"Red and Yellow, Black and White"

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What does it mean when there's a big tent set up behind your church and everything is decorated to look like a cave? Why, it's Vacation Bible School time, of course! Every night we had right around 20 preschoolers (ages 3-5) for 3 hours in a tent! As the week went on , I was given the nickname "Miss Teacher"; appropriately so, as I was co-teaching the class. It was a wonderful experience and I was blessed to be a part of it. 

Now you didn't ask, but I'm sure you were wondering- what color were the children I was ministering to? For some reason that's the hot topic of today. Color, color, color. 

I go to a biracial church and our VBS was very much biracial as well. I had children of every shade jumping and singing and laughing and playing around me all week long. I watched these very diverse children. I really watched them, and you know what? One shade never acted more superior than another. There was never a hesitation when one went to hold another's hand. Not one child looked at another with anything but innocence and friendship. Yes, I taught children that had a darker skin than others, and I taught children that had a lighter skin than others; but their laughter didn't change by the shade of their skin. Their smile didn't reflect their melanin levels. The joy in their eyes as we played "Duck, duck, goose" didn't vary from skin color to skin color. They were all beautiful children having fun together. 

Why was this, you ask? Why didn't the children have to set aside their protest signs before sitting at our table? Why didn't all 20 of my little pupils break out into a riot over someone's stupid comment? Why were they writing their names on their coloring paper instead of some trending hashtag? Because, my friends, that kind of hatred, the kind that we all are seeing prevalent today, is a learned behavior- those kiddos haven't learned it, yet. 

My dad has this saying, "Darkness doesn't mind darkness." What he means by this is that this world is a wicked place. It's full of sin. The prince of this world, Satan, roams around seeking to kill, steal and destroy. {John 10:10} Satan is perfectly fine with making the already dark world an even darker place. That darkness doesn't even have to make logical sense, like many of the issues we're facing today. As long as it benefits Satan's objectives, it's a go. This whole racial division in our Nation is a huge example of darkness getting darker; and I'm afraid that many are allowing themselves to be the pawns. 

It's sad really. Satan is so good at blinding people by his schemes that many don't realize that they're involved in it. It's one thing if you're not a part of God's family- if you're not saved, because you are a prisoner of that darkness already. You've never seen the Light of Christ, so you don't recognize the dark. It's a "Darkness doesn't mind darkness" sort-of thing.

It's another thing entirely if you do claim to be saved. If you've seen Christ, if you've felt His love and experienced His light, then you have absolutely no right to add to the darkness! No matter how socially acceptable, no matter how justified, we, as the Christians, should NEVER be amongst the crowd of wrongful division; especially when the children are watching- and they're always watching. 

They're watching you. They're watching me. They're watching- period. And they were watching through that whole week of VBS. The fourth night's VBS held the theme of "Jesus gives us love." As leaders, during closing time, we were to go up to each child, get down eye-to-eye with them,  and tell that that Jesus loves them. I did this with each of the children within arm's reach. Each time I would say their name and ask them "did you know that Jesus loves you?" I probably did this with six or seven children; and one by one they would shake their little heads "no." No, they didn't know that Jesus loves them. My heart broke a little more with each confused stare. 

People, we're missing the mark!  We, as the body of Christ, are not hitting our target. We are so busy getting caught up with the things of this world- things like who's being discriminated against now or what we're gonna be offended by this minute, that we are completely, and intentionally, ignoring our main objective. That objective being to tell the children that Jesus loves them- to tell everyone that for that matter! Our children don't have to go searching for people screaming #Blacklivesmatter, so they CERTAINLY shouldn't have to go searching for people whispering "Jesus loves you." 

Stop it! Stop being so self-centered  on color and status and what everybody else is doing and think about what you're doing! This whole thing does matter. It is a big deal. It's a big deal that we are allowing this nation's children to lay in bed at night knowing that there is physical division everywhere they look- that there is literal turmoil tearing apart their world, but not knowing that Jesus, the very God who made them and died to save their souls LOVES them! 

Back down with the hashtags and step up with Jesus's love. 

On the final night of our VBS week I gathered all my sugared-up kiddos and we sat down on the mat. They sat, quietly for a surprisingly long moment and watched me, I took that moment to look across the sea of varying skin tones and I smiled. They are all so beautiful. I knew that Someone else thought so too, and I began to sing. 

"Jesus loves the little children-

All the children of the world:

Red and yellow, black and white-

They are precious in His sight. 

Jesus loves the little children of the world."

I sang all by myself at first, the children just looking cautiously at one another; but one by one they would smile and join in. By the third time of singing that same song the entire tent, with its 20+ bodies of both dark and light skin, was singing with one unified voice. You know why? Because Jesus truly does love the Red, yellow, black, white, olive, tan, and whathaveyou children of the world; and because love truly does drive out hate. I don't mean that peace and 'coexist' type of love that society is poisoning us with either. No. But Jesus's love... Yeah, Jesus's love is powerful stuff- powerful for all skin tones. We should all be thankful for that. 

"9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language,standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”" {Revelation 7:9-10}

Pokemon Go- A Christian's "No Go"

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Things aren't always as they appear.

Call me skeptical and paranoid, I don't care, but I believe this statement to be true in almost every circumstance; especially when the circumstance involves overly popular fads.

Fads such as the new Pokemon Go.

Make Him Jump

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Standards. We all have them. You know, those required stipulations that we have set in place for our future man (or woman) to meet. Sometimes it's a physical list of items waiting to be checked off, most often it's just mental; but we've all got one. Personality traits like patience, a love for animals, and a forgiving spirit are often top-priority. Sometimes even physical attributes like a muscular build and dashing smile make the cut.

I'm no exception to this generalization; I have my own set of standards and requirements. (I've shared some with you before in this post.) I have a mixture of both a physical and mental list of what I'm looking for in a guy. It almost goes without saying that the spiritual traits are MOST important to me, but I do (like a typical sappy girl always does) have a certain preference when it comes down to some of those physical traits.

Standards are a good thing. A valuable thing!

I'd say every girl has a mixture of both fluid and immovable standards. Fluid standards being the ones that come down to more just preference- the ones that might change or vary as time goes on; for example, dark hair vs. lighter hair. Oftentimes the physical qualities we prefer fit into this fluid category. A girl may prefer one thing or another, but that doesn't become a make-it or -break-it thing. She's not gonna turn down a godly man's proposal because he has the wrong eye color- at least I hope not! I might rather that my man sing Josh Turner songs to me, but if he's more of a Brad Paisley guy, that's cool too! Fluid standards.

Immovable standards are ones that we just can't budge on. My guy HAS to be a true, ever transforming, believer of Jesus Christ. I will not settle for less. Another immovable, unbudgeable one for me is the idea of children.  My guy HAS to value life, especially that of the unborn and he MUST be willing to allow the Lord to determine the size of our family. I'm not going to enter a relationship with a man that doesn't view children the way God does- as precious and valuable.

I've had the opportunity to share some of my standards with a few of my peers. Of course, I've heard strong words of encouragement from those closest to me, but I've also felt the weight of quite a bit of negative feedback. The idea of setting and maintaining high standards in today's society and culture is almost unheard of. I dare say that because high standards for our relationships isn't an easy thing, it's also not the popular thing. People don't want to put in the effort. I don't say that to offend anyone, I'm just speaking truth. Girls and guys alike will chop down their list of immovable standards until they all become fluid ones; ones that depend on the person they "like" and the feeling of the moment. It's sad really. We settle for so much less than God wants for us and then we wonder how in the world we got to the circumstance we're at.

Why Bother?
If standards are hard, why set them?

It's a question I've thought about often enough, surely. I'm the kind of person that needs to know the "why?". I think I've basically summed the answer up in 3 parts.

1. Set Standards are a Solid Home Base for the Individual (Guys and Girls both) to Start From and Come Back to.

It seems to reason that if we have a fixed idea of what we're looking for, then we're not going to stray too far from that starting point when we're en route. It's sort of like buying a car, but not. I get it. Your future spouse isn't a car and we're not going to be doing any test drives; but think about it for a sec. If you're interested in buying a compact car that gets good gas mileage, then you're not going to be looking anywhere near the lot of 18-wheelers! That may seem crazy, but it's just that simple. If you, as a single individual, have "MUST BE SAVED BY THE BLOOD" as your top priority, then that automatically chops a few venues off the list of possibilities. Having that list, especially a physically written down form, is a great way to check yourself on what you're looking at. You can always go back to it and refocus.

2. Set Standards are Biblical.

I know, I know! You can search the entire Bible, cover-to-cover, and never find anything about set standards or God's desire for them. Hear me out though. The Bible carries a theme through its entirety- firstly about God's desire and design for marriage (ie- one man, one woman; leave and cleave; be fruitful and multiply), and secondly about choosing the right person (ie- equally yoked; order of authority; no divorce). As you search deeper through Scripture, you can also find some pretty detailed standards within its chapters. Proverbs 31 is often a chapter that young men go to for guidance as to what to look for in a wife; similarly 1 Timothy can be a good book for young women to set standards out of for their future husband. There is never a situation in life that God's living and active Word can't relate to. He's just awesome like that!

3. Set Standards because You're Worth It!

I'm gonna slightly veer from speaking to a general audience and shift more towards specifically a young woman conversation. I'm not saying that this section doesn't apply to the gentlemen of our group too, it's just that the topic of one's worth doesn't seem to be such a sensitive subject to the guys. Please, keep bearing with me! Just forgive me if I get a little gender specific here, men. :)

Ladies, don't let anyone ever attempt to convince you that you are not valuable. Even if it seems like every man in your life mistreats you and considers you worthless, remember this one thing:

Jesus, the ONLY man who really matters, gave up His own life on the cross to restore you to Him because He thought YOU were worth it. Even if you were the only messed up person in the entire history of persons, He still would've saved you- because He loves you and values the relationship with you.

That very same God didn't stop valuing you when He rose again. No. If you are truly His child, then He considers you even more precious. He even goes so far as to say:

"An excellent woman [one who is spiritual, capable, intelligent, and virtuous] who is he who can find her? Her value is more precious than jewels and her worth is far above rubies or pearls." {Proverbs 31:10 AMP}

Your worth is "far above rubies". So you know what? Don't make it easy on that future man. Your Lord thinks that you are valuable. Your Lord, the One Who is always wooing and drawing you closer to Him, thinks you're valuable. That's big! Set high standards for that future man because you know that you don't need to find your worth in him. You already know you're worth- it's found in Jesus, and you don't need to be "the easy catch". Make that guy work for it. Make your future man get closer to God just to find you sheltered against God's chest. 

Set your bar so high that your future husband has to jump just to reach it. Make him jump, ladies. Make him jump! 

"A woman's heart should be so close to God that a man has to seek Him just to find her."
-Lucado

Look Up

I just have a quick word for you tonight. The Lord spoke to my heart as I was walking down to the barn to feed my animals this evening, and I thought I'd share that with you.

"Look up."

That's what My Lord told me.

When He spoke that word into my heart my eyes were down, focused on the task at hand. I was hurrying- because I was tired, and I kept my gaze on the ground with each step.

"Look Up" He said.

I did, and I was blessed with that beautiful sunset.

Jesus told us that He would return for us, one day, through the clouds. That He'd come when no one was expecting it, "like a thief in the night." [1 Thessalonians 5:2] He commanded us to be vigilant- ever watchful, for that return.

Society is always telling us to "stop and smell the roses." That's great and all, but the roses are on the ground. How am I to be ever watchful of Jesus and His coming if my eyes are still stuck on this earth? Now of course, I'm speaking a bit metaphorically here. We can't literally look up every second of the day; but we do need to be careful of what the eyes of our heart are focused on. In my case this evening, I was so focused on my chore that I almost missed the sunset!

Just be careful my friend, at what your eyes are fixed on right now. Even if you're inside and there's nothing to look up at except for the ceiling, turn the eyes of your heart to look up toward God. Pray, read His Word, or just sit silently for a while and let Him pour into your life. Take your eyes off the stresses of the moment and look up. Take your eyes off the task at hand and look up. Take your eyes off of yourself and look up. 

Look up. Don't miss the sunset that The Lord is offering you right now. 

Freedom

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Freedom 

It's a word we have stitched to our t-shirts. 

It's a hope people immigrate to claim. 

It's an anthem that we shout loud and proud. 

It's a prayer that they didn't die in vain. 

It's a memory of the rights we once had. 

It's a movement to define something new. 

It's unifies to one upright cause. 

It divides the uncompromising few. 

Yes, freedom is a word we all use. 

It's the right to life and liberty. 

But to those that today dare abuse it;

Remember, freedom has never been free. 

With every bead of sweat, it's been paid for. 

With every drop of blood, it's been sured. 

With every new face, been protected. 

With every last breath, been secured. 

To the ones that enlisted, I salute you. 

To the ones that now fight, I thank. 

But to the soldier that never came home, 

It's you we now commemorate. 

Though your life can never be brought back,

I pray that this country can claim, 

That the freedom you fought for was honored

And that your fight was not fought in vain. 

Ever Honor, Never Forget.