The "Best" Gold

Sometimes I am truly blown away by how well the Lord knows my soul. It's like He knows exactly what medicine to feed it; sometimes without me even knowing it. When I was in Zambia, my mom sent over a devotional book for me with one of my best friends who was coming to see me that week. It is called Daily with the King by W. Glen Evans, and I cannot even begin to express how much truth I have found in these words in even the short time that I have had this book. They are just short little devos, what I like to call "Megan Length", because I don't have the attention span to sit through a really long passage...It will lose me and the point will get overshadowed in the length. Tonight, I was catching up on the devos, because I had missed a few during the week and the wisdom in them is just too wonderful to not go back and completely soak in! Here's one of the ones that I caught up on; it so deeply hit home that I couldn't help but share it.

The Discipline of Decision Making

The process that brought me to Jesus in the first place goes on long after I have trusted Him as Savior. The difference is not in the nature of the decision, but in the nature of the things sacrificed. When I yielded to the saviorship of Christ, I sacrificed my sins; now in my Christian walk I must keep sacrificing those things that keep me from being my best for Him. The "pearl of great price" makes this clear. The merchant sold his good things in order to obtain the best thing (Matthew 13:45-46).

I must learn to do business in my Christian life, to "exchange" things as Jesus did. "In exchange for the joy lying around Him, He endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:2, author's trans.) Jesus saw what was infinitely good and surrendered it for something infinitely better. Daily I will be confronted with a "good" that must be exchanged for a "better"; otherwise I invite spiritual stagnation. The discipline of decision making does not end the moment I accept Christ as my Savior. It is in this process of making decisions that God weans me more and more from what I am to what I was meant to be. 

To be able to use that which is better I need insight and willpower. Insight tells me the difference between the "common" and the "holy" (Ezekiel 22:26); willpower commits me to it. Thus, my Christian life will always be a series of crisis that brought me to Christ. I must forever accept the fact that both birth and growth are traumatic; yet the trauma leads to a burgeoning spiritual life that is positively thrilling! The "things...that God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9) are for this life, not only the life to come, and they make the Christian adventure richer than any sight or sound experienced by the natural man.

"And Elijah came near to all the people and said, 'How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him" (1 Kings 18:21).

I have always said that I believe in a "good", a "better", and "best" for people in all situations. However I also think that sometimes our sinful human nature makes us too impatient to wait for the Lord's "best" for us, and we end up settling for "good". And while "good" is tolerable, it simply isn't "best". It's like settling for bronze over gold.  Wait for "best"; choose gold. I promise it is well worth the wait. 

"Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." -Habakkuk 1:5

Violet

This one is for you, Chloe. You've been the encouragement to post this. 

The color paints ends of the horizon

As the fire ball dips down

Is dotted amongst the tall grass

As the flower pops up in the spring

Joy unexplicable, unexplicable joy

A handicap though one would not know

Seeing life through only one

Instead of two

A bundle of life

Sweeping the dust off the floor

Bouncing to the sound

Of the Most High’s call

The scrawny body leaps with energy

I wonder how…

But she knows no different.

Momma, Momma, Mommy

Come back to me Baby

Violet colors, stroking across my heart

Every moment of every day.

I Will Follow You

I am currently reading through Matthew in the New Testament. What better way to hear from God than to actually read the words that Jesus spoke while He was alive? But I think what I've been completely blown away by as I read through Matthew are all the different stories of faith. You hear people say all the time that it would have been so easy to trust in Jesus if we had actually been alive when He was performing miracles and walking this earth. We would all love to think that we would have been one of the few who would have given up everything to follow Jesus during His three-year ministry here on earth, but the truth is that we probably wouldn't have. He was contradictory, and He preached against what the leaders of the time were saying. The fact of the matter is that it would have been a lot harder to follow Him than we want to admit, and our human instinct is not to go against the crowd. However, as you read through Matthew, you read the story of a blind man who simply and fully believed that God could and would heal his blindness. You read the story of a centurion who thought he was unworthy to have Jesus to enter his house, yet believed with his whole heart that Jesus was powerful enough that he could heal his servant from a distance. You read of a woman who had been suffering for twelve years and had the faith to believe that she only needed to reach out and brush the tips of her fingers along His garment to be made well. You read about Matthew himself, who was a sinful tax collector, yet when Jesus passed by him and asked him to follow, Matthew did. The verse plainly says:

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a an called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow me." and he rose and followed him." -Matthew 9:9


Talk about faith. To turn in an instant from your sinful lifestyle, leave all your wealth, and instantly follow the man who was the talk of all of Israel at the time (and not in a positive way)...Wow. I can only hope that I live my life with that kind of faith. To give up everything in an instant to follow a man that don't know too much about, now that takes courage. But isn't that what the Gospels are all about, giving up our comfort to follow Him? We so often want to have our cake and eat it too, hoping that our lifestyles will afford us ease and also allow us to follow God at the same time. But truly following Christ is so counter-cultural that it isn't going to be easy. You are always going to face opposition, whether it be through a moral disagreement with your friends or a life-altering decision like the girl at Columbine High School who gave it all up for the Lord. These are the moments where you are faced with the simple question of faith - Are you or are you not willing to give up EVERYTHING for Jesus? Who really is your King? These questions challenge me everyday, and as a Christian I am constantly asking myself who I live for, so that when the real fires of life come to test me, I can stand boldly with a faith that simply says, "I will follow you."

Matthew 9:37-38 says:
Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."

This verse so clearly states that we need to be following Jesus. There are so many people out there who don't know about the gift of salvation. You could be in Dallas, Texas or Lusaka, Zambia, but the fact of the matter is that there are people who don't know and that we need believers to stand up and be daring in their faith. People who have the faith to believe that Jesus has the power to change hearts through a simple act of obedience and through a willing spirit to be bold. People who have the courage to withstand the potential opposition of friends and family. We exist for one reason, to bring glory to God, and I can't imagine one day standing at the gates of Heaven knowing that I wasted my precious time on this earth on myself. Everything relies on a simple faith, the simple faith to trust that God has everything under control. The simple faith to know that God has our future in the palm of His hand. The simple faith to know that ultimately, it doesn't matter if you felt awkward in the nail salon while you shared your faith and other people were watching, because that's WHY you exist, to tell others about Jesus. To fulfill the Great Commission. It brings such joy to my heart to know that I have the rest of my life, whether long or short, to follow Jesus' command to, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." There is no greater joy, and fulfilling this command only takes a simple faith. A simple willingness to say, "Lord, I will follow you."

I loved getting to follow to Lusaka, Zambia for a month and I pray that the Lord leads me there many, many more times in my life! Look at these precious little angels!