Submitting it to the Holy One

Elisabeth Elliot is a woman I greatly respect. She wrote "Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control" among many other books. She was married to Jim Elliot, her college sweetheart, who was taken from her just three years later in Ecuador.

Last year I picked up a copy of "Passion and Purity" under the advice of another lady I respect, Allison. She told me that it really aided in her pursuit of a pure relationship with her now-fiancee, Jake (and since they are now engaged, I have to believe that this is the truth). So I spent the sixteen dollars and tax on this book and subsequently spent the next few days hating Elisabeth Elliot.

She made too much sense.

She spoke into places of my heart that weren't prepared to be spoken to.

I got angry.

I threw the book against the wall.

I calmed down, kept reading, and now, a year later, have come to realize what a treasure this book really is.

The biggest thing that I have learned from "Passion and Purity" is that the gift of love that God graces us with is not for us. It is for God. If the relationships that I have are not God-honoring then who are they for? And furthermore, if I seek to have a God-honoring relationship I must realize that this may not be permanent. God gives and takes away, and God may just take away the people that I have in my life. And I have to be willing to submit that to Him too.

Falling in love with God has been the most exhilarating experience of my life. I have never been so challenged, so intruded upon, so questioned, and so deeply loved by anyone else. I'm finding peace in my life that I did not know that I needed. I want people to continue to ask me the hard questions and really challenge me to grow more. After all, when you love somebody you want to know everything about them, don't you?

God-centered, God-seeking, authentic relationships require a level of openness and submission that I am not always comfortable with. Allowing trusted Christians into my life to openly question and challenge me about the blackest parts of my life (that I really would not like to be known at times) is hard. Americans like their privacy. Heck, people like their privacy. But I know that in order to grow, I have to be able to submit EVERYTHING to God - and if I don't... well then where is there room for growth?

Patience springs from this submission. When I submit to God the things that I would truly like to have right away (i.e. a job, school, a super sweet man, a boat, blah blah blah) I come to realize that these desires I have will either be fulfilled or not - but rushing them isn't going to make it any better. In fact, rushing anything can ruin the pleasure in the time I have to enjoy the road on the way to these things. By always looking to the future, I potentially miss the incredible present. And the present- well it's a present! Savoring the moment I am in now, enjoying what gifts I have been blessed with today, helps me have patience in waiting for what might come - and prevents the David-Bathsheba problem: desiring what I don't have even though I am immensely blessed right now.

When I think of submitting things in my life to Christ I think about the way that a basket is weaved. Each strip of the basket alone is weak - it could not, by itself, hold anything. But when interlaced with other strips of the basket, the structure becomes stronger and eventually can hold a great deal of material. When I submit my everyday affairs to Christ, I am allowing Him to weave Himself into my being and becoming stronger. However... if I decide not to submit an area of my life to Christ I am leaving that part of the basket unwoven and it will be basically useless. Things would fall out of it and eventually the weight of the materials being held or carried would cause the basket's structure to begin to fray and break. Without full submission, there is never full use. I want to be used completely for Christ.

Moses' Time

I was reading in Deuteronomy tonight and it dawned on me that people in Moses' time didn't have an entire Bible to reference for their lives with God. I'm certain most of them had to rely on word of mouth and trust that these decrees and laws set forth were from God and weren't just from some crazy man who claimed to be a leader and wanted power.

I feel fortunate that I live in a society where I have full access to God's word and can use it to strengthen me and revive me when I am weak. Why has this never occurred to me before tonight? I have this incredibly powerful story at my fingertips in all forms (there are at least six-ten Bibles in this apartment, four of which are mine) and on my new cell phone... there is no excuse for me to not be in the Word.

I remember in my first year of Christianity there was this woman, Nicole, who taped verses to her steering wheel to memorize during the week. She would have a new one each week. I want to do something like that... except I don't have a steering wheel to tape my verses. I have this paper from a Chi Alpha meeting awhile back that has all these references to places in the Bible to read when you are dealing with different issues (i.e. discouragement, sexual immorality, anger, etc). I hope to memorize one each week until I can recall them right away when I need to. I have never actually committed myself to memorizing scripture because I have never really found it useful. Lately, I have felt the deep desire to get into the word more often and seek to understand it better. I must say it interesting coincides with hanging out with some fantastic people who have been having a positive influence on me lately.

I think I am ready to start getting over myself and moving on towards the plan that God has for me. Honestly, I have no idea how it is going to happen because most of the time the things that God wants me to do seem incredibly impossible and difficult. Things I cannot do on my own.... I guess it is a good thing I have an all-powerful God on my side.

Droid!

First of all let me say that this is awesome. I can BLOGon my phone! Now I guess I dont have an excuse not to be updating anymore. My phone fell in the toilet at work ands was permanently damaged so I had to make a trip to idaho to get a new phone. I ended up with the Samsung Galaxy with Tmobile. The new one with all the ads about having Inception on the phone and swype to text. I have to admit that this feature is just another way to be lazy with technology... But I also love it.

I am sure in a month or so I will be used to my new toy and tired of all its
awesome features but for now I am loving every second I get to figure new things out on my android phone. And of course having the internet and all these neat applications at my fingertips (literally) is quite satisfying for my technology tooth. The image quality on the Galaxy is superb. I have a screen protector on it along with a case (plaid purple!) to make sure I do no damage unintentionally right away. Exbf was adament that I got protection for the phone and the cutest most durable case was on sale. The sales lady, Jaclyn, was kind enough to help me out by putting on the case and protector on for me. Thankfully we did do that because not ten munutes later, B's four-year-old sister hit the phone accidentally sending it careening across the floor. I would have been quite upset had it been damaged.

The few qualities I dont like about this phone includes its sideways touch screen space bar location. It I'd to the side and can be very awkward to adjust to for a person who is used to a center bar. I also think the auto correct for misspellings on the screem could be improved along with the ability to select location on the screen to select specific letters to delete. I would also make it possible to join facebook contacts with no numbers listed to people who you have their information instead of having two contacts for the same person.

Besides that I think this phone is incredible. I love my Samsung Galaxy 4g and highly recommend it for anyone who needs a new phone!