Success: How Do We Define it?

(Katie) In the last 24 hours, I celebrated 3 months of marriage, got all of my mid-term papers back from graduate school, and received my 90 day evaluation for my job at Wheaton College. We are constantly measuring ourselves (I am constantly praying that I am growing in my ability to love James and reflect God's love for Him) or being measured by professors, bosses, friends (etc). If you consider yourself a "recovering performance addict" like me, its a constant battle to not let our identity be determined by our performance. Unfortunately, striving for a spirit of excellence in all that we do can be a slippery slope because we constantly get the "A's" from professors and do well on our performance evaluations, making it even easier to believe the lie that I am what I DO.


I've been praying into this two-year season of my life at Wheaton College, asking the Lord specifically what He desires to do in my life, what He desires me to be focused on. In the midst of praying into this, James and I had dinner with our small group over at our pastor's house. Jonathan and Amy asked each of us to share at dinner what the one thing is that we get fired up about when God speaks to us about it? For me, that topic is Belovedness. I am passionate about people knowing who they are in God. Why? Because its been the greatest struggle of my life. My prayer for myself for the next two years is simple: Lord, make me rock solid in knowing that I am loved by You and a lover of You. This is what we are to derive are primary identity from. How we look to other people, our gifts, skills, our physical appearance---all of it is secondary. I am in the process of completely redefining my definition of success to focus on whether I am believing that I am loved by God and am a lover of God. I want to derive my value in how God feels about me and how I am responding to the Lord. 


I was reminded of how counter-cultural God's view of success is when I read the story about Mary encountering Jesus, anointing Him with her alabaster flask of ointment. Jesus tells the disciples that her sins were many, yet she was forgiven because SHE LOVED MUCH. How do you define success? Where do you derive your sense of purpose and value from? Beloved, I pray that we can be a generation of laid down lovers, compelled by love. I am grateful for the family and friends that God has surrounded me with who are more committed to me knowing that I am God's beloved and that every area of my life is a RESPONSE to Him, my first love.

Season of growth...

[James] This evening Katie and I went for a walk through the neighborhood. Now, although there are no mountains, rivers, valleys or oceans in this neck of the woods, the trees are undeniably spectacular, especially in autumn. I love the changing of the seasons and the sense that something new is coming.


Recently I have been finding myself in a brand new season; 26, married, working full time, a "home", living apart from my immediate family, and in so many ways growing in ways that I have never been stretched before. In this season, I am shedding many leaves of my youth and learning to stand as a man. Within the pile of leaves collecting beneath my limbs lie selfish ambition, laziness, sleeping in, excuses, foolish finances, and mood-driven decisions and actions. I believe that, in time, these leaves will be replaced with even greater growth and God will cause me to grow stronger, more steadfast and solid. However the process of inner growth is painful.

One of the things that I have committed to do over this past year, and I have now recommitted more recently is spending time with God each morning. I believe that it is He alone that deserves my first fruits. It is He who will give me strength and vision to face a day. I also know that spending time with God in the morning before anyone else has risen and the business of the day have swept over the land, I will be able to best find nourishment in the quiet. Regardless, the sheer discipline required to wake up in the mornings long before I would "have to" get up in order to make it to work in time is difficult. As much as I would love to speak of the double-portion of energy that God gives me each day, which I often feel, it is largely tiresome. Between the road-trips home several times this past month, trying to exercise several times a week, keeping sacred our date nights, and then being present here on the campus, I am felling it.

The trade off, worth every early morning, is that I get to spend time with a God that lavishly pours out His love on me. Period. He is so worth it.

The trade off, worth every morning, is that I get to work in the midst of an economy that is leaving many people out of work. I get to earn an income for Katie and I and our future family.

The trade off is that I am becoming more authentically who God has designed me to be. I am becoming a man more and more each day. I am learning to lay down my selfish ambitions, lay aside my lackadaisical ways to become a man of purpose, mission and discipline. And so, like the autumn season, there is a sense of something coming, and it is I who is arriving, and who is already here. Each day I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be and I know that where He takes me tomorrow is without doubt where I am to be.

Still me... the same old tree... same me... different leaves.

ONE thing

(Katie) James and I have been doing a 30 day prayer journal where we each ask God the same question and individually, journal about it for a period of time and then after the specified amount of time, come together and see what God has spoken to both of us. As a verbal processor and someone who can be very impatient, this process has been really challenging for me but I am grateful in that I am growing in my ability to wait on the Lord. Its growing my faith to believe that God will ultimately unify James and I in what He reveals to us during these 30 days. We desire to be a couple that is seeking God in all areas of our life and that is much easier said than done. 

In the midst of asking the Lord this question, I've been convicted that I ask the Lord for a lot. I was convicted when I read Psalm 27 and realized that the ONE thing David asked the Lord was to KNOW Him....to dwell with Him...to behold His beauty....to seek His face.

Wow.

That was the ONE thing. Not for breakthrough in ministry. Not for a marriage that reflects God's love for His bride. Not for humility, teachability, or patience. TO KNOW GOD.

I love the image of being face to face with Lord. Of knowing Him intimately and being known completely. Think of the people in your life that you have this kind of face to face relationship with? Are you pursuing that same kind of intentional, intimate relationship with the Lord? I know that I am definitely not where I want to be at. The truth is just meeting God face to face at church on Sundays once a week isn't enough. Would once a week for an hour be enough to sustain your friendship with your best friend or your marriage? It wouldn't be for me. 

Since moving to Wheaton College, the Lord has given me a desire to study the revivals that have taken place on campus in the past in 1936, 1943, 1950, 1970, and 1994. Its been absolutely fascinating. As I've studied all of these revivals, the common theme was students confessing that they are desperate for God. They were hungry to know God, not just intellectually, but for a face to face kind of relationship. God responds when we ask and desire the things that are in alignment with HIs heart. James and I are believing and praying for another major move of God on this campus. But in the mean time, revival begins in individual people, desiring and hungering for ONE thing...to KNOW God intimately. 

The Power of Flowers

(Katie) A dear friend of mine, who I consider to be like an "older sister" in my life was having a really bad day. My heart was breaking for her and unfortunately, we don't live in the same state. I decided to pray and ask the Lord how I could encourage her even in our distance. As I listened in prayer, all I heard was flowers. Now, given the circumstances, flowers wouldn't seem like a rational answer, however, I felt strongly that this is what my dear friend needed today to be reminded of God's love for her. Next, I called my friend's mom (a woman who has been a spiritual mom to me..love her) and told her that I needed her daughter's address as I think we were to send her flowers. The word that I received about flowers confirmed the word that she had received earlier about sending her daughter flowers. How cool is God? So my friend's mom faithfully got her daughter's work address and sent flowers from both of us immediately. After my friend received a beautiful bouquet of fall flowers, she called us and said that she had told the Lord that if He loved her, He would get someone to send her flowers =-) How awesome is God?

I share this story because I continue to be in awe of how God is relentless in pursuing each one of us. He knows exactly what we need to feel loved. Furthermore, I am amazed that God trusts the body of Christ to partner with Him in revealing His love for others. 

I confess that I am so often caught up in "tyranny of the urgent" mode, that I don't take time to stop, bring people in my life before the Lord, and earnestly seek Him in how I can love or encourage them today. Sometimes God gives us answers that seem irrational. I think it is a process to learn to discern His voice and to step out in faith and be obedient, even if it means we might look like a fool. However, "love covers a multitude of sins," and so when we desire to show others the love of God, even if we completely miss it, God's grace covers us. Even if my friend hadn't asked the Lord to send her flowers, sending her flowers still would have been an encouragement to her on a hard day.

Who is one person in your life that could really use some encouragement today?

I encourage you to take time in prayer and ask the Lord how you could show that person the love of the God in some tangible way.

As most of you know from my last post, I am sitting in Colossians 3 for the month of October. I can't think of a better way to live out being "chosen" and "dearly loved" than by taking time to intentionally show someone else God's heart for them!

October: Colossians 3- What are You Wearing This Month?

Colossians 3:12-14

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."

(Katie) This is my verse for the month of October. I am planting myself in Colossians 3, praying that these 2 verses will be deeply rooted in my Spirit. If you feel led, I invite you to join me. 

A couple observations:

This verse begins by reminding us that we are chosen & dearly loved. I don't know about you, but I don't often start my day resting in the Truth that God has chosen me as His daughter and that I am dearly loved. What if we started our days declaring those truths over ourselves? How would your day be different? If I were to actually live out of place believing that I am in fact chosen, my insecurities of not fitting in or my fear of rejection loose their hold on me. If I enter my day believing that I am dearly loved, suddenly I am not affected by someone's bad attitude...afraid when my own brokenness rears its ugly head..and criticism does not completely throw me off balance. I am grounded in the Truth that I am dearly loved by God. If we really believe in the power of God's Word, then my question is why aren't we starting our day declaring these powerful words over ourselves? I am not strong enough to go through my entire day without being tempted to doubt my identity as God's dearly beloved, chosen daughter. Furthermore, I am learning that the more I am living out of my identity in Christ, the better able I am to call out that identity in others, even those people that irritate the heck out me. 

On Sunday, James and I were driving back from spending the weekend in MN. On our car ride home, James spoke some really hard truth to me about having a judgemental attitude. As I spent some time praying into what James called out in me, I realized he was right, but more importantly, the root of my issue was that I wasn't living out of my own place of belovedness. Usually, we project onto others how we treat ourselves, so naturally, when I looked internally, I was not surprised to see my own internal critic. 

I share this story because I think before we can choose to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, we have to be anchored in the Truth that we are dearly loved by God. These virtues are all fruits or bi-products of love. Furthermore, before we can extend those previous virtues listed to others, I challenge you to ask yourself  whether or not you show yourself patience? Are you gentle towards yourself? Are you compassionate towards yourself? My guess is that the areas that you most struggle to extend a virtue to yourself is probably the same thing that you most struggle to give to others. 

Finally, notice the verb clothe. Everyday, we choose what we want to wear. This passage commands us to clothe ourselves in the garments of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. We have to choose each day to put them on. What are you choosing to wear each day? For me, I am quick to put on kindness, but its easy for me to forget patience. What about you?

I will continue to dialogue about my own observations from Colossians throughout the month of October. I hope you join me!