soul revolution

 

⁴¹ As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it ⁴² and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴ They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

How does one recap the 60 days that I’ve spent in intense and intentional Godspotting? John Burke (author of Soul Revolution, where I got the 60-60 experiment from) stated at the beginning that I would fail more than succeed in the 60 days. I thought, “How hard can it be? I’ve got my alarm set to go off every hour, it shouldn’t be too hard to say a prayer whenever it does.”  Right. When work got too urgent, or the days filled up with a lot of fun and activities, it was a lot easier to just turn off the alarm and keep on doing what I was doing, thinking, “oh, I’ll pray as soon as I get this sentence/game/talk/lecture/interview/run done.” So yes, I think I did fail more than I succeeded.

But you know what? God didn’t fail. Not one bit. Not even as I intentionally faltered and put things off, He even stepped it up some more and challenged my heart and my desire to get closer to Him.

So what have I learned in the past 60 days? Gosh, so much. I think I’m going to be updating this list in the days to come. I’ve already made notes in my journal, but even now, as I’m writing this, more lessons are coming to mind. But I’ll try to sum them up here (in no particular order).

Giving up perfection– or at least the appearance of it. Authenticity. I’ve found that the more I let go of appearances, the better my walk and work become. Instead on working on looking “Ok,” God has made me more than “Ok”– so much so that people take one look at me and they are convinced. Once I had given up on looking the part, I became it. Which is connected to the next lesson:

Giving up being right. This is one of the hardest things, really. Because, being the big sister, I always have this compulsion to tell people what to do (yes, I’m a bossypants), and tell them what they’re doing wrong and this is what they should do. All for the sake of being right, and being in control, or changing somebody. It sounds so annoying that it should be easy to give up doing, right? Er, not really… Not if you can see your friend or loved one heading down self-destruction, or about to make a mistake that you’ve already done before so you know that it won’t be good.

I’m not saying that I’m going to stop speaking the truth or stop intervening when I see something wrong– but I’m learning to do it from a place of love, and not from the place of just being right. I need to stop being judgmental and start loving people in all their beautiful messy glory. God’s teaching me a lot about grace, and having faith in His love for people, in His ways and His process, even if I don’t understand. It’s hard to make a call on the results in the middle of a game, how much more in life? Which leads to the next lesson:

He has made me brave. I posted on Day 31 (so long status quo) about being brave, but God has begun His work long before that. See, before, I was deathly afraid to get hurt. Sure, all my childhood mishaps and accidents (2nd degree burn, sprains and a broken wrist) and rollerblading back in high school have already raised my pain threshold for falls and cuts and bruises, but I would still be afraid to get hurt (…here). Every relationship, friendship, job always scared me because of the risk of being wrong, rejected, of failing and damaging things beyond repair. Yes, I got good at faking my way through all of them, but it was only lately that I found enough security to actually be brave.

It’s God’s love. I’ve finally recognized this pure, powerful, unfailing, amazing, extravagant, magnificent LOVE that God has wrapped me in all throughout my life. But I was just so focused on myself and the things that I couldn’t do, all the things I lacked, that I totally missed it. Oh, it’s so warm and strong! I feel it holding me up whenever I want to succumb to weakness, intentionally make mistakes. It keeps me from wallowing and giving up. His love drives me forward, even if the answers I get aren’t the ones I’m looking for. It gives me the courage to admit when I’m wrong or if I can’t do something. It fills me with hope in every step I take. His love reassures me that even if and when I fall down or make mistakes or fail to measure up, I am still loved.

It was a cliche until I recognized it as true.

and this leads to the next lesson:

Keep moving forward! Yes, I find God in Meet the Robinsons too. hehe. Failures and triumphs should be both celebrated because everything is a process. It’s deciding what to do from there that counts the most. Every day, I marvel at how I feel like I’m being driven forward by this force that I know that’s beyond me. It’s like riding a wave, I just have to hang on. Because, it’s only been a few months since the breakup, but my heart is whole and intact, and it’s just me who keeps on looking back and insisting (sometimes) that maybe I’m still not all that ok. But over it or not, my feet are taking me to places where my heart doesn’t feel like going because it just wants to crawl into a hole to savor all the phantom pains for a while.

Thank God that my heart doesn’t control my feet, or else, I’d never get anywhere.

I’m finding that if I’m tuned in to God all the time, I’ll find His voice and His presence anywhere. And that was my prayer from the beginning:

“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 24:7)

This is just the beginning really, 60-60 does not end here. It’s more like a warm up for a lifestyle of a more intentional pursuit of God and His will in my life. We’re all being called to a life of intimacy with our Creator– this is why Jesus came to this earth to pay for our sins. This is the reason for grace– so we could go to Him just as we are, His love is so big and generous and encompassing that it covers all our sins, no matter how big and messed up we have become.

I’ve been a Christian all my life (seriously… from the womb! hahahaha!), and I’m still learning about the scope of God’s love and grace. It’s been a really great adventure so far.

Thus starts Stef’s 60-infinity.

Dear friend,

This is my prayer for you today:

For God to reveal Himself to you today in a way that He never has before.
I pray for a unique encounter everyday with our Creator for you, but most especially TODAY.

Keep your eyes peeled
ears ready
arms wide open
heart expectant.

Have a blessed Godspotting day ahead!

For this Truth Thursday, that’s what I challenge you to do– find God in the most mundane, unexpected place today. And blog about it.

For those who are new to Truth Thursdays, it goes like this:

Remember, you don’t have to directly answer the question, you could just be “inspired” by it. but better if you do directly address the prompt/question. remember the mechanics:

1. Every Thursday, i will post a question or a prompt on this blog and participants will write something that answers the question or was inspired by it. (or post pictures or artworks!)
2. Participants who wrote something for that Thursday must leave a link on the comment box of that day’s prompt to let people know that they have posted.
3. TRUTH THURSDAY must be on the Title of your entry, followed by the question (so people will know).
4. This does not have to be emo– although these things tend to be a bit on the emo side, but TRUTH THURSDAYS are meant to be a fun way to bond through blog, and to get people writing and posting something meaningful and real. (disclaimer: this isn’t to say that you’re not doing so already!)
5. No pressure. Just be inspired and post something!
6. Be TRUTHFUL!

This would have to be short. It’s been a really busy few weeks, and I haven’t had the time to sit down and gather my thoughts– there are a lot of them. I’ve finished a couple of books since I last posted, bought a few dresses, driven a few hundred kilometers, met new people, finished more than a handful of articles, celebrated, cried, sang, danced and ate a lot of good food.

God’s been filling up my days like it’s nobody’s business. Sometimes I still remember to stick to the 60-60 program, sometimes. It’s just that I’ve been moving almost non-stop, moving from one task to another with such urgency that I’ve never felt before. Like I just have to keep on going and going and going.

But there’s no panic, just this energy that I couldn’t explain. My recklessness is back ten-fold, but this time it doesn’t feel like I’m just free falling and bracing myself to hit the ground.

Quite the opposite, really.

One day I just stopped and saw what’s happening to me these past weeks into the 60-60 experiment. I’ve been learning a lot about God’s love– for me, for everyone in this world. And while I have been drilled with all the Bible stories and verses about God’s love, this time, it’s like I’m being shown a new dimension of it. I’m experiencing it in a way that it gives me a greater sense of security in my position as His daughter. For someone who’s been a Christian all her life, this isn’t supposed to be something new, right? But it feels so new, and exciting! And it’s not the security that gives me permission to be complacent, but it all the more gives me reason to keep on moving, keep on exploring, finding new adventures in this life. It’s the love that gives me the courage to jump, knowing that even if I fall, I can get back up.

It’s all so awesome!

Unfortunately, I have to go now. It’s nearly 2am and I have to get up at 4am for a team building thing later. Today was a full day too… I hope I get to blog about it. I took notes. haha! anyway. gotta go. I’ll leave you with some pictures from my last few weeks just to show how it’s been really crazyfuninteresting over this side of the world.

I’m reposting an email that my friend sent me today. While this is exactly what I’m trying to do, it’s always great for my resolve to be reinforced by other people. Who knows, this might help some of you too.

Closing Cycles
by Paolo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts–and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.

Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else. Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person–nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

The gate is wide
The road is paved to moderation
The crowd is kind and quick to pull you in
Welcome to the middle ground
It’s safe and sound and
Until now it’s where I’ve been

The future’s wide open these days. A new President (even if I didn’t vote for him), new horizons, new opportunities, possibilities and responsibilities. I’m in a season where I’m in a place I know to be safe and secure, a perfect place to be when I’m recuperating from the last adventure and planning on jumping off to another one in the great wide somewhere. While it’s nice to be in the middle ground while I’m healing, I don’t want to waste my time playing it safe anymore.

Cause it’s been fear
That ties me down to everything
But it’s been love, Your love
That cuts the strings

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,” God’s Word declares. Oh to soar in the wind not be afraid to fall! It’s funny how I still get that slightly worried feeling whenever I do jump out in faith, even if I do know that God’s never let me down ever. I guess it’s only because I can never predict what He’ll do next. But whatever He does always turns out to be awesome. Anyway, where’s the courage in complete certainty? All I have to know is the one who loves me.

So long, status quo
I think I’ve just let go
You make me wanna be brave
The way it always was
It’s no longer good enough
You make me wanna be brave
Brave, brave

I want to be brave. I want to keep on moving forward, living in today, today, today, and leaving tomorrow in the hands of the One who knows what’s in store. All I need is the courage to make the next step after the last one. I can’t be happy with status quo when I know that the world and the universe and the One who made them is much bigger than I can ever comprehend. I want every minute to count knowing my God and everything and everyone through Him.

I am small
And I speak when I’m spoken to
But I am willing to risk it all
To say Your name
Just Your name, and I’m ready to go
Even ready to fall

I will move forward in Your name, Your name alone. I know that not everything will be easy, and yes, I will fall. But with You, every fall is in forward-motion, and You are my healer. So I am willing to risk it all.

Why did I
Take this foul compromise
Why did I
Try to keep it all inside

I don’t know why I’m still afraid or nervous even after everything. I guess I’m just too aware of my own weaknesses and failures in the past to be completely confident. But God help me to move forward and be brave despite them.

I’ve never known a fire that didn’t begin with a flame
And every storm will start with just a drop of rain
But if You believe in me
That changes everything

It all starts with one spark, one drop… being the first to step out can be lonely. When I look at just myself, I don’t believe that I can get anywhere (at least, not without blood. haha!), and I don’t see why I always find myself in situations where I’m in way over my head. It always takes a second for me to realize that the one who made and designed me knows what I am capable of, and believes that I would choose to swim even when it gets too deep and I can’t see the shore anymore.

I look back and see that in most cases, it’s because God has placed me in situations beyond what I know I could handle I find out what I am capable of– because He’s with me.

It’s amazing to realize that the God of the universe believes in you more than you believe in yourself.

Now what to do with that realization?

Be brave.

(Brave, Nichole Nordeman)

(Stef)

Dear Abba,

I’m remembering the crippled man that Jesus healed by the pool. He and I have a lot in common. I’ve always wondered about him. What happened to him afterward when he realized that leg muscles hurt, feet get dirty and cut, and he can’t make people carry him around anymore? Did he realize that miracles can only take him so far, and it’s the daily living of the healed that we would need You the most?

I’m certainly learning that. Now.

I’m not complaining— well, not now. You have put up with a lot my whining about this before, but, as always, You have been so patient. You know that I would get it sooner or later. I’m sorry for acting like I miss being crippled even after You have healed me. I find it really strange to miss that life, even if I know that I don’t want to go back to it anymore.

I am grateful that You have made me walk again.

So… where are we going?

Here’s to a life of forward motion
Of big dreams and wider horizons,
Brave decisions,
and absolutions

Here’s to a love big enough to cover the world,
Here’s to second chances, even a third
Here’s to prayers heard
and everything answered.

Here’s to new beginnings,
stories worth the telling,
and patient waiting
for truth unfolding

Hi! How are you? I’m just posting this blog before I run off and get ready to get to work. Yes, I’m still in the house, but i’ve been up and working since 5:30am (four articles finished in 24 hours!). Yes, that’s what I did for the extra day in our weekend.

I have to confess, with all the work and traveling and gimmicks this weekend, I had a hard time sticking to the 60-60 experiment, but God did give me something to reflect on yesterday as I was wrestling with procrastination (internet is a black hole!!!) and it’s:

I’M THE ONE YOU ARE LIVING FOR.

Yes, that was my facebook status yesterday too. And it hit me hard. I’m living for God, right? So what am I doing procrastinating? If i was living for Him, shouldn’t I be striving for excellence in everything I do? My work is part of my witness to this world– just as my church and ministry are. Work is part of my worship and by coddling with procrastination, I’m just treating it as something unimportant and can be put off at the last minute and submit something half-baked as a result.

What does my work say about my God?

Anyway, something that I thought we should think about. It is my prayer that we do everything excellently because WE ARE LIVING FOR GOD and He deserves nothing less than the best. It doesn’t sound easy in theory, and it’s a lot harder living it out. Because I fail so much more than I succeed. Praise God that He has grace enough to forgive and to strengthen us beyond our limits.

So anyway… with my backlog done. I’m going to do my best not to procrastinate anymore. God’s been bugging me with it all this time, as if to tell me– how can I expect Him to do wonders in my life if I keep on letting myself be distracted by trivial things?! So yeah… more stuff to give up, more stuff to handle. But it’s all for Him.

Live today for God’s glory!