Idols: A Reflection Post

This past week I've gone without facebook. It's a little silly... and embarrassing... how hard it has been. The first couple of days, I kept automatically going to facebook when I got on my computer, so I had to log out of facebook so that I wouldn't keep going to my facebook page. Then there were a couple of times that I wanted to tell someone something but realized I didn't have their phone numbers. So I thought, "Oh, it'll be ok if I just go on facebook to message them to get their numbers." But then I thought about it and realized what I wanted to tell them wasn't that important. They were things that I could wait to tell them until I am back on facebook. I only thought it was urgent because I'm used to being able to communicate with people at the click of a button. I'm not used to having to wait.

Here's my honesty: Through reading "Not a Fan" (Kyle Idleman), spending time in the Word of God, prayer, and interactions with fellow Jesus followers, I've felt convicted in the amount of time I spend on facebook. At first I ignored the conviction for several reasons.
1. It's such a small thing... you know, compared to drunken parties and worshiping money. But I know deep down that's not true. An idol is an idol. And the first commandment says, "You should have no gods before me." 
2. Everyone's doing it. Everyone is on facebook... plus most people have a hundred other social media outlets too. There are tons of Christians "worse" than me. I mean, I don't even have a smartphone, so that's got to be a point in my favor. But God doesn't compare. He couldn't care less how "good" I am compared to others. He just looks at my heart alone and says, "Alisha, do YOU love me more?"
3. There's good parts about facebook. It's not like looking at pornography where there's nothing positive about it. I mean, I'm interacting with people... communicating with friends and family who live far away. But there are many things in this world that are good that can be used wrongly. 
4. I hate admitting that I'm not perfect. And this is an are where I'm certainly not perfect.

And as God was working on my heart, I realized that because I was trying to justify my use of facebook, this proved that it had become an idol.

So it does me no good to just take a week off of facebook. That's only good for one week. But I haven't felt convicted to completely give up facebook either. I knew during this time off, I needed to come up with a game plan though so that I didn't let facebook be an idol in my life.
I realized a big part of my problem is that I log on facebook first thing in the morning, and from there, I spend several hours online until I "catch up" on my social life. In order to make sure God is first, I'm now staying off of my computer until I have spent my time with God for the day. Ben and I are reading through the Bible with Bible Gateway's Reading Plan. So each morning, I will start my day off by reading the passages listed and praying, before logging onto my computer. I guess by writing it on my blog, I have a pretty large crowd to keep me accountable.

What idols are in your life? What things are your struggling to let go of? What things take up your time? This song below, by Jimmy Needham (called "Clear the Stage") is convicting and beautiful. Listen to it!

God's Ways are not our Ways: Sickness

Sometimes I don't understand God's ways, and those are usually the times that my trust in God is most challenged. One way I've felt this lately is with sickness in our family. Since January, sickness has been coming and going from our family non-stop. Sophie, Brielle, and I have all been sick several times. Usually it's a cold, but this weekend it was the flu. 

While I really, really don't like being sick in and off itself (and hate it even more to see my child sick), I have mostly been frustrated lately because every sickness that we have had comes on the weekend so that we end up missing both church and small group. Our purpose for taking a year off from our training with New Tribes Mission was so that we could invest in, spend time with, and learn from our local church. And since January, I have had to miss more church and life groups than what I have been able to attend (thankfully Ben has still been able to teach senior high youth group as his immune system seems to be better). It's frustrating for me. I miss hearing good sermons and having good fellowship. It makes me question Why? when this was our purpose for taking a break from our training. I see the months counting down before we head to our training, and I hate that I'm missing so much precious time with our church body. 

This weekend Sophie and I got the flu, and this sickness is what "pushed me over the edge" with my frustration. I know there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it though (other than taking vitamins and lots of soap)... so today I was challenged to remember that my relationship with God does not have to be stunted because of missing church. I had some precious time in my Bible this morning, just me and the Lord. And even more so, I'm reminded to praise God for the health that we do have. There are many worst illnesses that keep people out of church and fellowship indefinitely whereas this is just a short phase of my life. Some Christians are persecuted if they try to attend a church or fellowship with other believers. I've been reminded to never take for granted the capability and the freedom I have to attend a church that loves and preaches the name of Jesus.

[Poor, sick Sophie at her birthday party]

Slave

Luke 9:23 "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

I've been reading the book "Not a Fan" along with a college girl that I meet with weekly. This book has been challenging for me in many good ways. In chapter 10, Kyle Idleman (the author) talks about being a "slave." This part was challenging for me as I tend to want to view my position in Christ as more of a "servant." I help Jesus out, but I still have some of my own rights. If I accept my position as a slave to Christ, then I am saying that I am willing to give up all of my rights. I don't mind giving up some of my rights. Things like getting drunk and having a high-paying job aren't strong desires of mine, so I can say no to those fairly easily. But it's much harder for to me to give up other rights... my right to be treated fairly, my right to have good health, my right to interact with friends and family on the world wide web.  As a follower of Jesus, though, I must recognize that nothing is mine. Everything belongs to Jesus... my family, my feelings, my health, my plans, my computer...

I've been challenged most in this area in the way that I feel that I have "rights" to the ways that I am treated by others. I've been surprised in the past couple of weeks how often I get upset, angry, and annoyed with others, and I realized it's all because I feel like I have rights. I have a right for them to treat me fairly, I have a right for them to think the way I do, I have a right for them to help me. I also struggle with what I believe my rights from God are. Before Ben and I began heading down this path towards missions, I felt I had a right to own a home. God had to work on my heart a lot to help me give that up. But I still struggle in this area, when God allows others to have things that he isn't allowing me to have... owning a house, a dog, a permanent location, best friends to hang out with... and I'm recognizing it's all because I feel I have these rights.

When I consider myself a slave and let go of these rights, I am amazed at my attitude change.

Below, I've included some of my favorite passages on this topic in his book. If you want to read them, go be challenged :)

___________________________________________________________________________

"Followers are willing to deny themselves and say, 'I choose Jesus. I choose Jesus over my family. I choose Jesus over money. I choose Jesus over career goals. I am his completely. I choose Jesus over getting drunk. I choose Jesus over looking at porn. I choose Jesus over a redecorated house. I choose Jesus over my freedom. I choose Jesus over what people may think of me.' A follower makes a decision every day to deny himself and choose Jesus... even if it costs everything." (pg 145)"

"When we sacrificially deny ourselves for Christ's sake it is the clearest evidence of our committed love." (pg. 145) 

"A slave has no rights. A slave has no possessions to call their own. A slave in Jesus' day didn't even have a personal identity... But "slave" is the way many of the followers of Christ introduce themselves." (pg. 149) (consider Peter, John, Timothy, James, Paul, and Jude in their letters)


"Most of us grew up in homes where we were taught to study hard in school and in college so we could get a good job and make lots of money and live in a big house, drive a nice car, and enjoy great vacations. When you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, the answers generally reflect that influence. But no one ever says, “When I grow up, I want to be a slave.” But that is what the Bible calls us to. The Bible would teach that the highest calling for you is to be a slave who denies himself and follows Jesus."(pg 150)


"Who signs up for that? Well did you notice in Deuteronomy 15 what the motivation is for someone to choose slavery? Look at it again. “But if your servant says to you, ‘I do not want to leave you,’ because he loves you and your family and is well off with you …..” A slave realizes as crazy as it might seem to everyone else, as ridiculous as it might appear to those who don’t understand, he’s going to choose a life of slavery. He loves his master and realizes that he’s better off as a slave." (pg. 152)


The word doulos appears approximately 130 times in NT.

Idleman, Kyle (2011-06-07). Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus (p. 150). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Acceptance Letter: MTC

Today we received our acceptance letter to New Tribes Mission's MTC (Missionary Training Center). We've been working on the application for the MTC for several months- it's a fairly lengthy application, plus we had to have 4 references each as well as a pastor reference and employee reference. We also had to have a background check and a physical. They are thorough. But we've completed it all, and we've received our acceptance.

So our plan? To head to the MTC this August! We are excited. When we graduated from the Bible school last May, we decided, along with our pastor's guidance, to take a year off from the training. It wasn't an easy decision. Many of our friends were continuing right on with the training, and now that we have seen and heard of the need, we really wanted to finish our training and GO! But this year off has been so good for us in many ways. We are thankful for this time here at home in Indiana.

The training center is on a beautiful campus in Missouri.

Here is an overhead picture of the campus:

Here is a picture of one of the classrooms where we'll spend quite a bit of time:

This view will be so refreshing :)  :

We'll be in Missouri until December 2014. From there, we'll raise the support we need and then hopefully, Lord willing, head to Papua New Guinea!

Papua New Guinea Photo Book

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A Weekend in Jackson

We took a weekend visit to Jackson, Michigan - where New Tribes Bible Institute is located - to visit friends of ours. It was such a great weekend to visit both student and staff friends who are still at the Bible school! These friends are all so special to us. Not only did we live in a unique environment with them (most of us all lived in the same building), but we also studied the Bible with them and share an interest in reaching the world with the gospel.

We spent a good amount of time with our friends Nathan and Rachel and Aaron and Jill. They are seniors at the Bible school and will be going to the Training Center the same time we do. They have kids close in age to ours, so it's a little crazy when we all hang out. There are 9 kids between us. Here's a picture to show our craziness at dinner one night :)

Here is Sophie hanging out with Abel who is Aaron's and Jill's youngest.

 Sophie and Daisy (Nathan's and Rachel's youngest) are just a month apart and they spent a lot of time together in child care when we were at the Bible school. They were babies then, and now they're chubby, talking, potty-training, silly toddlers!

I really miss having a gym in the same building that I live in. It would be SO nice to have a place to take my toddler to run around in during these cold, wintery months! It was fun to hang out with our friends there again.

I got to attend a baby shower too! Ali, Katie, Sarah, and Nicole are all pregnant with their first baby... and they are all having boys!!

We caught up with Kyle and his wife Lindsi - Kyle is Chris Jones' brother (Chris and Evie are the missionary couple we helped in Papua New Guinea).

I was able to meet up with Jessica for a little while. She was one of my favorite single ladies at the Bible school- but now she's married. :)

And we loved being able to see the Duecks! They are a great staff family that we miss so much. Sue watched Sophie in child care, and Dalton was a marrieds' dean.

We also got to see our small group that we spent Sunday nights with while attending the Bible school. I didn't get a group picture, but the Mama of this handsome fellow was able to capture a picture together of the two youngest small group members- Isaac and Brielle :) Maybe some day they'll attend Bible school together!

I wasn't able to get a picture with everyone, so there were some others we were able to see too. Overall, it was a great weekend, and we were so glad we got to spend the weekend catching up with these friends!

Thankful for: Friends and Family

One more post for my mini series of thankfulness to add to this one and this one.

You're probably completely shocked that we're thankful for our friends and family, right? Ok... so you're probably actually thinking that this one is a no-brainer. Of course we're thankful for our friends and family. But nonetheless, I feel it's necessary to put it in writing on our blog :)

So many of you have been so good to us in these past few months- really, in the past few years since we started this journey toward missions.

*Countless of you have gave financially to us- for Bible school, for our trip to Papua New Guinea, and to help with other costs. We are truly humbled. Sometimes we stress about money, and it's so, so good for us to look back and remember the many ways God has already used people to provide for us. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

*A number of you made meals for us when our daughter, Brielle, was born recently- what a yummy blessing! Those first few weeks would have been stressful without you.

*So many of you have shown interest in what we are doing.

*Some of you have been forgiving when we had to miss special moments with you because of being in training or traveling overseas.

*We know many of you pray for us. Your prayers are felt.

*Many of you have welcomed us back with open arms even when we were out of your life for 2 years while at Bible school, and it's so nice to know that we will always have friends back in Indiana.

*Some of you (particularly family) have opened your home to us when we need a place to stay and have given your time for us when we need a Sophie-sitter :)

THANK YOU! We don't want any of you to ever think we take you for granted.