and accidental. It is what I was made to do. It's what all the hours (or years in my case) of warming up at the barre has been preparing me for.

So what about you. Are you dancing with Him? What is your dance like right now?

the power of forgiveness

Only one thing is more powerful than the destructive force of bitterness. And that is the cleansing force of forgiveness. I don't know how God made it possible for people who are victims of horrible abuse and mistreatment to be able to forgive. But I am thankful that Jesus made a way. Do you really think about the amazing gift that we were given when we were forgiven? I don't. Not very often anyway.

We spent a lot of time this weekend coming to terms with a world so lost and broken that it would hurt innocent little children. But God made a way for us to overcome it. But the road is the way of forgiveness not bitterness. 

shame

Have you ever experienced shame? I mean, not just momentary situational embarrassment, but looming humiliating shame? God showed me a tiny glimpse of it in a way I didn't expect.

So I've written about have two foster daughters. Along with the girls come a mound of paperwork. But one set of forms ended up with me receiving the WIC vouchers that they qualify for. I thought that sounded great at first. I mean, it's a whole new bizarre thing I'd never dealt with before. The first time I took them into our grocery store, a young woman patiently explained how to use them. I had the girls with me and we talked a bit too about them. No big whoop. The next time the checker was a woman who mentioned that it had been seven years since she had to deal with WIC (meaning personally). I couldn't help but notice her very rotten front teeth, probably from drug use or just years of poverty. But then today, I went without the girls. The checker was an older man and he sort of took his time ringing the stuff up. Two men waited patiently behind me in line. A woman told them there was no waiting in another lane, and I found myself secretly wishing they would move on. I realized I was ashamed of being seen as using the WIC vouchers.

All the way home God talked to me about shame. The kind of shame I've honestly never lived with. I mean, I've had some things I wished no one would ever find out or things that I wish I could take back, but I thought for a moment what it would be like to be that checker who had all her teeth rotten only a few years out from depending on public assistance knowing that someone was judging her past every time she opened her mouth. What about my foster kids' mom who has to admit she got her kids taken away from her? What about all of the people living in the darkness of a past they can't get away from? Those people are all around us. Or they may be us at times. And it just broke my heart to think how oblivious I am to it most of the time.

This is the song that I pray for those who are living in shame. Our God is able. His grace is more than enough to shatter the darkness that holds people prisoner of their own sin and shame. His mercy is able to heal the broken hearts of those who are living in the shame of someone else's sin they were a victim of. He can break addictions. He can restore relationships. He can clean the deepest stains.

Guest Post on Swerve

Hey go over and comment on my pastor's blog today. I got to write a guest post so I wrote about something I've been wrestling through here for the past year.

better

When we first got our foster kids in December, even though we'd been warned about being overly idealistic and told all the horror stories, I have to admit I was secretly optimistic. I held this naive hope that somehow this time would be different. That we'd be able to build a relationship with their mom and lead her to Christ and get her life on track serving God and send them off to a godly home. I knew that was against all odds, but since my hope is in Christ and not in those odds anyway, I kept praying for that outcome.

Today we took our foster kids' mom to church with us at the campus that is closest to her house. She happily went with us as we checked her girls into their LifeKIDS rooms (neither one cried thank you Jesus). She accepted a Krispy Kreme and coffee. She sang along during the singing part. She filled in the visitor card when they said to. She listened and took notes during the message. She scraped together her change and money and gave "her tithe." She raised her hand and prayed along as the Campus Pastor led a prayer of salvation. She checked the box on her communication card for "recommitting her life to Christ." She picked up a What's Next Kit. She prayed with the volunteer that handed those out. She talked to the small groups pastor about getting into a women's group. We picked up the kids. We took her to lunch at McDonald's (thank God for indoor playgrounds) and took her back home. I just got off the phone with her because she called to see how they did and we talked all about the message and how much it spoke to her (We "Talked It Over" actually). She had already watched the DVD that came with her new Bible. She expressed her gratitude and receptiveness to us being a part of her life even after she gets her kids back. We now have a standing arrangement for every Sunday morning to repeat the whole thing again. So, naive? Maybe. But I'll take that any day of the week.

So now I guess I better explain the title. Pastor Craig said the word better about a hundred times. Because he was basically trying to make the point that we really don't live like we believe what God has for our lives is better than what the world has to offer. At one point he said, "Some of you are questioning, 'I'm not sure about all that.' But you are the ones who have never tried it. Those who have tried it know that it is better."

I'm here to testify that living life God's way is better. I few months ago, it would be hard to imagine that anything besides spending my Sundays in my pajamas with the only stress of the day being grocery shopping. I mean, that's why we go to church on Saturday evenings, so we don't have to do anything on Sundays. But getting up early, leaving two kids with a sitter, and schlepping two foster kids across town to spend all morning with their mom is better. It certainly doesn't add up on paper. But I know it for a fact. It is better.
Better. Better. Better...

This song, The Desert Song by Hillsong, was one of the songs to today's worship set. It WAY spoke to me and I had never heard it before. It ended like this:

"This is my prayer in the harvest, when favor and Providence flow.
I know I'm filled to be emptied again. The seed I receive I will sow."


I pray that God will give you the courage and strength to turn your back on the world and pour your life out as an offering to Him. We're not there yet. Sometimes we feel tired and weary and discouraged. But even so, it is better. 

The Day After

So let's just say I thoroughly enjoyed lunch and dinner today. But let's also be clear that I paid for it (if you know what I mean!). I'm not exactly sick per se but my body just didn't know what hit it. It was also funny to come to the realization that although I missed the feeling of being full, I realized that honestly, it's not really a pleasant feeling.

Anyway, I'm going to continue with no sweets, no drinks but water and juice, and no meat. I consider that to be a pretty fair modernization of the fast Daniel did in chapter 10. I'm going through 37 days as a tithe of my year which a friend at work challenged me to do.

Thanks for the fun. Let's do it again sometime. Say, in 2011?

God is so good to me...

But as for me, how good it is to be near God!
I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter,
and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do.
Psalm 73:28 NLT

Today God has flooded me with His goodness. On my Day 21, when I was feeling like walking away from this blog for a while, two people came up to me, one I knew and one that I'd never met, and told me they had been blessed by my blog. Then I cam home and had a couple of Facebook message and a comment from others who God had really touched during this Daniel Fast. It was just such a blessing to hear that God is stirring others so much because, like I said yesterday, I'm diving in and want my friends to jump off the deep end with me. :) I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will make it a point to really start telling everyone about the wonderful things He does. 

Day Twenty-one: I'm divin' in...

The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple...
As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 
He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. 
He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 
He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 
He asked me, "Son of man, do you see this?" 

We've made a big commitment to start off your year. Many of us have already accomplished things we've never attempted before. Some of us have come closer to God than we ever have before. But God is whispering. He's beckoning us to follow Him deeper still.

Ezekiel lived in the same time Daniel did, but his prophecies were from a different perspective. He saw the doom and gloom back in Jerusalem. He saw the vacant Temple. But in the last part of his book God showed Him a vision of a new Temple. One restored to a more glorious state than ever before. And the Glory of the Spirit of God was gushing from it like an unstoppable river.

No matter how deep you think you are now, let's all wade in deeper. Don't worry about what's going to get wet. Don't stop at the point where you can keep your feet underneath you. Get swept away. What are you holding on to? What are your hesitations to living a Spirit-led life of faith in 2010? What illusion of control are you clinging to? Money, possessions, family, comfort, convenience, food, career, each of us can add our hang-up to the list. But I'm done. I want to go all in. And I want my friends in with me. So let's just dive in.

Day Twenty: Fast or Feast

So how many of you have considered extending your fast? Come on, I know some of you have! I've talked to my friend John about doing 36.5 days and tithing the year. Of course I talked about that last year and I ended up saying that I was going to just do the first three days each month and accomplish the same thing. I'm pretty sure I only made it to March. :) In Zechariah 7, the people are wondering if they should continue the fasting calendar they had kept and the Lord answers through Zechariah.

"...when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn, was it really for me that you were fasting? And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?..."

Since Moses' time, God instituted a whole calendar of fasts and feasts. Both were designed to draw His people closer to Him. Get that? If you make seeking God and drawing closer to Him your goal for every day, both this time of fasting, and the feasting that may come in the upcoming days, can both be holy to the Lord. I want all of us to really seek out how this time has changed your relationship with God (and with food and other relationships). But then I want us to consider the ways that our times of feasting (not gluttony, but joyful appreciation of God's blessings) can draw us towards Him too. Here's another way I hope we're changed.

"Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other."

Can we do this part too? Can we refocus our lives and hearts to pour ourselves out for them. Can we bring His mercy and kindness to the poor?

I love the way this fast has affected us, but I'd love the change to continue. I see no scriptural evidence that God has called us to fast every day. Jesus didn't do it, and God commanded feasts. So I have to believe that God is just excited about His love for us the day after your fast as today. When we wake up each day with a renewed focus on God and spreading His love, we can spend the rest of this year falling more in love with God each day, fast or feast.


Today I will pray that we will all take time to allow God to speak to us about our fasting experience and reflect on the ways it has influenced how we live.

Day Nineteen: Read Joel 2

Can you get the mental picture Joel is drawing? Like the ants in the newest Indiana Jones, like the orcs in LOTR, like the rugrats in my living room? OK that last one only feels like it sometimes. :) The power of the advancing army of the Lord is rushing across our planet. When I see the church rising up around Haiti, I see a giant that can not only relieve the suffering there but keep right on marching and relieve it everywhere. 


Did you ever do this in the wave pool? Instead of bobbing over each wave, you turn around and ride it into the shore. So will you turn and join the advancing army or let it sweep past you?

That is why the Lord says, "Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this curse."

Tear your hearts instead. That just punches me int he gut. We've been fasting, but we can finish strong by making sure we are weeping and mourning and tearing our hearts wide open to allow His power and presence to sweep across the landscape of our lives. To lay ourselves bare before His mercy and compassion and unfailing love.

Jesus quoted Joel when He confirmed that the Day of the Lord had indeed come.

"...I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike. ...But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved..."

We are still living in that Day. Pray and fast today seeking to be completely awash in His presence and power. Receive the outpouring of the Spirit into your life. Open your eyes to His dreams and visions. Tear your hearts wide open.

Day Eighteen: So close, and yet so far away...

So I'm finally in the same work week that will be my 21 days. This has hands down been my most challenging day thus far. My foster kids saw their mom on Friday and the baby has cried a ton this weekend. Don't know if it's from the visit or because she doesn't feel good. I was also just really stressed out because of how much work I had to get done (which is hard to do when someone is crying). So the whole thing just digressed into a big crying  meltdown. Brannon verbalized exactly how I felt as we were trying to get all five into bed, "If there were ever a time when I was going to just go get a Braum's Mix, or two even, or a Candy Bar Sundae, this would be it."

Of course you've all probably heard the phrase comfort food, but it's revealing to see how much that's actually true. I think I would have been able to hold it together so much better today if I could have just eaten the spaghetti and meatballs I made for my kids. It really sounds stupid when you see it in black and white, but food has an inappropriate hold on my psyche. The relationship I have with it is out of order.

I think most people would be quick to dismiss food as being an idol. But when I really stop and look at how it has affected me over time, I think it would be hard to just sweep it under the rug. I wonder if any of you have come to any similar realizations. Is food's place in the ranking of importance in your life in the spot you want it to be?

Today, I will pray for you. But honestly, mostly I've been praying for me. Praying for emotional strength that I do not have. For the fruit of the Spirit to be evident in how I treat my family. For this fast to actually reach the status of worship plan and simple, even when that worship causes me to identify other things that I worship more than I realize.

Day Seventeen: Peculiar

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. 1 Peter 2:9-12


I learned this verse when I was a kid. In the version I learned it in, KJV, it uses the word peculiar. I like that word because it in our language, it also means weird. And like we've already established, fasting is weird. In this case though it means a possession. A people who belong to God alone. Don't you love being a part of a great big weird family that belongs to God? I've been amused by the complete randomness of the people who God has called to participate in this fast. We once were not a people, but now we are the people of God. So wonderful!


Another adjective for us that I like in this passage is holy. I think most people don't really have a good handle on what holy actually means. We usually use it in conjunction with Spirit or other mystical sounding things. But holy really just means set apart for a special purpose. For these 21 days, we have set ourselves apart for the special purpose of serving God by fasting. We have been hand-selected to worship Him in this way. I like to picture the word holy as that one flawless strawberry I choose to go on top of something as a garnish. 


But then think of your role as a priest too. The one who was chosen to go stand before God. To speak to Him and to devote his whole life to serving in God in His house. I'd like us to really meditate on what kind of priest God really wants us to be. Not just a 21 day a year priest, but one who keeps himself pure, devotes his full attention to serving God, and is called upon to be a mediator between God and those we love that are lost in sin. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, has modeled for us how to serve God this selflessly.


Anyway, today I will pray that we stand together as one big family. Chosen to show the world who He is. Walking out of darkness into His marvelous light. As aliens and strangers in this world. Set apart for His special purpose.

Day Sixteen: less than a week to go...

Even though I only have less than a week to go, for some reason it seems to be getting harder not easier. I keep having thoughts like, "so what, just eat it." Or trying to mentally renegotiate the terms I set forth for myself at the beginning. Well, I'm not giving up. But I hope you guys know that having a big group of friends and making a public commitment online is just about the right level of accountability I require to be able to pull off a 21-day fast. :)

Anyway, I had a few great answered prayers just today. One, a friend of a friend who works for Compassion International was missing in the wreckage of a large hotel in Port au Prince. Miraculously, he was pulled from the rubble alive after three days with a French news crew on hand to record the miracle for his waiting family and friends! Also, today was our first visit with our foster girls' mom. It went better than we could have hoped for including permission from the case worker to allow us to supervise additional visits than the one per month they can schedule. That means that once a week we could get a chance to take her to church with us and she is eager to do it! Last, I got kudos from someone who is really hard to please! :)

Altogether, it has still been a rewarding experience. I'd love to hear some stories of other people's experience in the comments as we go through our last week. And don't worry, if you started later than me, I'd still love to hear your stories whenever it's YOUR day sixteen. :)

Day Fifteen: Haiti

Last week over 100,000+ people died tragically. Last week, not just this week. I'm not talking about earthquakes. Projections show that around 25,000 people die every day from simple to fix causes like starvation, lack of clean drinking water, easily curable or preventable diseases like malaria. I have really been reflecting on the horrible tragedy in Haiti and praying for the people who are suffering there. But more than that, I've been reflecting on our response.

When we are confronted with those kinds of graphic images and vivid descriptions on every channel we turn to, we are moved into action. Prayer, generosity, involvement, compassion. When it all happens at once in one place where we can write a one-time check, we're in. But the truth is Compassion International, Children's Hunger Fund, Doctors Without Borders, Samaritan's Purse, and countless other organizations were already there. Because there were people suffering in Haiti last week too.

What can we do to respond to the suffering and hurting and dying every day, not just when it makes the news? How can we feel the plight of the lost and broken world at times when there aren't natural disasters? Why do we insulate our lives from feeling their pain? Why do we change the channel when the commercials with starving orphan babies covered in flies come on? What can we do to rescue the 100,000+ people who are going to die without Jesus next week?

I'm going to be perfectly honest and tell you that as recently as about a year and a half ago, I didn't care about foreign missions and compassion efforts. I would tell you I did since it's not only the Christian thing to say but also the good American citizen thing to say. But if you did an audit of my life, there would be no evidence whatsoever. So, after reading the little book The Treasure Principle, I decided to lead my heart there by sending my money there. The gateway drug for us was sponsoring kids through Compassion. Next we started sponsoring a missionary that we knew personally. Then we tagged on a monthly offering to Children's Hunger Fund (that one mainly to honor the impact Francis Chan's church has made on our hearts). And guess what? Jesus was right. Our heart was where our treasure was. We started praying, writing letters, reading more, and getting involved in other ways. And now look at us. We're completely addicted and strung out on foster kids. :)

The deal is, you have to put a name and face on the cause. You can't sit at home with the curtains drawn and care. We have two little girls to look at every day that remind us. And photos of little Burkinabe children by our beds. That has us messed up in the best possible way.

Lord, I pray that You will mess us up real good. Take our hearts out and drag them all through the lives that are lost and broken. Break our hearts for what breaks Yours. Let us feel an urgency to rescue lost souls every day, not just when we see their faces on the news. Open our eyes to the plight of those around us who desperately need You.

Day Fourteen: Strangely Dim

Instead of writing about a chapter of the Bible or really even writing about fasting, I'd like to share the words of one of my very favorite hymns:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus 

Look full in His wonderful face

And the things on earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace

I don't know what things on earth are overshadowing you right now. Personal frustrations, illness, pain, broken relationships, loneliness, natural disasters where tens of thousands of lives are lost. The things of this world are heavy and horrible sometimes. But Jesus invites us to turn to Him. To look full into His face. Wouldn't you love those things that are weighing you down to fade away? Wouldn't you love for them to disappear? I don't know how it works in each case, but I have found this hymn to be true over and over in my life. If I turn away from the junk and turn toward Him, strangely, it does in fact grow dim.

I pray that you will focus fully on Him for these remaining days. I pray that you will see His unspeakably beautiful face. I pray that all the cares of this world that are pressing in on you or distracting you from following Him will fade away. That the light of His glory and grace will eclipse everything else.