Blood, guts, and glory

Brace yourself. I’m about to hit you with some Old Testament. And not just any Old Testament. Today’s inspiration came from the book of Leviticus. Now, if you are somewhat new to Christianity and just getting into and excited about reading the Bible, the book of Leviticus may not be the best place to start. Not that any of the Bible is more special or more true than another part but it’s honestly a hard book to get into. If you aren’t familiar with Leviticus, it is a whole book of the Bible written to the priests and spiritual leaders who were from the tribe of Levi (which is where Leviticus came from. Clever right?). It goes over what types of sacrifices need to be brought, when they need to be brought, how often, and how to properly perform these sacrifices.

Reading Leviticus has made me very thankful that I live on this side of the cross. Old Testament sacrifices were either animals like cows or sheep or it could like grains and spices. It all depended on the sin that had been committed and the type of sacrifice necessary to cleanse it. As I’ve been reading through all of this, for some reason I just keep imagining the smell. The sacrifice was used to symbolically wash away the sin in someone’s life but that doesn’t mean it smelt good! There were still blood and body parts. Some of it was burned in the temple, some was saved for the priests to eat, and the really gross parts (I’ll just let you use your imagination to figure out which parts those were) were taken outside of the city and burned away from the temple. The actual sacrifice taking place would have a completely overwhelming experience.

But something specific that stuck out to me today was when I was reading about Moses ordaining Aaron and his sons. (This is found in Leviticus 8 in case you were curious). So the ordination of the priests was a multi-step process. There were several sacrifices that were made to make everything including the clothes that they would be wearing ready to serve in God’s temple. One of things Moses did was take the blood of the ram sacrifice and rub some on Aaron’s right ear, the thumb of his right foot, and the big toe of his right foot. Now at first I kind of just read over it and was like “hm that’s interesting.” But then I stopped and read it again and realized God has a reason for everything so why those 3 places? So I’m not at all saying I know why God chose those places but this is how I interpreted it.

Aaron and his sons were about to take up the responsibility of serving God for their whole lives, which is what we should be doing as believers. Our jobs just look a bit different. But in order to be able to live our lives for God, we first have to be able to HEAR what He is telling us. God can speak to us through His word or through the small voice in our hearts when we pray to Him and are seeking for answers. But we need to be tuned in and listening for Him. Second, I think putting the blood on the thumb (or the hand in general) is significant because a lot of time we think of our hands being associated with our WORK. We need to conduct ourselves at work in an honest and uplifting way. We should always be working towards understanding God’s purpose and design for us and how we can use our talents and gifts to bring Him honor and glory. Finally, we need to constantly be WALKING with the Lord. The Bible talks about us keeping in step with Spirit. Our feet take us where we are whether it’s church or the bar. We are responsible for the places we take ourselves. But when we follow God, He will guide us to exactly where He wants us to be.

God loves you. I love you. Go live a life without fear.    

Happy Birthday Sprouts!

Well everyone, in 2 days it will have been a year since I got my sprouts! In case you don’t know the whole story, this time last year I was in Jamaica on my mission trip and had the craziest experience… I got to spend 2 exciting nights in a Jamaican hospital. Long story short, we were having church outside in like a tent and one of the light poles fell right on top of my skull. So a couple skull fractures, 5 stitches, and 2 nights later, I got to leave the hospital with a neck brace and a little bald spot where my sprouts are now growing. (If you want the full story, you can check out my blog from when it all happened called “Struck down but not destroyed” or ask me about it! It’s kind of a fun story to tell.)

Looking back now, I would definitely define that as the catalyst for where I am today in my walk with God. It started really the first night when Amy and Tiff (love my girls!) had to leave me in the hospital. Never before in my life had I been so alone. Not just I felt alone and like no one would understand. But physically by myself in this giant hospital with all of these gross sick people coughing up stuff everywhere. I was terrified! I just laid there and prayed. I prayed for strength, understanding, peace, and healing. I didn’t really know what the healing process would look like. I didn’t know what the next day was going to look like. I didn’t even know who to ask for help if I needed to go to the bathroom. God was the only person I knew that could hear me in that bed. I just remember praying and thinking “God, my mom doesn’t even know that I am here”. And then I heard super audibly, “Yes she does.” If you haven’t heard the voice of God that must sound completely crazy but I did that night. And you know the craziest part? When I did call my mom the next day, she told me she had had this super strong feeling to pray for me that day even though she didn’t really know why. She did know I needed her prayer!

I also got to see God at work in my interactions with the hospital staff while I was there. I had lots of doctors and nurses stop to ask me why I was there. Partly because of the giant plastic collar I had on my neck and partly because it was usual to see an American in the ward like I was. Over and over again, I got to tell people, “I was at church and this pole fell on my head but God saved my life!” And I could say it with a smile on my face! Because it wasn’t just one of those things I was saying because I was supposed to. I really believed it!

It might be confusing to you that I can still praise God even though I could blame Him for what happened. But first, God is not the source of pain and suffering. God allows it but He does not cause it. And He does not give us anything we can’t handle. God knew I trusted Him enough to get me through that whole experience. He gave me teammates that prayed for me and took care of me. (Special shout out to Tiffany for being my nurse while I was healing!) They made sure I didn’t push myself too hard and that I had all of the love I needed while I got better. He gave me amazing friends at home who I know prayed for my quick recovery and who sent me love and support over Facebook. He gave me parents and family who were obviously concerned for my health and safety but who didn’t completely lose it! Even when I decided to stay! There are definitely parents who would have demanded I be on the next plane home but mine didn’t. They also trusted God enough to let Him take care of me. And He did! And the remainder of my trip was so wonderful! So yes, it is one of my favorite stories because it is definitely something about me that makes me unique. But also because that whole experience brought me closer to God than I ever had been!

And remember: God loves you. I love you. Go live a life without fear :)

Good Is Not An Adjective

This past weekend I had the pleasure of being a part of DNOW weekend at my church. If you are unfamiliar with DNOW: it’s a weekend for the middle and high school students to just spend time hanging out with God and their friends. There’s a lot of reflection as well as lots of love and laughter! I’ve been a leader for DNOW every year since I graduated high school (well except for last year when I was inconveniently out of the country…) and I love it! Anyway, all of that to say that there was one point one of our speakers made this weekend that just really stuck out to me. Hopefully, this makes sense to you. It’s a new concept for me and I don’t really know how to best put it into words.

His point came from the story of the rich, young ruler who approached Jesus and asked him “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18) To which Jesus replies “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18:19) Now I’ve heard this story my whole life but usually, we just skip over those 2 verses and focus in on the part of the story when Jesus asks the ruler to give up everything and follow Him and the ruler can’t do it. But these 2 verses hold some super solid Biblical truth.

The word “good” is used to describe something that we should be proud of: good job or good work or wow you’re so good at that. If you have grown up anywhere near a church, you have probably heard the phrase “God is good” more times than you can count. Usually it comes up whenever there has been some hardship or a trial we don’t understand. It follows something like “Well you know I have been really worried about where we are going to get the money for (fill in the blank) but you know God is good and He will provide a way”. Does God really need our confirmation that He is good? Does He really need us to describe His actions as a job well done?

What if instead good was not a way of describing His actions or decisions but was used to describe Him? As our speaker put it: “Good is not a state of being, it is a person.” Yes, God is good. But not because of the choices He makes or the things He excels at, He just is! He never stops being good. It’s not a passing thing. He always is!

And here’s where you come in: don’t you think a person who by definition is GOOD would make any mistakes when He put you together? Do you think the fact He gave you the laugh He did and painted your eyes that color is a good thing? Something that when He looks at you He is proud of? We are made in God’s image so when we look at ourselves, we should see His goodness pouring out of us. God created the world and saw that it was good! It was good because it was His creation, something He intentionally pieced together to glorify Him. So yeah, you may not be “good” at talking to people or always “good” at loving those that are hard to, but you have been made by a Creator that by definition is. Let the goodness of God show itself through you. Celebrate God and His goodness!

God loves you. I love you. Go live a life without fear.