Slip through the cracks...

I was on Facebook tonight just doing my normal nightly stalking(don't act like you don't read your newsfeed and click on random people and explore their lives), when I noticed someone that I haven't thought of or seen anything about in a while. It was kind of one of those moments where you think "did that person fall off of the face of the planet?" And it got me thinking. Where did I know this person from? Church. We had gone to church together in the past. So why didn't I know anything about them. I honestly didn't know much about them to begin with and definitely didn't know where they had gone. From what I could tell from the person's facebook profile this person has fallen into difficult times in their life and fallen away from the person that I had barely known from the past. (Disclaimer: I am totally aware that I have no right to judge this person's life, what they have done, or anything like that. God is the only one who knows what has happened in their lives. I honestly have no idea except what I saw on facebook. I am not saying I judge this person in any way for the life they are living because I honestly don't know anything about it. But the point is that I don't go to church with this person anymore.)  But doesn't this happen so often? There are people that we go to church with, that we worship with that we know nothing about! But my major conviction was about the in between. I knew that they had gone to church with me, and I knew the slightest bit about their life now(based off of what I could tell from their facebook profile), but what had happened in between? Where had this person slipped through the cracks? Another conviction was how many have slipped through the cracks without me ever noticing?

It was kind of crazy when I really sat and thought about this. I thought of so many people from my past youth groups, college groups, kid ministries, and even adults in the church that just simply aren't there. And I am not talking about people who left to join other churches. I am talking about people who simply aren't involved in church at all anymore. There are a lot of side arguments and discussions that could stem off of this subject, but those topics are not what I am talking about tonight.

I am talking about love. I know what you are thinking....that came from left field. But it didn't. God calls us to love his people, right? He calls us to share the love of Christ, right? This idea of loving people doesn't only mean going on mission trips overseas or volunteering at the local community service center or even serving in every possible ministry that your church offers. Loving people is so much closer to home than that. It is investing in people's lives. Not only strangers lives that you  will probably never see again or your friends and families lives that you love so dearly because of the bonds you share with them. But this also means investing in everyone's life that you come in contact with. And I think the best place for this to start is the church. We worship with these people, yet we don't know anything about them. I am not saying that you need to know everyone who ever stepped in your church's door life story(although that would be awesome), but stepping out of your comfort zone and knowing your church. Loving people like Christ did and not letting anyone slip through the cracks. I don't remember a time in the bible where Christ left anyone out in the dust or didn't invest in lives. In fact he completely went out of his way. And he got into people's business...in a good way of course. He knew what was going on in people's lives. He never left a conversation at "hey. how are you? good." So as we continue to strive to conform to the likeness of the image of Christ, start by loving people in your church. Don't let the people who worship beside you fall through the cracks. But don't stop there. Make it a lifestyle. Love and invest in every person that you come in contact with. Be intentional when you meet people and in your everyday conversations. Love the unlovable. Be Christ to the dark world.

Why? You may have been the most involved person in your church your whole life and never needed this love shown to you. (haha...not) You may have never had someone reach out and invest in your life but somehow you are doing alright. Or you may have been the one who fell through the cracks. Or you may have been the one who started to slip through the cracks, but had someone that resembled Christ pull you out. It doesn't matter who you are. As long as you have a burning passion for the Almighty God who saved you from the depths of your life, then you are called to love. And it shouldn't be a matter of this is what I'm supposed to do, but a matter of what can I do. What can I do for my God and for his children as an out pour of the love I have for Him in my life? How can God's love overflow in my life into every area so that I may share this love with the world? How can my life bring glory to God, my Father?

Just think about this as you encounter people in your life. It may be the person you are paying for your 14th Sonic drink of the week or the person that sits on the back pew on Sunday morning. Show God's love. And as usual, I don't even come close to counting myself out on this. I noticed and am writing about it because I saw a lack of it in my life. Feel free to keep me accountable on this as well as your fellow believers.

Thank you for reading and sorry it has been so long since my last post. Shout out to my brother-in-law for continuously reminding me I have a blog. Out of Place is not longer Out of Order.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. -1 John 4:7-9

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." -Philippians 2:1-4

Blog...wait?

So I am sure many of you have thought that I was going to shut down my blog since I have not updated lately. Well it isn't true. I really wish I had a good reason, but I honestly don't. I would say it was school...but let's be real, I fit blogging in before when I was doing school. I would say it was I am busy doing things like dnows, but that has only been three times...and only a weekend long. So I just don't have a good excuse. So now that I am on "spring break" (if you can call it that) and I am officially done with dnows, I have no reason to do one of my favorite things to do.....BLOG!!

Although I haven't been blogging, God has been working in my life. Especially through these dnows I have been working. The themes have all been related in an odd sort of way. The first was Pursuit. We talked about God's pursuit of our lives. Have you ever really thought that much about how God pursues us? It is crazy and awesome!! We studied the book of Jonah which is a perfect picture of God pursuing someone. He pursued Jonah even when Jonah was stubborn and selfish....so yes, even when you are stubborn and selfish, God is pursuing you. There were so many lessons learned from Jonah that weekend. But then, the next dnow I worked God's pursuit came up again. The theme was Devoted. God loves us so much to pursue us regardless of our sin, so shouldn't we be wholeheartedly devoted to Him? Are you? Am I? Is there anything in any of our lives that we are more devoted to than our Father who deserves all of us? The theme from this past weekend was Lose Control. The overall message was lose control of our lives, and let God be in control. I had never really contemplated this. I can say I am devoted to God all day, but when it comes down to it am I? Am I giving Him full reign and control over my life? Am I trying to control any area of my life? So all of these themes and ideas have really been convicting in my life. Am I really pursuing God with my whole heart? Am I devoted to Him? Am I willing to lose all control of my life and let God fully take control? Crazy! But writing this and even saying I am convicted of these things don't do anything for my life. Convictions are nothing if I don't do anything with that conviction. Are any of these questions in this blog convicting to you? If so, what are you going to do about it?

This was the first blog after a long break. I didn't know where it was going but there it is. I hope you enjoy and hopefully I will be writing more soon.

Wintery Reminders

As I walked to work this morning all bundled up and looking at the ice everywhere, I thought about how frozen our little world has been this past weekend. And the more I thought, the more I realized what a great lesson God was trying to teach me.

This past weekend Ruston, Louisiana experienced some weather that we are not quite used to. It was a wintery bliss! We had heard that it might snow which, for us Louisianians, was something unique and cool and definitely something to get excited about. But it didn't turn out the way that we had all thought it would. We all expected snow everywhere so we could play like we were 7 years old again. But instead everything was frozen. It even felt like time was frozen.

We woke up Sunday morning to find out that church was cancelled. I was slightly bummed, but decided to enjoy the "snow day" anyways. Calls from parents convinced most of my friends and me to stay off the roads and just wait out the weather. There was ice everywhere and since we aren't used to it we just sat at home and waited...and waited on the snow. A whole day of games, movies, an hour with no electricity, cooking, cleaning, building forts(don't judge; we had to act like 7 year olds somehow), and sleeping, and there was still no snow. School was cancelled the next day. All of us students we ecstatic! So we continued to wait on the snow. So another day of stopped time. Tyring to find something to do all day and feeling like it passed in a slow moment. And not until the very end of our second snow day could we look up to the sky and see little white flurries falling down on our faces. And when I say little, I mean little. And it didn't last long. We waited and waited and finally got what we wanted, and to be honest it was slightly disappointing.

There are two lessons I learned from this winter weather that I experienced this past weekend. The first I didn't realize until I started writing this. Waiting. Waiting on something that is so disappointing. Sometimes I think we spend way too much time waiting. I waited two whole days being bored and stuck in my apartment for this snow. I wanted so badly for it to snow so I could experience my dream of what a real snow day was, but when it did snow, it was disappointing. In life we spend so much time wasted on waiting for things of this world that in the end won't be satisfying. Think about it. An simple example is rollercoasters. We wait in line for an hour to get on the coolest rollercoaster at an amusement park and next thing ya know it is over. It may have been fun while it lasted, but then it ended. It satisfied you while you were on the rollercoaster but then you wanted to go on another or go again. It wasn't completely satisfying. The only thing that is worth waiting for and is completely satisfying is God. Life in eternity with God is completely worth it. So this makes me think. What do I spend my time invested in that is either waiting or unsatisfying? How could I remold my life to be waiting and preparing myself for the only thing that matters...eternity in heaven with God. On judgement day I would much rather have spent my time preparing for Christ's return and furthering the kingdom of God than thinking back and being reminded of all of those times that I wasted my life waiting on temporary and worldly things that were unsatisfying. Wow....this first lesson has blown my mind. I think it is definitely time to reevaluate some priorities in my life.

The second lesson is the one that I thought of as I walked to work today. Everything is still frozen in Ruston and it just made me think of what lessons God could be teaching me. And this is what He reminded me of. God has the power to do anything. He even has the power to freeze. Freeze time and freeze this world. God froze my little college town this weekend(as well as many other places). Frozen. Everything stood still. Why? I don't know. I rarely understand why God does what He does.(Proverbs 3:5b) Maybe it was just to teach me this lesson. He needed my life to be frozen to remind me that there are times when I need to be still and know that He is God. I overlook how important this aspect of my relationship with Christ is. And God always does something radical like freezing the world as I know it to remind me of this. God could freeze my world in a more radical way at any moment and I need to be aware of His power to do this. God is so powerful so why don't I spend more time in awe of Him? Why don't I spend more time still and knowing that He is the God of my life? Just something to think on.

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." -Psalm 46:10 

People Pleasing

So I feel like if I were sitting in a room full of people and someone asked for all of the people pleasers to raise their hands, I might would have to not only raise my hand, but I would probably stand on my chair reaching my little fingers as high as they could to the sky. I am very much a people pleaser. So I am definitely writing this for myself just as much for others to read. This has been on my heart for a long time.

For people who have known me for any period of time they probably all know that I am a people pleaser and I always have been. My siblings can tell you that. I did everything they told me to do growing up. But they were my older sisters and brother and I thought the world of them so of course I wanted them to please them. You could definitely say I was their little slave. I remember a time not too long ago when one of my siblings told me to go do something and I started to do it and stopped dead in my tracks when I realized what I was doing. So it has definitely become a part of my nature to please people.

Another known fact about me is that I hate, and I mean absolutely hate, when I feel like someone is mad at me or doesn't like me. It will eat me up alive. In high school I would hear people talking about everyone having "an enemy" and I didn't exactly get what they meant by that because that would have irked me too bad to have an enemy. I just wanted to make everyone else happy, even if it was at my own expense.

So over the years as I have grown up and had this people pleaser characteristic about me, I thought it has been a good thing. And don't get me wrong, I think it can be. But I think my views on this have changed just a little bit, which has turned my world a little upside down.

Now I am trying less to be a people pleaser and more of a God pleaser. This is how it should be, right? If we live a Christ centered life, the only one who matters is Christ. We don't need to please the world or other people. If we go about our lives trying to please people, we will never be satisfied because let's face it...people are never satisfied. You will always be failing someone. You aren't perfect and neither are they. We do this to God all the time and don't think twice about it. We please others instead of Him, we turn to others instead of Him, we put our trust in others instead of Him, yet we are still His children. He loves us way more than these people on earth so why do we put so much effort into pleasing them and so little effort into pleasing God, the one that truly matters. Unlike people, his opinion really matters.

God is definitely number one that we should be pleasing. So now as I go about my days talking to people and making decisions, I have to think to myself (a lot) "is this going to make God or some other person happy?" This is so hard because people pleasing has become such a part of who I am; but I would much rather God pleasing be a part of who I am more.

I know a lot of people don't understand this. They don't understand that this is something that I am really trying to change in my life. They don't understand why. But they don't have to. This is something I have come to terms with. People of this world, even God's children don't understand it all. I definitely don't understand it all. But what I do understand is that I am a Christ follower and I live to bring glory to my God, not to people.

Don't get me wrong. I love God's children. I live my life to serve God and therefore I will serve His children but it has to be in that order. God needs to be my motivation behind what I do. So do you please people, yourself, or God...the one that really matters?

"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." Galatians 1:10

"On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts." 1 Thessalonians 2:4