Build us Back

At church today the band sang the new Newsboys song called "Build Us Back". You can listen to the song here:



This song captures God's heart in such a beautiful way - it gives me shivers.
Pete Hise (my pastor) at Quest spoke about something really powerful today. He shared with us that we weren't necessarily meant to live a quiet, peaceful, safe life; we were meant to be Jesus' hands and feet to this world... to give up what WE think our life should be like. He encouraged us to give up our plans, our 5-year goals and our ideas of what our life should look like; what WE want.
Almost every person in the bible that we read about now were just at one time very normal people living very normal lives; look at David for instance, he was a little shepherd boy that God chose to be a king of Israel. God's plans for our lives are truly unimaginable; but that is only if we let Him use us. If you are looking for some "nice Jesus work" to do a couple times a year and then be done with it, you are never going to find God's purpose in your life. Where you are going to find your purpose, where you are going to find God is in the midst of rubble; people who's life's are in shambles and they let Jesus wipe them clean and give them a new hope and new perspective.

Pete also spoke about how we need to see all the plight around us and not cover our eyes and look the other way like 99% of people do. We need to acknowledge the problems in this world, FACE them, don't turn our backs to them, and then DO something about it. Keep your eyes and heart open to the reality and pain of this world.

When God gives you a vision, step over the line, risk a little bit and respond to it. Jesus has never let me down or abandoned me in any situation, especially if He's laid a something or someone on my heart. He has always come through for me in more ways than I have known possible, he has blown my mind to the point of sometimes I cannot even comprehend how he did it. You know something? He will do the exact same for you - Jesus is the same today, yesterday, and forever; He will never change and he will always be GOOD and compassionate and trustworthy and MERCIFUL to us. That is my God.

One thing that really just made my heart beat faster today was shared at church. From this June (2010) until the end of August (2010) Quest started a 3-month "tithe challenge" where families or individuals that weren't currently tithing were challenged to trust God by tithing 10% of their income for 3 straight months and to see how much God opened up in their lives and provided for them. They even went as far to say that if God did not exceed their expectations with how much he blessed them in those 3 months, that Quest would give them back all their money, just to get them to start learning to trust God. Well, today, they announced that they would take of "tithe of their tithe".. meaning out of all the money that came in from the "tithe challenge" at the end of August, they will be taking 10% of that money and using is to purchase freedom for girls in Bangladesh and Cambodia that are stuck in sex trafficking and slavery. HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!?!? When they said that, I could not help to feel tears welling up in my eyes - sex trafficking of girls in other countries has been on my heart for the last year, and now my church is doing something about it. I am going to try to contact someone to see if there's any way at all that I could be a part of that, if that means giving my own money to purchase girls out of slavery - I want to be a part of it. To me, it is one of the most terrible things going on in the world today, especially since a lot of the girls are 8 and 9 years old - babies.

Jesus - Thank you SO much that my church has had Cambodia and Bangladesh on their hearts - I want you to allow Quest to be able to buy hundreds - no THOUSANDS of girls and women out of slavery and set them free not only in the physical sense, but most importantly in the spiritual sense. Please help me not to close my eyes at the rubble and devastation on this earth but to actually do something about it. I love you so much Jesus - please help me to love other people in the way you love them. Amen.