Seeking Status.

Growing up, I wanted to be a high-powered executive, working long hours in a big city office, making a ton of money and bossing people around. And I pictured myself doing all of this while wearing heels.

My reasoning for this was simple; I wanted to be seen as having status in life. I wanted to be seen as important, and the way I thought I'd get that was to make a lot of money, have a lot of power.

When I got to college at the University of South Dakota, I realized I was starting out with 0 status in life. I was from a tiny town in Minnesota that no one had ever heard of. Anything I did in high school didn't really matter; this was a clean slate.

In a way, being in a new town in a new state at a new college excited me. I realized I could construct whatever image I wanted to. I could start all over and be whoever I wanted, whether it was really true or not.

My very first week of class I met an interesting group of people. As we continued to hang out, I realized they were different than anybody I'd ever met before, for a few reasons. One of them was their interest in hanging out with me and my roommate. We spent quite a bit of time with a couple girls several years older than us. I was amazed that these cool seniors would want to hang out with lowly freshman. After a week or so, I realized that it wasn't just me that they seemed interested in; they seemed to have a love and compassion for other people, even strangers they didn't really know. I'd never really seen that before.

It wasn't long before I found out why they had this real love for people, even people who were hard to love. They had experienced the love of God is such a meaningful way in their lives that they couldn't help but love other people because of it. They talked about God like he was their buddy who lived down the hall in the dorm; like they actually knew him. And I'm not talking about the way Pastors talk about God, like he's "sovereign and almighty" and all that stuff. They talked about God teaching and showing them things in tangible ways.

Even though part of me thought it was kind of weird, I was amazed that they were so assured of their status in God's eyes. Even when they didn't feel like God cared about them, they chose to believe him despite their doubts and trust the truth over their feelings.

I wanted this assurance for myself. I wanted to know God like they knew him. One day, a friend of mine came to my dorm room to talk about all of this stuff. We read some verses together and talking about God's love, my sin, and Jesus' death on the cross. She shared with me one of the most quoted verses in the Bible, John 3:16 -- For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. She said, "For God so loved AMY that he gave his son for her, so she may have eternal life by believing in Him."

I'd heard this verse a million times, but suddenly I actually understood it. God gave his son for ME? He must love me a ton, to give up his son for me. I realized that this made me important in God's eyes. I didn't have to pursue a powerful status in life, because God thought I was already significant.

As I pondered these things after my friend left, I realized a few things:

- I wasn't sure I'd go to heaven when I died.
- If I asked Jesus into my life, I'd be sure.
- This was a really significant decision.

- I should not have let me friend leave without telling her all of this.

So, I asked Jesus into my life. I prayed a simple prayer, confessing my sin and acknowledging the fact that I couldn't save myself, but I needed Jesus to save me. I asked God to make me into the person he wanted me to be- a significant person in his eyes, and that I wouldn't care about how I looked in the eyes of other people.

So, I prayed this prayer, and nothing really changed right away. Little by little, as I began to learn more about God through the Bible and talk about him with others, I realized why he saw me significant: because he had created me to be like him ("in his image," as it says in Genesis). He wanted me to be his ambassador in the world, and share my love for him with others around me. That God would trust me with this task, the most important thing in the world, and the purpose of our lives, showed me that God thought I was significant.

Now more than 6 years later, my life continues to revolve around this significant task: sharing my love for God with others around me in any way I can. My relationship with him is the most significant one I'll ever have, and affects everything I do in life. And when my time here on earth is done, the fun really begins: life in Heaven with Jesus.

losing to gain

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." -Matthew 10:39

Until recently, I've always thought of this verse in terms of confessing a saving faith in Christ. It's important to grasp the concept that Christ gave up His perfect life for us. We are to give up our sinful lives in order to find true life in Christ.

But this is important for the rest of our lives after we make that decision to live for Christ. The Gospel is not only for unbelievers, but for believers, too. God calls us to give up comfortable patterns of our our lives from the time before we believed. This is a process, and not one that we can finished on earth.

I hope I am making sense here. I don't think I can fully describe the new way that I understand this verse now, as a part of my life in Christ.

As Jim Elliot said, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

I think this quote has huge implications in the context of a way of life, being more than just a one-time decision.

Thoughts on Shane Claiborne's thoughts.

Tonight I had the privilege of hearing a lecture from Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President.

He touched on a lot of different topics in 45 minutes, but the thing he kept coming back to, even during the Q&A section, was the radical way Jesus lived.

Jesus challenged the pattern of the world when he lived on earth. And he bids us the same. Shane listed a few of the patterns we tend to follow today. Our natural reaction to crime and suffering is to move away from it, into the suburbs. Our natural reaction to a bad economy is to stockpile our money in an effort for financial security. He had a lot to say about this pattern (or I just took more notes during this section).

Americans constitute 5% of the world's population and consume half of the world's material goods. We try to fill the void inside of us with stuff. But it just ends up controlling us. Some of the freest people in the world hold onto stuff the loosest.
Mother Teresa said "the best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away." Shane goes as far as saying that the more that we have the less we become.

In general, we all stockpile things and over-consume, (yes, even Christians). We live in a world where over-consumption of food is literally killing some of us. One out of three adult Americans are obese. Thousands will die this year from complications from being overweight, while thousands of people die every day from starvation.

Jesus constantly challenged the norm. Shane does the same, and evokes a feeling of fascination that leave you wondering if there are ways you can challenge the norm in your own life.

You may not agree with Shane's radical ways, but at least he believes in what he believes in 100%. I didn't come away from Shane's lecture wanting to buy his newest book or gush about how great he is to my friends. I left wanting to know Jesus more, and to consider what patterns of the world I was conforming to that I wasn't aware of.

Holidays + Jesus = Interesting Conversations

The holiday season is soon upon us. Turkey. Football. Family. Christmas cookies. Vacation from Work. Family. Putting up the Tree. Pie. Family. Christmas Music. Christmas Gifts. Family.

Oh, and Jesus.

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is to take a seemingly normal holiday conversation and take it down a rocky path to a specific person that everyone often avoids: Jesus. It is particularly fun to do this with total strangers and extended family members that already think I'm weird.

Here's an article for some ideas about sharing the "reason for the season" with your family, friends and others. Click here for the article.

(Sidenote: Is Jesus REALLY the reason for the season? More on that later).