He's a Funny One...

Whoever said God doesn't have a sense of humor hasn't read the Bible. 

One of my all-time favorite passages that makes me laugh every time is 1 Samuel 5:1-5. Five verses of pure humor and love. 

When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it to the house of Dagon, their god. Dagon was an icon in their culture. He was their fish god and fertility god and was what they thought the second most powerful god in their culture. Little did the know, the real God was about to rock their world. They sat the ark right by their god. When the people woke up the next morning, they walked in (probably to worship Dagon) and Dagon was on the floor face down in front of the ark. So, they probably thought someone accidentally knocked him over, so they put him back in his spot. The next morning, they walked in the room only to see Dagon once again face down in front of the ark but with his hands and head completely cut off. They stood in awe, realizing the power of the true God and never went across the threshold again.

I have never been able to read this passage without laughing. Our God has such a sense of humor. I picture Him saying, "Oh, you wanna put that stone that you worship right next to me, the God of the universe, the God that made you? Ok, Ok, BOOM BABY. I just destroyed your wimpy little stone...what are you gonna say now?"

As funny as this is, I am so much like the Philistines in that I often worship the TRUE God, but so often will place God right by the idols of my life. I will still worship things in my life that I put before my God. So often, those idols in my life, such as a possession, friends, my own plans, and relationships often fall face down completely destroyed. I can't help but laugh when that happens because I am reminded how silly I am for trying to worship God as well as the stupid little idols in my life. Thankfully, He is gracious enough to destroy our idols since He loves us more than we can imagine. He is jealous for us. God isn't after a half-hearted worshiper, He is after a love affair that passionately consumes our desires, passions, actions, and thoughts. Are you placing your idols next to the living God? 

Clear the stage and set the sound and lights ablaze

If that's the measure you must take to crush the idols

Jerk the pews and all the decorations, too until the congregation's few, then have revival

Tell your friends that this is where the party ends

Until you're broken for your sins, you can't be social

Then seek the Lord and wait for what He has in store

And  know that great is your reward so just be hopeful

...

Shine the light on every corner of your life

Until the pride and lust and lies are in the open

Then read the Word and put to test the things you've heard

Until your heart and soul are stirred and rocked and broken

'Cause you can sing all you want to

Yes. You can sing all you want to 

You can sing all you want to 

And still get it wrong

Oh, worship is more than a song

We must not worship something that's not even worth it

Clear the stage, make some space for the One who deserves it

Anything I put before my God is an idol

Anything I want with all my heart is an idol

Any anything I can't stop thinking of is an idol

And anything that I give all my love is an idol

Jimmy Needham Clear the Stage 

Uncomfortable Grace

As beautiful as grace is, it can be more than uncomfortable at times, but it is still grace.

Out of obedience, they climbed into a boat and sailed off, only to be met by a massive storm. Their boat rocked back and forth and went nowhere for about 8 hours, no matter how hard these men tried to sail out. They painfully tried with all their strength for hour after hour, but everything was against them. They were discouraged. They were exhausted. They were terrified. They were uncomfortable.

Then, as they are sitting there, trying with all their strength to sail out of the storm and make headway, they see what seems like a ghost walking on the water. They cried out, only to find it was Jesus. Seeing how terrified these sailors were, Jesus told them not to be afraid. Then, like a father, entered into their pain with them and got into the boat and calmed the sea.

I'm sure the disciples were wondering where in the world Jesus was. The last time He was with them in a storm, He simply spoke and the storm immediately ceased. I'm sure they probably thought since He was not showing up, He didn't care about them and was not in control. Funny how we are the same, isn't it? Trials come and we immediately think Jesus isn't for us. We immediately think He must not care or He would have stopped our trial and made everything good again.

Jesus' reaction is full of grace and compassion. He doesn't tell them to suck it up. He enters in their pain with them. He crawls into their pain and loves them.

The disciples were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. Jesus had told them to get into a boat and go to the other side. Do you ever feel like you are obediently following your sweet Jesus, and storms come? In those times we are quick to think He is not showing grace; however, He is...He is showing uncomfortable grace.

Jesus placed them in a boat in a storm so He could produce in them what only He can: trust and dependency.

I can relate to the disciples in so many ways. For example, right now I know I am in the exact major the Lord wants me to be in. He has made that clear and I am walking in obedience. However, there is a class that is let's just say placing me on the struggle bus. It's frustrating and I don't always feel like my sweet Jesus is truly helping me. Does He care about something so little? If He cares, why is it such a struggle right now?

It's because he is teaching me dependency through uncomfortable grace. He is showing me grace because He loves me enough to let me struggle as He knows how important and life-giving dependency on Christ is, even when I struggle over and over again through self-reliance. Grace isn't always comfortable, but I am so thankful for storms that teach me the most life-giving things, even when I try to fix them myself before crying out to my sweet Savior.

So often, we are crying out for grace, not realizing we are covered in it. No, it's not the grace of ease and relief, but it's the grace we so desperately need. God is prying our hands open so the things that control us, such as self-reliance and the things that don't truly satisfy us fall freely out of our hands so we can truly grasp the satisfying saving grace of a sweet father that loves us beyond our
inadequacies.

"Grace will enable you to face shocking truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while freeing you from being self-consciously introspective. Grace will confront you with profound weaknesses, and at the same time bless you with new-found strength. Grace will tell you again and again what you aren't, while welcoming you again and again to what you can now be. Grace will make you as uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you a more lasting comfort than you have never before known .Grace will work to drive you to the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Grace will dash your ill-founded hopes, but never walk away and leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your little kingdom of one as it introduces you to a much, much better King. Grace will expose to you the extent of your blindness as it gives you eyes to see what you so desperately need to see. Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater cause for celebration than you have ever known." John Piper

Are you experiencing uncomfortable grace right now? Our sweet Jesus uses it to develop in us what only He can. During that struggle, He enjoys being a father to us, as He gently and lovingly enters into our pain. Will you let Him in? He has the power to stop every trial, hurt, and heart ache with a single word, but that is not what is always best for us. He loves you enough to make things uncomfortable at times.

Mark 6:45-52

Yielding Inadequacies

If there's one thing I have learned about my sweet Jesus this month it's that He is adequate. I am not.
I used to think I was adequate. Now, I know I am not even close, but I serve a God who is. I serve a God that enjoys using the most inadequate people in the most illogical situations so that it is clear that He is the one that is adequate. 

Christ Shows His adequacy to change the world and do things beyond our imagination if we yield our inadequacy to Him.

While I knew I was not adequate, but He was, I lived as if I was adequate to do anything.

I will never forget sitting at a table on January 30th this year reading through Psalm 36. I got to verse 6-7, which says "How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights." That verse stuck out big time but I couldn't figure out why. Then, the word refuge stuck out big time but I couldn't figure out why. Little did I know, the Lord was about to blow my mind three minutes after reading this. After reading through this verse a few times, the Lord revealed to me He was calling me to work with prostitutes in Madagascar, and teach them the new trade of jewelry making, which has always been one of my favorite hobbies. Then, He started putting the puzzle pieces together. The coffee shop He has called me to start will not only sell the jewelry those precious ladies will be making, but will support the organization I now feel called to start, which will act like a place of REFUGE for those women. This refuge will be a place for these broken-hearted women and children to come to in order to be loved on. 
Ok, Lord. Mind blown. I remember thinking, "you mean you are not only calling me to start a coffee shop, but to start a new organization for prostitutes? That sounds great, but believe me, I am so inadequate for this. I have never even worked with prostitutes. How am I going to be able to understand the deep, crushing, hurt they have experienced? I am so inadequate."

Then, He simply responded, "Yeah, you are. But, I'm not."

I sat there at the table and started laughing. He sure does love taking the most inadequate people and using them. Not for their own glory, but for His, since it is clear in those moments where the strength comes from.

Throughout the Bible, God delights in taking the most broken  and inadequate people and using them to meet the needs of other people. 

One of my favorite moments in the Bible is when Jesus walks up to Matthew, the tax collector, in the midst of his sin and brokenness and calls Him to follow Him. He immediately follows Jesus as he is in awe that Jesus would walk up to one of the most hated men in the town and love Him enough, even in the middle of his sin. (Mark 2:13-17)

He is adequate despite of our brokenness and sin.

Another one of my favorite stories in the Bible is when Jesus narrows Gideon's army down from 33,000 to 300 to defeat an army of well over a 100,000 men. "The Lord said to Gideon, The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel boast over me, saying 'My own hand has saved me'." That's like God telling me to lift an elephant. That's not logically possible. My scrawny arms would fall off before that was possible. (Judges 6)

He is adequate despite our doubts and  and inadequacy.

Then, there's the story of the young shepherd, David. David, the youngest of his brothers was delivering food to his brothers during a war against the Philistines, when He knew God called him to fight against the giant clothed from head-to-toe in thick armor. The king quickly replied, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from youth" (1 Samuel 17:33). When I think about David, I think back to my glory days (except not) back in high school, during basketball games. Every once in a while we would get switched during a pick and I would end up with Bertha, the Amazon woman....at the post position....pretty sure they planned that one. That was always terrifying. I feel ya, David. Once they agreed to let the little guy go against the giant, they started putting heavy armor on him. Knowing that he did not want to try this with his own strength, he took it off and proceeded to pick up stones to fight Goliath with. "You come with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied" (1 Samuel 17:45). Sometimes, I feel like a small shepherd boy with a few pebbles in my hand facing a world with a spear. 

He is adequate despite our pebbles and lack of strength.

"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Corinthians 3:4-5).

Have you yielded all of your inadequacies to God, so He can trade it in for His perfect and sovereign sufficiency? We are not adequate, but He is.

Why I Wear this Ring

In our culture, it is easy to be legalistic. It's easy to try to be self-sufficient. We try to gain the strength to keep promises and be "good people".

I looked up the history of purity rings and here's what it said:

“Purity rings really got their start in the 1990s when the Bush administration began promoting safe sex and STD/STI prevention/protection. "Under the Bush administration, organizations that [promoted] abstinence and [encouraged] teens to sign virginity pledges or wear purity rings have received federal grants. The Silver Ring Thing, a subsidiary of a Pennsylvania evangelical church, has received more than $1 million from the government to promote abstinence and to sell its rings in the United States and abroad.” 1What is a Purity Ring?It can be simple or it can be fancy. It can be cheap or it can be expensive. It does not matter. A purity ring is a ring that represents a promise, vow, commitment or goal to abstain from sex until marriage. Purity rings are typically worn on the left ring finger. It is significant, in the fact that it is the same finger on which a wedding ring is worn. It is to remind an individual their desire and goal to abstain from sex until marriage. Once marriage takes place, the purity ring is removed and replaced with a wedding ring" (http://www.purityringsonline.com/history-of-the-purity-ring). 

No, its not bad to promote the idea of saving sex until marriage. But, I think we are missing something. In our culture, we try to mask the root of problems by creating some sort of legalistic promise that we do our best to keep. 

When I got this ring many years ago, for me, at that time it was a legalistic issue of trying to be "really good" and doing my best to keep the promise I made. Now, it's so much more. I don't wear this ring to say, "Hey, look, I'm perfect and I have it all together", but I wear it as a physical reminder of how broken I am and how dependent I am on my sweet Jesus every day of my life. What I like about my ring is the heart in the center of the cross. This represents so much to me. It represents the fact that Jesus holds my heart, it represents the overwhelming grace my sweet Jesus has on me due to the cross, and it represents how satisfying my loving Jesus is.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." -John Piper

God gives us commandments throughout Scripture but even more so, He is concerned with the heart. 

Many of us see Christianity as a duty-defined willpower of do's and dont's. God sees it as a passionate love-affair with our Savior.

In Mark 12:28, the legalistic scribes asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. They were looking for something tangible to do or not to do. But, Jesus replied in verse 30 saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

Love God with all your heart (to where it physically affects you). 

Love God with all your soul (with all that you are and with a driving passion).

Love God with all your mind (where it adds to everything you do and has an internal aspect of who you are that is then shown externally).

Love God with all your strength (and the totality of your life being dedicated to loving God).

Why is God more concerned with the heart than following a bunch of commands? Because the heart is our source of life (Proverbs 4:23). The heart contains the motives. When we are passionately in love with our Savior, we see how satisfying He is and it becomes easier to love Him deeply above all else. If you are anything like me, you are so dependent on Jesus that every day you need a physical reminder of how broken you are and how dependent you are on the grace of the cross. I am so dependent on Jesus that I need a physical reminder to pray that He will sweetly satisfy me that day.

I am so dependent on my Jesus that I have to ask Him every day to satisfy my heart and help me to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

"I realized that manageable, duty-defined, decision-oriented, willpower Christianity now seemed easy, and real Christianity had become impossible...That is supernatural. Now there was only one hope, the sovereign grace of God. God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want. Only God can make the depraved heart desire God."

                                      -John Piper

Grace is Where My Song Begins

                                                                       

Sometimes, Switchfoot says it best. 

"Economy of Mercy"

Sometimes, I like to think I have it all together. Sometimes I like to think that I can become a stronger Christian by pulling myself up by my boot straps and growing through sheer discipline. Sometimes, I like to think that I am where I am in my faith because of me. Sometimes, I like to think just maybe I can do it. Just maybe I can be strong enough. Just maybe I can deal with my own sin. Just maybe I can be independent. Just maybe I can be adequate enough for the next task ahead. 

Then, my sweet Jesus bends down and reminds me in my pride that it is through GRACE that I am saved. It is His GRACE that rescues me. It is only by His sweet GRACE that my life can be renovated and sweetly and radically transformed. 

I grew up often thinking I was pretty good, knowing I needed Jesus, but not living like it. 

If you are anything like me, you grew up in churches that taught we were commanded to share the gospel. If we didn't obey, then we were sinning. There is some truth to this. We are commanded to share the gospel, but the way it is taught in most churches is something to be done out of duty. One of the most life-changing things I have ever heard is something that my pastor, Rodney, shares with us almost every Sunday. He shares the grace of God with us. He often says,  "When grace becomes capital letters in our life, missional living becomes natural." Wait a second, you mean sharing the gospel can be NATURAL? It had always been a little scary....until now. When we realize God's great grace on our lives, it produces a great desire to tell your friends. When grace brings us to our knees and shows us just how much Jesus has done for us, how can we possibly not tell people out of our joy and thankfulness. 

If grace was currency, I would be the first one to use it. 

Why do we make Christianity into some kind of 10 step process to becoming a better Christian? We see blogs flooding facebook with titles with some number of things you need to do in your faith. A number of ways to become a stronger Christian. A number of ways to get a better prayer life or something like that. I think we do this, because it makes it easier. It's easier to write down a few steps and cross them off. It makes it easier to have a list of things we can do. It makes it easier to feel good about ourselves. Why is it so hard to just see His perfect grace and just love Jesus? I think it's because it's harder to just give up trying to DO things. It's harder to live by the Spirit because then, we can't be in control. But, when we became a Christian, we gave up every right to try to be in control. We gave up our life. We gave up trying to earn God's approval. But, we gained an abundant life. My mentor just posted a wonderful blog about our self-reliance in our Christian walk. If you are feeling challenged, read it here.

You see, after we give up our pride in trying to do things ourselves, things become so much simpler, as His yoke is light.  "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11: 28-30 His yoke is easy because Christianity isn't a list of things you have to do, you simply get to love Jesus deeply. 

Growing in our faith no longer becomes this list of 25 things to do, but crying out to God to show us His grace and to help us to love Him more deeply. 

My two favorite words in the Bible are "But God."

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by GRACE you have been saved and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly placed in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His GRACE in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:4-7

Out of everyone I know, I am the most unsavable. If there's one thing I have learned this year about my sweet Jesus, is that He loves to save the most unsavable and redeem the most broken. I get to be a broken mess, saved by a perfect and redemptive God. I am the most undeserving of the gospel out of all the people I know. I am the most inadequate...But I serve a God who isn't.

Why my New Year's resolution is different this year

As I was thinking about what I wanted to have as my resolution this year, things like eating better, getting back into the habit of running, being more intentional with friends, and several other things popped up in my head. I'm definitely a visionary but I like to set goals that I know I can accomplish  but that are also challenging.

I sat there thinking, what will make this year different? If you are anything like me, you set these great goals but don't end up staying with it the whole year. Then, you screw up one time and get down on yourself. The Lord graciously challenged me not to make these surface level things my resolutions but to look at the core of the motives behind the them.

Then it hit me, the core is to know Jesus better.

"For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings..." -Philippians 3:8-10

The more I know Jesus, the more I will love Him.

The more I learn about His character, the more I am in absolute awe of the God we serve. I couldn't think of
anything else worth giving my life to. I want to learn more and more about His character this year. I want to dive into the Bible and not only read about Him, but study some of His character traits. We often throw around these traits like sovereign, omniscient, pure, holy, and others but do we truly know the depths of these meanings and not just a surface definition? The more I have learned about Him the more I have loved Him throughout my life.

"And He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'"

                     Matthew 22:37

This verse gets quoted a lot but this year I want to study it and really understand the depths of this kind of love in this verse.

The more I love Him, the more I will want to take care of my body and treasure the people I am around.

For me personally, the more I love Him the more I will appreciate the body He has given me and will treat it like a temple. Instead of dreading going for a run, it will be a way I can show appreciation for what the Lord has given me and show appreciation for the fact that I have the ability to get up and go run. The more I love Him, the more I will want to eat the foods He created for us to eat. Eating very healthy will become more of a joy because it will be a way for me to show appreciation for what He has given us to eat. How often are we truly thankful for the beautiful natural foods He has prepared for us? I don't know about you, but I'm not nearly as thankful and appreciative as I should be. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad to eat a good chunk of brownie (If this was true then I would have been struck by lighting way too many times.....). God created sugar and wants us to enjoy it, but I believe it is to be enjoyed in moderation.

The more I love God, the more I want to treasure the wonderful friends He has placed in my life. The more I treasure them, the more gospel-based our friendships are and the deeper the conversations. I would love to be better about writing letters to friends this year so that it shows I treasure them enough to go out of my way to write something and send it through the mail to them. That's one thing I would love to bring back from childhood. Also, the more I love God the more I want to serve my roommates and friends and serve them without expecting anything in return. I want to serve them as a picture of how Christ serves us. We worship a God who was worthy of praise but came to earth not to be served, but to serve (Matt 20:28).

Please don't get me wrong, I am not saying it's wrong to have great resolutions like losing weight, eating better, and working out. This is just something the Lord was challenging me with and I wanted to use it to encourage you all and also to have accountability on my part. I would love for you to ask throughout the year what I have learned about God and how I know him more. Even if you aren't close friends with me it would mean the world to have people around asking me that question. Not only would I love the accountability, but I would love to share what I'm learning about Him.

Here's the funny thing...I am so incredibly broken and sinful that I can't even know and love Him on my own. I have to humbly ask for the desire to truly know Him. I have to ask for the diligence to not only be in the word, but to study it. I have to ask the Lord to graciously open my eyes and remove my self-love. This righteousness does not come from myself or my resolutions, it comes from faith in Jesus and His power.

After all of this had been going through my head, I went to church this morning to hear a phenomenal sermon about numbering our days. My pastor, Rodney, mentioned that according to Psalm 90 we will not be able to number our days until we truly understand the nature of God, the nature of man, and the problem of sin. I want to remember how fleeting my life is and realize I am but a vapor. Why? Because at the end of my life I don't want to look back at all the things I accomplished for nothing. I want to deeply know Jesus. I want to deeply know Jesus so I can passionately love Him and love others.

"Your sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers."   

Psalm 90:5-6

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."

                                                                        Isaiah 40:8

SURPRISE!!!!

I used to try to control things, now I let Jesus delight in loving me.

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb...My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth." Psalm 139: 13, 15

If you are a Christian you have probably heard this verse a ton of times, but I encourage you not to become calloused to how amazing this is. Think about it... He knit you together and intricately wove you. Think about this in an even more detailed way. I imagine God as being a joyful creator that takes great delight in what He creates. I imagine Him creating someone and getting giddy with excitement as He picks the eye color, or multiple colors, skin pigment, body shape, hair color and style, personality, and so much more. I imagine Him in an art room creating a masterpiece that He is so excited about making and then proudly shows his masterpiece off to everyone around. He then treasures that artwork and takes great delight in it even after He has completed it. Think about how excited He was to mold you and create you into the person you are. Not only did He delight in you when He made you , but He still delights in you to this day!

Now, think about this. He knows His masterpiece better than it knows itself. He knows us and loves us more than we can love ourselves. Now, look at it from a little different perspective. We are all soooo incredibly different and we feel loved in different ways. Not only does this show how creative God is, but it shows us how much He knows us. There are five basic love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, gifts, and acts of service. Obviously these are not all inclusive, so I'm going to add surprises as the 6th love language. 

I used to try to worry about my future and want to have everything planned, then the Lord showed me how He wanted to love on me: by surprises. Like I said, He made us so He knows us better than we know ourselves. At the time that did not sound fun but after teaching me to trust Him He started to work everything out with little surprises along the way. I grew to love life's surprises no matter what it was. Once I allowed God to love on me the way He wanted to, my relationship with Him grew immensely and He gave me the grace to delight in Him much more. 

Things I used to think were coincidences or mundane things became surprises the Lord used to love on me. It's amazing how whimsical His love becomes when He opens your eyes to it. Things

like flowers off by themselves, a bird hiding in a beautiful bush, my cat randomly walking in to love on me, a letter from a friend, a surprise gift, and many others became ways the Lord delighted in loving me. It's Christmas day which is making me think back to Christmases throughout my life. Even when I was little, I was never the one to try to find my presents or figure out what everything was. I delighted in the surprise element. Why? Because that's how God created me to see His love. The best is when its a surprise inception ha! One of my favorite surprise inceptions was when God placed a trip to Madagascar in my hands, provided everything I needed, provided awesome connections in ways I would never have thought, and so much more. One of my favorite surprise moments was when I got to hold a lemur in my lap (There weren't even supposed to be lemurs around) and it even fell asleep. To me, lemurs represent His faithfulness and His love. 

I've never been much of a fan of those predictable movies. I'm a lover of surprise endings. One of my favorite surprise endings is how Jesus came into the world. A predictable story would have gone like this: Jesus comes as a jacked 25 year old on a giant horse with flames coming from all sides with a chariot. He kills every human that has wronged Him (everyone) and takes over the world as it should be. But, we serve a humble God who surprised everyone. The creator of the universe came to earth as a helpless baby that couldn't do anything and needed his diapers changed. Then, He didn't even come as some warrior to take over the world. He grew up only to die a terrible and degrading death so that every person that has wronged Him could have the opportunity to believe in Him, give Him their lives, and live in Heaven forever. If that's not a surprise ending that shows love, I don't know what is.

So what's the point to this seemingly cheesy mess?

The God that hand-crafted you loves you more than you can imagine and knows exactly what makes you feel loved. For some of you that will be through words of affirmation. Open your eyes to the way people affirm you this week but most importantly pay attention to how the Lord affirms you throughout the Bible. Maybe keep a journal of what He says about you. For some it is service. Open your eyes to the whimsical ways the Lord serves you this week. If it's physical touch, pay attention to the ways people love on you and instead of automatically thinking it was that person, think about how the Lord is using them to love you. For others it's quality time. Allow your Creator to spend time with you this week! Don't rush through your quiet times. Allow Him to love you!! If it's gifts, open your eyes to the gifts He places all around you, such as a flower  that you see or something someone gives you or something that seems out of the ordinary. But remember, God often works in what seems like the ordinary, just waiting for us to open our eyes to His creative and whimsical love. Struggle seeing His whimsy? I challenge you to 10 days of whimsical love.

Some may call it cheesy, but I call it delighting in loving.