If you like being weeks or months (or maybe even years) behind the rest of the digital world like I am, then this summary of things I've come across recently is perfect for you.
The most annoying question...it was asked a year ago by Sammy Adebiyi on 'How Much Does God Weigh?', but maybe it needs to be asked again.
Similar theme, and more questions to ask yourself from Kim Walker (of Jesus Culture).
And pretty sure you can't have missed this... Invisible Children andKony 2012. But if you are wanting to know more, Rachel Held Evans has put together a greatlist of resources.
There is a lot of opinion flying around about this. In a nutshell, my opinion is that some awareness and action is better than a lot of ignorance and apathy, even if flawed. Awareness and compassion counts for a lot.
If you like being weeks or months (or maybe even years) behind the rest of the digital world like I am, then this summary of things I've come across recently is perfect for you.
This week in the blogging world: (meaning I saw it this week, not that it necessarily appeared this week...)
- Video from White Dove Ministries - Josh Lindsey
- The Very Worst Missionary - The Tourist Gospel "But here we are, the Church, huddled together in awe and fear of the big, scary world, wearing ugly-ass shoes and a stupid-ass hat, and talking like a bunch of foreigners - but we've got our fingers crossed that the people will see how we're so totally set apart, and then they'll come ask us for directions."
On the blog: The list on this page most likely to be actually from this week - since I wrote it. Yet, also since I wrote it, probably covered by someone else years ago....
It's been a while since I've posted any videos. I took an extended hiatus while I mulled things over privately. I tend to do that - percolate something until I'm ready to express it again. That process of percolation can take a few days to a few years, so my blogging and vlogging tends to be erratic as a result!
But just recently a man posted a video response to one of my Being a Woman videos that I uploaded ages ago. It was quite a bizarre feeling at first, to be watching someone else talking on a video and addressing it to me. In this cyber world it's easy to feel insulated and almost forget that there are actually real people on the other end of their computers, watching me.
But I found it really touching that someone would take the time to respond. And it was also a great reminder that I'm not the first or the last person to think about these things. And it's probably also a reminder to think more of myself as in a community - a community that stretches over the world through this crazy network that is the web - and remember that I'm not just a lone girl sitting at a computer sending things into thin air.
But anyway, here is the video I posted (which I haven't watched since I posted it, because I find it hard to do without cringing!), and the response, plus the message I wrote back.
Response:
My reply and further thoughts:
Thank you - I really appreciated your video response. I am actually married already, but what prompted me to do this video was more about my own wrestling with letting a man be what God created him to be, so that I can be a woman as God created me. Because, as you said in this video, we were created differently. And so even though I am married to a godly man, I am still young, and growing up in a world that fights over the 'gender issue' - even the church is in conflict over it - this means, I, like a lot of young women, have a lot to learn. Or re-learn as the case may be, because in the past I've believed the wrong things about what being a woman is all about.
In the search for 'equality', people have started believing that we can be exactly the same. And I think that robs both men and women of the strengths they were given. So thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my video and speak on this issue. The things you said really touched my heart.
Last Saturday I posted the video of Brian Welch, the former lead guitarist of Korn, sharing his testimony. It was powerful and inspiring to see how God's love can rescue us from anything.
But sometimes people think it's exciting to have a testimony like that, to have something so dark to be rescued from so that we have something powerful to share.
This video from I Am Second, of Bailee Madison, is like the complete contrast to Brian's story. And yet it is no less inspiring and powerful.
Whatever our story, God uses us.Whatever your story, God will use it.
I grew up too fast. I was impatient to be an adult. Ever since I was little I used to daydream about being an adult and living an adult life. I invented in my imagination a little city of mini-houses where my friends and I all lived like little families and pretended we were grown ups. I had a a mini plastic ironing board when I was young, and then migrated to the real iron to press hankercheifs and tea-towels. I longed for it more than just a child playing house for fun. I was keen to be my own independent person as soon as possible.
Moving out of home at 17 showed me that being an adult wasn't everything I had imagined it to be.
(Now reuploaded since the audio got switched off.)
Right after recording this video, I got a reminder of how much I really do need to hear this message myself. That night, after recording the video in the afternoon, I found myself getting angry at my husband for what I felt was a lack of appreciation, and for a whole lot of other things until I ended up attacking him on all fronts.... before finally realising that I was doing exactly what I had been talking about in my video.
If I was feeling any distance from my husband, it was because I had pushed him that far away so many times and made it clear I wanted him at arms length because he was cramping my style. I'd made him feel like he wasn't really wanted in my life.
This made it even clearer to me how important it is for me to explore this topic - even if I'm the only one who ever watches my videos. I felt like I was under attack, and the moment I realised I was thinking lies I felt peace again.
When we're on to something, when God wants to do things in us, that's when the enemy is most likely to come in and try and set us off track. And the thing is, he often doesn't have to work very hard at it.
I imagine him coming in, mentioning to us "Remember that thing you were upset about the other day..." then sitting back, putting his feet up and laughing while he watches us self destruct.
He wants us to keep believing the lie that we are always hard done by. That submitting is being weak. That lifting the men in our lives up means we're pushing ourselves down. That to be happy, women have to be independent of men, who are only out to crush us.
We believe these things in varying degrees is so many areas of our lives, but they can be so subtle, or so ingrained that we don't notice them until God points them out for us.
I think this is such an important issue in our society. We have so many family issues but we're starting not to notice it anymore because we see it everywhere. Marriage break-up is becoming so commonplace that we are in danger of thinking of it as the norm. But what is becoming the norm is that women have distorted ideas of their self worth, distorted ideas of how to treat and be treated by men. Men have distorted ideas of what being a man means, of how to treat women, of how they expect they are going to be treated by women. We need to break the cycle.
In Christians' lives, the relationship between a man and a woman is meant to be a reflection of the relationship between the church and God, the bride of Christ.
Ephesians 5:21-33 - the passage in here used to be a standard at weddings, but something has happened in our attitudes that now it receives criticism if you choose it. We chose it at our wedding and had people question why we would choose that verse, as if it was out-dated and old fashioned. But when you look at it closely, it sums up exactly what our relationships are supposed to be between husband and wives and how closely it reflects our relationship with Jesus, so much so that it almost is hard to discern wether Paul is talking about husband/wife or Christ/church at some points. It's pretty clear, and so fundamental I feel like it should be a requirement at Christian weddings.
"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
There are a lot of reasons why women shy away from even looking at their roles and what might need to change - one is fear. Fear of being let down and or not appreciated by men. Sometimes it's just plain stubborness. But when you look at it this way, 'Submit to eachother out of reverence for Christ' - we're not doing for the other person, we're doing it for God.
It breaks my heart to see people, especially girls, with low self-esteem and no sense of their self worth. We get so influenced by the world and what we're told is important that we start to see that as the truth and define ourselves by the worlds standards, and by comparing ourselves to other people.
The problem with those standards is that they are not real, and so never achievable. And they miss the point of what's really important.
We feel inadequate because of our looks, appearance, weight, clothes....because we've come to believe that those things are important in who we are.
Your clothes change, fashions change, beauty fades... None of these things last, and none of these things are what God really cares about.
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, ...Rather, it should be that of your inner self,
the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.
1 Peter 3:3-4
If you are feeling bad about yourself as a person because of the way you look then you need to redefine what makes a person valuable and worth something.
To God you are precious! Infinitely valuable! So valuable he sent is son to die for YOU!
He didn't say - Are you too fat? Are you wearing hand me downs instead of the latest fashion? Are your eyes too close together or is your nose too big?
He said - I knew you before you were born. I knit you together in your mothers womb. I have plan and a purpose for you. I created you especially and then sent my son to die for you, because I love you!!!
You are a child of God. A precious daughter. Let God fill your heart with the assurance of your worth in him and then the outside stuff will fade away.
This verse was on my mind this week from the message we heard (watched) on Youtube this sunday - isn't it great how when you can't go to Church you can at least bring part of the church to you.
But it was discussing the verse that I've chosen for my memory verse this week, - 1 Corinthians 15:33 - and it really struck home with me. It has been a issue for me my whole life - choosing who I spend my time with, and the influence of some poor choices.
Recently I have made some decisions to spend less time with certain people, because I recognised that when I was with them I was gossiping and talking negatively about others, and I didn't want to do that.
It is difficult to talk about this topic sometimes without sounding elitist and like I'm looking down my nose at others who aren't as 'good' as me - but I want to make it clear that it's not that at all.
In the case of me gossiping too much, it wasn't the people I was with causing me to gossip - I was choosing to do that, and in some cases initiating it. But it was being with people that didn't discourage it, and would join in, that gave me a sense of freedom to say things I wouldn't say with other people.
So in many cases is not that others make us act in ways contrary to what we know God wants from us - it's often that what is permissable, allowable or approved with some people lets us act in different ways.
It is not to say you are meant to shun anyone - but think about who you are allowing close enough to have influence in your life.
If you are committed to walking with God, and living the life that he has set out for us, then it is much more beneficial to closely surround ourselves with people who point us in the right direction; people who have the same values and morals and beliefs as those we are aiming to live by; people who won't pull away from where we want to be, but will pull us up when we stray.
Sorry for the regular changes in video quality. New camera, and still trying to work out the best way to do it. Hope the message still comes across, even if the picture isn't great :)
God's will is not some impossible puzzle - often we do just have to trust Him and won't be able to see everything, nor should we try to sometimes because we just trip ourselves up - but he does give us everything we need to be able to move with Him and follow his plan for our lives. He is not sending us out in a dark maze without a map or a light.
So how are we meant to find our way?
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. Psalm 119:105
His word is our guide. But it's not much good if we don't know it, or if we don't have that relationship with God for Him to show us how to use that light! God's word is not a big, dry rule book or instruction manual. It is living, alive, like running water!
Want to know my (somewhat imperfect) analogy for the difference between knowing vs understanding God's will? Not just for women, even though I've put it in my Women series.
Verses I used in the video:
For the word of God is LIVING and active. Hebrews 4:12
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of LIVING water.' John 7:37-38
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2
"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12
I used to see that verse as an excuse, a free pass to validate my rebellious youth. "I'm young - don't you dare look down on me!" Reading it now I don't see that in there at all, but we all see what we want to see when it works for us. Now I see it as an admonishment, an instruction - as it was for Timothy.
I want to explore what it really means.
I had an interesting teenage-hood. I made a lot of mistakes, I can tell you, and from some of those choices I'm still cleaning up the wreckage. Mine is definitely a what-not-to-do in a lot of cases.
I would really like to share that with people as a warning beacon, as advice, and as encouragement that it's a hard time of life and you're not alone in struggling with it. Or just someone to look at and say to yourself, "Phew, I'm doing better than that at least!"
If you want to hear about my story, for whatever it's worth, there'll be videos coming soon on YouTube and I'll post links to them here.It will probably have a girl focus, because I'm a girl and that's all I know, but I'm sure things in it will apply to everyone. And boys, we know you like to read Dolly or Cosmo every now and then just to see what us girls are all about, so this can be for you too :)
I promise it will be more meaningful than a magazine!
