My King

This summer I had the opportunity to visit my friend Shelby in Guatemala. I spent a few days seeing how she now lives, assisting other English teachers at the Christian school there, attending church service, and even exploring a bit of nearby Antigua.

What struck me during this short time was that Jesus is King. I've always known this, of course, but I'd never really thought about it. So many songs lifted him up as such and reflected on that fact. One of them is a wonderful song I'd known previously but was really able to meditate on. It's called "Te Doy Gloria" (I Give You Glory). And we sing the bridge over and over again.. "Con una corona de espinos te hiciste rey por siempre" (With a crown of thorns you made yourself king forever). Think about that line a few times. Change the focus of it. Crown of thorns. He made himself king. He's king forever. I'm sure there were other things that pointed to my revelation that week, but this song is really the thing that stuck with me.

Even now I'm still learning about Jesus as king. I read a short article recently about how we can add to our personal Bible study, and the author suggested substituting the word "king" for "Christ" or "Messiah" because these words mean "annointed one," aka the king.

Today in reading through Psalm 96-100, I was struck again by the Jesus as King theme. Worship him. All the earth worships him. Honor. Majesty. He reigns from his throne in heaven. I picture clouds beneath him and angels surrounding him. He is just. Bow before him. He will come again in victory.

And I started thinking about victory. And celebration. Kingship is such a foreign concept to me.. I don't live in a country with a king. And victory is semi-foreign as well.. I've never even lived in a sports-crazy town with a victorious team. I picture a big football/basketball team winning the championship and the town throwing a parade in their honor.

Jesus is going to come back, you guys! And he won't have just won a sports event. He will have defeated evil. I can't even begin to think about the glory and honor he deserves.

My king. Mi rey.

Raggamuffins

So it's taking me forever to get through Raggamuffin Gospel because I feel I never have time to read anymore. But I wanted to share this passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that Manning borrows:

He who is alone with his sins is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from their fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in less and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!

Actually I want to share with you Manning's rights on it. Last bit, I promise:

At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend to believe we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss.

So much food for thought. Read it. Like five or six times. I know I did.

What's New?

Sooo... if you haven't really been involved in my life recently.. Surprise! I moved to Ohio!

I definitely meant to update my blog sooner, but sometimes life just gets in the way, you know? (That and it is no longer part of my job description.)

Oh. And I don't work for Praying Pelican anymore either.

God is nuts. This world is crazy. But that's okay.


I had maybe one of the worst summers of my life. One of those weeks was definitely the worst week of my life. And I came home early. And then to top it off, I was jobless at the end of August. But strangely enough, I had so much peace. I knew people were praying for me. Even though everything sucked, I trusted that God had something else in mind.

So I left. I moved to Columbus, Ohio, to help my former Jr. High pastors, Steve and Katie, plant RiverNorth Church. I got a job at a tea shop, and I live with Katie's mom.


And it had been good. God is working here in ways we would never have imagined, but ways so evident that we can see his fingerprints all over it.

I don't think of my job as "work." I think of it as ministry. Because never before have I had so much opportunity to share my faith and who God is and the reason I came. I have never before prayed more consistently for the same exact things. I am learning to intercede on behalf of others and step out in boldness. Goodness, within the first 30 seconds of meeting me, most people will know where I stand. California girl moved to Ohio. Why? Well let me tell you...


Romans 8:28. Everything for good.

Questions

This is the post that I have been putting off, the one I don't want to write. It's the one that exposes my frailties and failure to trust in the God that has great plans for me. But life is not always rainbows and butterflies; sometimes it sucks. So here we go..

I kind of "dated" a guy in Costa Rica this year. We met in January and it ended in May because the distance was just too difficult. And when we served in his community this summer, that was my only stress point. I still cared for him very much so it was hard to be around him. I prayed about it with my assistant trip leader several times and had a handful of conversations with other trusted friends as well. "If it is God's will, it will happen." And it happened. And then 5 days later, it un-happened.

I was livid. Probably one of the times I've been most angry in my life. First with him, for making me look like a fool, for giving up so easily. Then I was angry with myself. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I opened myself up because I felt like it was from God, an answer to my prayers. Then my anger shifted to God. Why the heck did he let us get back together if it was only going to end a few days later?! I was just getting used to being friends. It was pointless and stupid, and I was so angry.

Internal dialogue as follow: Everyone always says I'm special, that I'm different, made for something more. Well I don't want to be special or different anymore. I just want to be happy. I just want someone to love me back. I thought this was from you, God. Why would you answer my prayer only to take it away? And if it wasn't from him, how could I have been so wrong? Do I really suck that much at hearing you? Guess I suck at everything. And you suck for giving and then taking it right back. What was the point?? I'm done. I don't care anymore. I don't want to do anything, see anyone, think or feel. Just make it all go away. 

There was more. There are words I don't normally use scribbled furiously in my prayer journal. My natural reaction to stress or overwhelming emotion is to cry. So I cried in anger all night. And I woke the next day and tried to hide it. But the tears came off and on all day. It sucked.

Then God brought me to Jonah 4. Jonah sits himself in view of Tarshish to watch its destruction, but it was hot. God caused a plant to grow up and provide shade and comfort. Then he sent a worm to eat it. And a hot wind to blow on Jonah as he sat. And Jonah was pissed.

Verse 9-10:

But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" 

"I do," he said. " I am angry enough to die."

 But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight."

Aka: What right do you have to be angry about a relationship I give to you for a week? I didn't have to give it to you at all. Ugh. It sucks to be rebuked. But then in the back of my mind, there was the voice that said I wish you wouldn't have.. And the questions start again. Vicious cycle.

In the middle of worse pain then mine, Job said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." In my own anger, I cursed at God. I was once again battling God for control of my life. I wanted things my way. Of course, I already knew I wasn't going to win. God would get his way-- he's God. It's useless to fight him. But maan.. to come face to face with the extent of your sinful attitudes and thoughts.. not fun.

I continued to battle with these things for the rest of the summer for a variety of reasons. Every time something didn't go my way, it was all brought up again. Even now God is working to remove these parts of me. But more on this later. That post will be titled "Restoration."


So welcome to my life. It's messy. I'm sinful. And I have no right to speak to God that way. But something tells me I'm not the only one. And maybe if I can be open and vulnerable with my not-so-pretty/downright ugly parts, maybe someone else will see that in themselves, too, and then we can be honest about our shortcomings and seek God together. Maybe. I can only pray that he will use this post for his glory.

En Espiritu y En Verdad

So this summer, God challenged me to preach. Now speaking is not something foreign to me; I sometimes do the message for the high school ministry at my church. However, I have never preached a sermon for a whole church, let alone in another country. I was very nervous. I even called home to have my mommy pray for me.

Back story: Before the trip, Pastor Jesus asked me who would be preaching on Sunday for the two services. Actually, to be more honest he asked if I was going to preach on Sunday, which translated to me as "Who are you going to find, because if you don't find anyone, it's you." So I arranged that our bus driver for the week (another pastor friend) would deliver the Word. It turned out, though, that we had a staffing change and would have to find another speaker. That's when I contacted the group leader of the team who would be coming. He graciously agreed to do Sunday morning, and after I reminded him that the evening service would be at a different location, he said he would take care of that one as well. I was off the hook..

 ..Until Tuesday.

While driving to our ministry location, Pastor again asks me, "Who's preaching tomorrow?" At this point, since we have a great relationship, I say to him that we only discussed a guest preacher for Sunday, so HE would be the one preaching Wednesday. He just laughs and says, "No, I guess you get to!" Ha. No way. His church, he's preaching. But I ask him questions about the community, to know it better/in the back of my mind, forming ideas for a sermon because even though I've said no for the time being, that's just how I work. I don't say yes until I'm sure. Not with something like that. That night during devotional (I don't even remember exactly what it was on), I remember feeling this weight, like Okay, I'm preaching tomorrow, aren't I, God?

So all day Wednesday, I'm brainstorming and asking questions and letting Scripture come to mind. I found out that there was much duplicity in the church, that people weren't really living or walking in integrity. So that became a main component of my sermon.

I based my message on John 4:23-24, where Jesus says that God is seeking people to worship him in spirit and in truth. I talked about the freedom we find in the Spirit but that we shouldn't use it to satisfy our flesh (Gal 5:16-21) and that Satan uses our weaknesses to tempt us. And sometimes we try to justify our actions, but that cheapens grace (Rom 6:15). So how do we live well in the Spirit? We add in the truth part. We are to live one life, Sunday-Saturday, not one life at church, one life at home, one life at school/work. One life. (Gal 6:7-9). But how can we live one life? How do we get away from the sin that so easily entangles? We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2). If we've given our lives to Christ, we are new creations (2 Cor 5:17). That's how we live in truth. We let God change us. And then as a check to see if we are living in Spirit and in Truth, we see fruit in our lives. We see love and joy and peace and patience, etc. And we seek to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal 5:22-25). I left them with 3 steps. 1) Commit yourself fully to God. No more double lives. 2) Ask the Spirit to cultivate in you the fruit of the Spirit and let him transform you. 3) Refuse to go back to the way things were.

Now my group told me that I did a great job, but I will never forget the look that Pastor had on his face. This was not at all the kind of sermon they were used to. Generally during service, they will read a short passage and hear a message based on one of those verses. I made them get out their Bibles (and if they didn't bring it, we passed them out) and flip to all of these verses. I had them read aloud, in both English and Spanish. Pastor's face said "What in the world are you doing??" To this day, I'm not sure what he thought of it, but it seemed to go over well with those who attended service. They even had a response time at the end, where they all prayed to rid the duplicity in their lives. I asked the sound guys to play a specific song that had a pre-chorus that matched my message. That pre-chorus says "I don't want to conform; I've tasted and I want more." And The chorus says "I want to fall more in love with you. Teach me how to love you and how to live. Mold me to your justice and your love. With my life I want to worship you. With all that I have and all I am, everything I've been I give to you. That my life would be for you, perfume at your feet."

I have no idea if Pastor will ever ask me to speak again, but here's that song I just told you about (ironically performed by a band called En Espiritu y En Verdad):

Grace

This was a hard summer. Not like last year's hard. That was hard because I had zero experience and zero confidence in myself. This year was a whole other ball game. I can't go into all of it, but as with everything, some weeks were harder than other. Sometimes it was the work itself that was difficult; other times, life outside of trip leading was pressing in on me, making it difficult to lead well. Over the next few weeks, I hope to unpack for you (and for me) some of that stuff. Currently it's all balled up inside me and I have no idea how to express anything. My hope is that writing will help unload some of that burden. So I'll just dive into the first post, which should actually be the last post, because it's the last thing that happened this summer.


Grace. Getting what we don't deserve.

Like I said, it was a hard summer. I was a bit bitter as I made my way to the airport Saturday morning. I checked in for my flight and was given my tickets. First one had me sitting in 30D at the very back of the plane. My second flight would have me in the middle at row 20. I had secret hope that because I was flying Copa, I might get bumped up to business class. After all, it was a hard summer, and I deserved it. And as to be expected, I flew out of Costa Rica in seat 30D. I figured it was because there wasn't a whole lot of time after I checked in to have them bump me up. It was only an hour or so. Maybe since I was checked in early for my flight from Panama, I would be moved up.

And I arrived in Panama. I glanced down at my ticket to see which gate I'd be leaving from.. and there was no sign for gate 9 anywhere. So I looked at the board that lists departing flights. 31. Ok, so maybe since my ticket was wrong, they'll have a new one for me when I get there and it will have my business class seat. (My thought processes.) I get to my gate and they briefly look at my ticket and then I go through a second security check. Normal. Now when I've had upgrades before they end up calling my name either over the speaker or someone from the airline approaches me. So I sit and wait. And I pull out my book. It's nearly time to board, and they call a few names over the loud speaker. Mine is not one of them. I inwardly try to rebuke myself for thinking I deserved something. So many times recently, I've been confronted by my own sense of entitlement. I don't deserve it. And how dare I even think of getting frustrated with God for not doing what I wanted. He doesn't owe me anything. Man. How messed up was I? I finally talked myself off of my high horse as they started boarding. Everything I experienced this summer is a part of life. It doesn't mean I should get any special treatment to "make up for it." So I hand the guy my ticket for my seat in 20D and head down the jetway, ready for a nap. Inner turmoil will make you tired.

Midway down the jetway, I hear my name, "Roberts, Tracy?" Umm yes? And he motions for me to come back. I follow him back to the counter and as he's doing something on the computer he tell me, "You have an upgrade."

Man. Imagine how I felt. I had just told God off for not giving me what I thought I deserved. Then I scolded myself for doing so. I pointed out all the errors in my attitude and set it right. I was ready to continue. Then what does God do? He blesses me anyways. When I was acutely aware of how little I deserved it. That is grace. I did not deserve that seat. I did not deserve that blessing, but that's who He is. That's what He does. I pray that in the future I would keep my perspective. I am little; He is big. I deserve nothing good, and yet He is the giver of all good things.

May it be the same for you, as well.

Throwback

Today I opened up my prayer journal to see where I was when it began. February 2013, when I began talk with PPM about full time ministry. How much has happened in a little over a year! I'm so grateful for the ways God was protected me, healed me, stretched me, grown me. My second entry in the journal is some lyrics, which is the main reason I wanted to post today. They are based on Matthew 14:28-31.

Keep your eyes on me Do not look away Keep your eyes on me I'll guide you in the way When the oceans roar And waves toss all around Keep your eyes on me I'll be your solid ground

Lord, if it's You, tell me and I'll come Lord, with You, the impossible is done Don't let me be afraid Keep me from my doubt Lord, give me faith to step out

This prayer still echoes in my heart today.