Sometimes honesty is quite ugly

Sometimes when I sit down to blog, I know exactly what I want to say.  Other times, I have a direction I'd like to go, but I'm not really sure.  But sometimes, I have no clue, I just let the Holy Spirit lead my fingers.  Currently, I'm sitting in the public library, on a PC,  in which I have 49 remaining minutes before I'll get knocked off.  I'm wasting time before meeting one of my best friends that I go a year between each time I get to see him.  We were supposed to hang out this afternoon, so I drove into town, only to find out he couldn't hang out for like two and half more hours.  My mom didn't want me to waste the gas to drive all the way home then all the way back, so I thought hmm, I'll go to the library...

I'm going to be brutally honest, I have been doing a terrible job at being a Christian lately, let alone a Nazirite.  As I drove to the library, I thought about how I haven't consistently journaled in like two months.  I thought about how I don't usually encounter the Lord when I'm worshipping, but more when I'm writing [or typing].  Then I listened to this track on a Jonathan David Helser cd, where some guy is talking about how much God loves us.  He says, "There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than He already does, and there is also nothing you can do to make God love you any less."  Usually listening to this guys Word makes me pumped to learn to love God better, however today, I was just like, dude if there is nothing I can do to make Him love me any more or less, why bother trying.  I've been doing so sucky at loving God lately anyways, why should I make a difference in my life to try to fix things.  Why not just keep living in this mediocrity.  Why not keep living inconsistantly.  If there is nothing I can do to change His love for me, then it's okay to love Him well sometimes and love Him badly other times.  Then the Lord reminded me how frustrated I am that my friend bailed on me this afternoon and I'm having to waste hours of my day waiting for him.  The Lord said, "Casey, there is nothing you can do to make Me love you less, but it hurts that you don't care enough about Me to spend time with Me.  You long for this time with your friend because you don't get to see him often, but Me, you can talk to Me anytime, but you choose not to.  You choose not to pursue Me.  But beloved, no matter how much you cause My heart to ache, I won't love you less, because you are my shining star, you are my beloved Casey, I will never give up on you." 

Now I sit and I type and I hear the whisper of my Savior calling me back to Him.  But I'm numb.  In that same Word from the guy I was talking about earlier, he says that God's love for us will not change, but what will change is our ability to receive His love.  I think I'm numb to receiving God's love... 

Jesus, break this wall I've built.  Tear it down.  God, I want to be able to receive Your love.  I feel like I'm in the middle of this epic battle between heaven and hell for the devotion of my heart.  Jesus, I choose You.  I will always choose you.  But please, please don't stop fighting for me.  I'm over mediocrity.  I want all my affections to be aimed at You again.  I love You God, I love You.

since i haven't posted in a while...

This was one of the hardest semesters of college thus far. It was academically challenging, spiritually draining, emotionally demanding, mentally testing, etc. However, as ironic as this may be, I did AWESOME in all my classes. I made a B in Microbiology, which I am stinkin’ proud of, and I made A’s in all my other classes, including Statistics! Yeah, that’s right, I got an A in Statistics. yay!

I’m very curious as to how next semester is going to be.  I [finally] have a work study job. I have a class with my best friend. It’s funny, she’s a year ahead of me, but declared her major a year after me (we have the same major).  

I just pray that in the next 3 weeks I can get filled up with the Spirit and back on track with my nazirite vow.  

[no clue why the font is brown, but i don't hate it. ;) ]

"ring by spring"

It seems like everything anyone is talking about lately is relationships and dating.  [Heads up, this blog is probably going to be very scattered.] Here is the reality of the situation: I am in my second year of college and I have never been on a date. I know nothing about dating or relationships. Not because I don't want to, but just because I have no experience whatsoever.   Today, as my friends were once again talking about relationships, my friend Chadley said this: 

You're not ready to be in a relationship until your willing not to be in a relationship.

Sometimes I feel like the normal is sort of different for me.  And this phrase has been really stuck to me lately - I was not made for the ordinary.  But then, what does that mean in this context?  

Is it any different for someone who has never been in a relationship?  I'm completely okay with not being in a relationship in this moment.  I still have growing up to do.  However, I was thinking about what if I never get married.  Because the Lord has put a fire in my heart for the prostitutes and trafficked in India.  What if the Lord wants me to give my whole life to that?  And surrender the idea of having a husband and children.  I don't think this is the case, but if it is, I want to at least experience what it is like to have a boyfriend.    

I would like to think that the Lord has kept me so pure and unheartbroken, so He could bring a pure and unheartbroken guy into my life to romance me and we could model the love of Jesus and His church.  However, that could just be me being a hopeless romantic.  I like this idea the best.  I know the Lord has kept me pure for a reason.  And I don't mean just sexually pure, I mean completely pure in heart.  I praise God that He has created me to be this.  As ignorant as it may make me seem sometimes, I adore my purity.  I don't need a ring on my finger proclaiming that I'm "waiting."  Pure is just what the Lord created me to be.  Although in saying that, I must also face the fact that I am extremely fearful of having my heartbroken.  My friend Sarah told me that she thinks every girl should experience heartbreak because you learn so much through it.  Maybe that is true, but I honestly hope that I am enough out of the ordinary that I don't need to have my heart broken.  

But here is the reality.  

I'm nineteen.  

I'm a sophomore in college.

I don't need to know.  

God is sovereign.  

He has a perfect plan for my life.  

He wants me sanctified.  

So here I stand, as a 19 year old chasing after her Bridegroom.  I am not content with not being in a relationship.  But as our relationship deepens, I will be content with being married to the Prince of Peace, Son of the King of Kings. 

Adam Young (Owl City) said this:

"She is out there. My cinderella.  She is real.  She exists.  I pray for her constantly.  May God satisfy the desires of her heart, draw her close, consume her.  May he claim her passions, her identity, her refuge, her hopes, her strengths and weaknesses, every fiber of her being. May she treasure and cherish her Savior more than anything of this world and cling to His will with every ounce of her stamina. By all that she is, does, and strives to be, may He draw near to her and she to Him."  

 I stand trusting that my earthly prince will one day come.

live the gospel

This was a discussion board for my Introduction to Missions class.  I thought some of you may enjoy my response. The question was:  

"With 1/6 of the modern world under the control and domination of the Muslim faith, the Church must develop a strategy for penetrating this rigid and cloistered section of the world. What approach would you make to reaching the Muslim world?"

First and foremost, I believe that prayer is what is going to radically shift the Muslim population.  I could try to explain a seven-step plan of how to share the gospel with a Muslim and how to lead a whole nation to Christ.  However, I am rigorously in love with Jesus and the Holy Spirit has given me the ability to pray perfect prayers from heaven.  Don’t get me wrong, but if I went to Uzbekistan with the intention of radically sharing the gospel, I would probably do something wrong and land myself in jail, or even more likely dead.  The discussion board question is asking what we would/will do to reach the Muslim world. I will pray.  I have heard hundreds of stories of Muslims having dreams and visions about Jesus, and becoming a Christian without ever hearing an “outsider” to their village say the name of Jesus.  I’ve heard multiple stories about a Muslim having a dream that Jesus came to them and told them a white man would come and tell them how to have eternal life (or something along those lines) and then the next week, a missionary comes into their village for the first time.  Praise God that He still works through visions and dreams.  As a part of the Church, while I’m in college, I will pray for the Muslim world; I will pray that Jesus would appear to the unreached Muslim population in dreams and visions.  

Secondly, I will go.  Again, I am answering this personally, not as the Church as a whole, but as what I will do to help the Church invest in the Muslim world.  Sometime after graduation, I am planning on moving to India.  I believe the Lord has already began to unveil His plan for me to minister to women in brothels.  Many of these women will be Muslim, as it is, along with Hindu, a prominent religion in India. I want to invest my life in these women.  I plan on loving them with the unconditional love of Jesus.  I will lead them into a relationship with me where they can completely trust me.  And in this discipleship (yes, I believe discipleship can start prior to salvation), I will show these girls who Jesus is.  I will live the gospel and love the gospel and speak the gospel and be the gospel.  This is how I will approach Islam; consumed with the love of Jesus.