Free Will

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Action!

It's a play. One single performance. The curtains opened for us, and here we are on a wooden stage waiting for the curtain call. The director sits in the back booth, headset on to stay connected to the faithful behind-the-scenes workers below. From His chair of power He calls out the cues. His timing is perfect. He wrote each musical number to correlate relationally with each character and prop. Cue light 4. He knows the beginning and the end, for He is author of both, so He carefully guides the stagehands and actors to His timing to make the performance fit together in perfection.

On the stage we are but hard-studied actors. We have been given a script to follow that tells us of the setting, dialogue, lines and blocking. We have memorized the story. We listen for the "go ahead" from the voice above whispered calmly through the headset of the stagehand. Cue Stephanie. Once we step onto the stage it is all on us. We should know the lines, we do know the blocking, and we even have the soft voice of The Director in our ear should we call out "line?" . But really-- we can do what we want now, ya? We can walk where we want, we can say what we want, we may even be led to believe these little contributions will make the production better! But do we realize that the play was already written and casted for perfection, and by choosing to go our own way we only tamper and sabotage with the grand finale? Is our pride in the spotlight worth the risk of an unrehearsed curtain call?

Finally An Update!

It has been a long past couple of weeks. A lot of lectures, a lot of group activities, learning, growing--it's exhausting!


Last week was amazing. It was a week of financial miracles. My DTS saw over $17,000 come in to go towards our outreaches. A member on my South Africa team got just enough money to purchase her plane ticket only 5 hours before the time cut-off. Personally, I was challenged with my obedience to God, and how much I trust Him, and I found that once I stepped out and was obedient, I was blessed! God provided me with a brand new guitar and hard case for me to bring to South Africa to lead worship for my outreach team. I dare anyone to look me in the face and tell me that God doesn't provide.

Leading worship for my outreach team has been a challenge on my heart a lot lately. I like to play the guitar in private on my own time, but wasn't until the invitation to lead worship during outreach did I ever think about putting the little knowledge and skill I had to lead others. Long process short--I doubted, I ignored but I also heard, loud and clear that this was the ultimate opportunity for me to grow in humility and personally. My friends here have been so encouraging. When I get tired and want to have a day where I don't want to believe, and I don't want to step out in this (or any) challenge, they chase after me! We got each other's backs, for sure!


The past four days we have been learning and ministering in the topic of "lordship". It sounds cliche' yet was one of the most impacting topics for my school. I had a lot of revelations over the past four days-- so many in fact that I would wake up in the middle of the night with one, and then not be able to sleep, and would be exhausted all the next day! One of these revelations is that I struggle with becoming. Not necessarily doubt, obedience or repentence, but becoming! An example of this is my resistance towards playing the guitar in S. Africa. I have been asked to several times, I felt I should, I got a brand new guitar for free, and people kept giving me words of confirmation and affirmation-- yet-- I still hesitated to step into that role. Does it not say in Psalm "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord"? And "Bring EVERYTHING that you are to bless the Lord!" Well I realized that guitar was included in that "everything." If I only knew how to play chords D and C, God would want me to bring to Him praise using just chords D and C! He won't ask me to perform a masterpiece with 30 chords if I only know 2! So with this revelation, I am stepping out into this gift of mine-- however undeveloped it is (but I do know more than 2 chords. Ha!)

I also realized that during DTS God has been teaching me that I'm dangerous. I'm learning to step out of my "cup-of-nice-coffee", complacent, good Christian faith and to discover a new way to be. God doesn't love me anymore that I'm here, but as I grow more radical it brings me more ways to love Him-- and THAT is the essence of humanity in the way it was intended and created. A new way of being human-- it's not comfortable, or a destination, but it is a product of what I stand here today as: a day-by-day work of progress! Besides, I'd rather be dangrous and radical and travel the globe seeing out of the ordinary things than sit in my comfortable faith waiting for the next hoop to jump through!


One more week left of lectures: Kingdom of God, then a final week of outreach prep. and I'm off!

Where there's a Heart, there's a Way

Since my time here, I have had conversations with people from Australia, Fiji, Germany, Canada, England, Scotland, Samoa, New Zealand, Ireland and Iraq; all who have lived in this house with me for a week or more. With each encounter I have with these people, another layer of pre-conceived perception is peeled away from my world view. The scales on my eyes are falling off. It’s the most refreshing and renewing experience. As the size of the world shrinks, so does the self, thus relationships and God grow larger, until ultimately every part of me is consumed with the realization of “more”. I want to know more, I want to do more, for it’s a small world after all.

I have heard many conflicting opinions on Americans from people across the world, and I have come with this temporary theory: The westerners are blinded by materialism while the east can’t see past their traditions. Both of these lifestyles are equally crippling, I think. But I am part of a vision, a vision much larger than myself, yet tangible enough for me to carry on my own two feet: the vision of breaking out of this mold and redefining what it means to live in community. Not everything is self-attained.

It has always been a desire of mine to travel, maybe do missions or some schooling overseas; it wasn’t until these past two weeks where my desire possibly matured into a life calling. I saw some pictures of the areas we will be living in while in South Africa, it’s not tribal areas as I expected, but slums—little shacks made of pieces of scrap metal leaned together. I saw a video taken by a girl who was there last year of a 7 year old African boy running through these slums kicking a ball when suddenly he stops, hops on one foot , pulls a shard of glass from his other foot, tosses it aside, wipes the blood on his chest and keeps running. This picture pierced my heart like the glass itself--ever since seeing this, empathy and sympathy has been spilling from my heart for the people of other nations. We intercede against infanticide, and I feel my own heart takes personal offense; I see video clips of Ecuador tribes, hear personal testimonies from the slaves of Indonesia and hear of mercy mission opportunities around the world and my heart jumps a beat. Each story I hear is fuel, growing this passion inside me to be more real.

Don’t worry mom and dad- I’m not planning on running off and living in an Amazon tribe or anything. And college is still in the back of my mind for sure, but my eyes are being opened, my feet are finding opportunities to move, and I have a feeling that after this awakening they will never stand still again.

A phrase that has randomly popped into my head on more than one occasion is: “Humbled by dirt.” I believe that this phrase both reflects my character- as I am one who prefers the outdoors to a building or manmade structure any day- and who I am yet to become. I want to live humbled by dirt. Our society has used the ground only as a block on which to build up from. Many live suspended above this dirt while others have it under their fingernails and rely on living from the dirt and not over the dirt. Since I’ve been in Australia, my feet seem to be permanently dirty. The dust from camping, sand from the beach and grease from the kitchen just won’t come off. My roommates and I had a night where we all washed and manicured our feet, only for them to be a dark grey by the next night. And you know what? I’m totally comfortable with this. Yesterday I went trekking barefoot for hours down a rock cliff with a couple other girls. By the time we got back, the barnacles and crevices of the rocks had cut into our feet, leaving them raw, bleeding and burnt from the hot surfaces. We had to painfully scrub out the sand in the saltwater of the sea, but after a day of healing, our feet had callused over, and though they remain filthy, they are stronger. For a small price, Kim, Erika, Sai and I were able to see a part of the forest and ocean that no one else had laid eyes on that day, and because of it, we will be able to journey even farther next time. This is how I want to live-- with feet that are callused and trekking forward, sincerely humbled by dirt.