David.

‘What I chase won’t set me free…’ – the Goo Goo Dolls

We spend our days chasing something.  This summer with a brilliant group of 11 women I have been chasing after the heart of God.  But as I was taking a drive past my childhood house, clearing my head this weekend that line from the Goo Goo Dolls ‘Sympathy’ really struck me.  What we chase won’t set us free, because we weren’t made to chase things but a person.  We were made to Chase Him.

In our final chapter of Chase this week Jennie wrote that David experienced something many of us long for more than any other thing: he experienced God’s love.  When I think of David I imagine this hardcore sinner with a heart after the Lord I imagine him, well, smoking hot for starters – but what I was going to say is he LIVED God’s love.  He didn’t just know it, acknowledge it, and leverage it – he breathed it.  Every single day he was chasing God’s heart above all else.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and he gave me a firm place to stand. – Psalm 40:1-2

He gave me a firm place to stand.

I will venture out on a limb here and say that someone who reads this blog needs just that – a firm place to stand.  I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that I understand that.  You’re talking to the girl who’s lived in 7 states, over 20 houses, and who spent her childhood debating ‘to unpack or not to unpack’.  After a rocky four years of college trying to live outside of faith – I found a firm place to stand but for the girl with a rocky foundation and insecure footing, it was finally enough.

So if you’re in a season of your life where you’ve sought the wrong things.  If you’re craving firm ground in a tough season, know that it’s there.  But you have to teach your heart to stop chasing something and chase someone.

Jennie writes, ‘God made David great.  David just let Him’.  This reminds me of an e-mail I got a few years back.  I was blogging a lot more regularly then and this e-mail came from a long-time reader who knew me in real like during my first couple years of college (when I was actually in high school but being a nerd and taking classes early).  I’m paraphrasing here but after a blog post where I confessed (not that it’s ever been a secret) what a wretch I really am without Christ, she said she thought even if I wasn’t a Christian I’d be a really good girl.

I don’t for a second want to discount what a sweet gesture it was of her to write to me.  I’m grateful for people who still believe there are a few ounces of good left in me. But unlike some of you who haven’t known me a real long time – I knew me without Christ and it wasn’t pretty.

But that wretch?  She had a Savior who wanted her.  Who chased her even when she was running away arms full of sin.  And you know what?  That kind of crazy love is powerful.  That love makes all the difference. 

Later in Psalm 40 David writes:

He put a new song in my mouth,

A song of praise to our God. 

That’s what I love most about my relationship with the Lord.  The new song.  All that old ish?  It seems like an eternity ago.  Because this new song?  It’s pretty freaking fantastic. 

The Lord has had to continue to take me through a few slimy pits.  Some days are tough.  Some months are tough.  Heck, last year was tough.  Yes, the whole year.  But the new song has prevailed.  It’s been in my mouth the whole time. I haven’t been able to stop praising him come heck or high water for five years now and for that, I’m grateful.  Because honestly, I don’t even remember the words to that old tune.

This summer has been incredible and it was tough to end it last night.  Made tougher by the fact that I have handed off my group to a leader we raised up from within.  My season to lead these girls has been precious but it’s come to an end as the Lord has lead me to a new season of leadership – and thankfully, I get to keep my little family of women together with a leader that’s been with us the whole time.  So that is a blessing and I think that’s how the Lord intended discipleship to look – that we hand of the baton and keep on going. 

If I’ve done my job as a leader than Kayla will continue our group and do an even better job that I have.  I’m confident of that.  So I end this season of studying Chase and sharing it with you here with a quick tear, it’s been a great year and a half with my girls and I’m a little teary about the changes but I’m also excited and expectant for this new chapter. 

Keep on chasing friends.

Love,

B

Belief.

Back to Chasing. 

This week are were back at it with our Monday night summer group.  If you couldn’t tell, I have loved this summer group and I have an amazing group of girls to grow with.  This week’s topic, believing was really timely for me.

It’s not a secret that my time in college was a ‘dry season’ in my walk with the Lord.  In fact in my small group we say ‘when I took a vacation from my faith’.  I don’t say that to be flippant.  But the Lord’s grace has covered even those years when I knew better but I didn’t act better.

The summer before my senior year of college I was interning at the Boys and Girls Club in inner city Indianapolis.  It was my last week of orientation/training and I had just left for the day to begin the 45-minute trek up to the burbs, where I was staying in my parent’s home for the summer. I got in the car and headed home.  A few blocks away from the club I was making a turn in an intersection when I was t-boned by a man going 75 in a 30.

My memories of the actual accident are scattered.  I remember the sound it made when he crushed my car.   Then I remember being pulled out of what was left of my car – several blocks down a cross street where my car had eventually come to a stop after shattering every window, losing both wheel axels, and all of the fluids.  I’m sure I was in some sort of shock even as we waited on the officers.  People kept asking over and over if I wanted to sit down.  Finally after a quizzical look from me a guy turned me towards a parked car and showed me my reflection… I was covered in my own blood.

One of the first things I remember being told after that accident (by the police officer) was: ‘Miss, it’s a miracle you’re alive’.  Miracle sure was an interesting word.  Not only was I alive, I managed to survive that crash without a broken bone or a single scar.   In fact, I didn’t even go to hospital.

This week I realized that was 6 years ago this summer. 

I realized this as I was pulling into the Target parking lot on my vacation and I set my head on my steering wheel and cried.  God’s grace is so precious.  See, if the Lord hadn’t protected me on that day I would have missed the chance to really live for Him.  I knew the Lord then but I didn’t love Him.  Not like I do now.

Soon after that accident I began to get my life right and I pursued the Lord as never before.  I realized that my time to ‘come back’ may not be as long as I had once thought and I decided I couldn’t afford to keep putting it off.  Because of that accident and the Lord’s gracious love, I won’t have to go home to meet Him without ever having really lived for Him.

I don’t live in fear of dying or even of car accidents (that second part took a little longer).  But if he gives me 6 or 60 more years I can’t wait to live them for Him.  See for this strong-willed fearless girl, it took a miracle to get my attention.  But that accident broke me and the Lord was there to put me back together.

I pulled it together and finished up at Target and I spent my drive home having a chat with the Lord.  I cannot put into words how thankful I am that He gave me a 2934839280423th chance.  That I have had 6 amazing years of getting to know Him, love Him, and serve Him.  What a great and underserved honor it is.

In our bible study this week Jennie wrote, ‘How we live our lives will flow out of what we believe about God’.  Oh Jennie, how right you are.  May my belief grow stronger every day and my life reflect that.  I have never doubted for a day since that accident that God is real.  But occasionally I go back to that day in my mind and remember that my Savior has saved me more than once.  And He keeps on saving me...that illuminates my ability to have unbelief.

Love,

B

Courage.

I sit down to write to you this morning feeling humbled. It’s Monday morning and I’m coming off 4 days of being a counselor for my churches kid’s camp.  We took 600 kids to Daytona Beach and on the last day they baptized about 100 of them in the ocean before our return.  It was a powerful week.  But what I wasn’t expecting is the Lord to take me away to Daytona and really open my eyes.

Robert Madu did a fabulous job speaking this week and my biggest takeaway was this: ‘It is easier to walk in what is familiar than to walk in freedom’.  Smack.  This one hit me right across the face.  I have been walking in the familiar.  I’ve been playing is safe and the Lord is trying to pull me out of this place and into what He has for me.

I came home Saturday with my head swimming.  I had some big decisions, some tough conversations, and some changes to make after having my eyes opened last week being away.  I woke up Sunday morning sick and spent the day playing catch up around the house and entertaining three friends who came in and out throughout the day to spend time with me and chat.  I muscled through some of what I’d been thinking with one of these friends and when she left, I jumped in with both feet.  

Today before I head to work I’m reviewing what I will be leading my bible study through tonight.  Our lesson is so fittingly on courage.  She writes that courage is grown in the mundane, small pieces of our lives.  This is where my failure lies.  In the mundane.  In the small, seemingly ‘no big deal’ things in my life I have lost sight of freedom and I have clung to the familiar. 

Later she had us read Psalm 27 and these words leapt off the page to meet me: Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage.  Oh how sweet those words rang true to me this morning.  I have to let, allow,  and encourage my heart to take courage and be strong. I am learning to stop clinging to the familiar and walk courageously towards what the Lord has for me.  It is thrilling, exciting, and terrifying in equal measure.  But as Jennie Allen so wonderfully said in this weeks study 'you are going to wish that you had not live in fear'.

Love,

B

Identity.

Identity is the central theme of this decade of our lives, don’t you think?  In our twenties we’re constantly changing roles from student, to employee, to boss (for some of us), girlfriend/boyfriend, husband/wife, parent, friend, sibling, bridesmaids/groomsmen, etc…the roles are endless.  It’s a crazy how different the 20s can be for each person.  We’re all finding our way.  So it seems fitting that identity was the second week of our Chase study as I lead these sweet 20 and 30 something’s through this study because who isn’t chasing their identity in some way?

Each week has ‘homework’ which includes reading, projects, and some thought provoking questions. I like to write out my answers in prep to share with my group of course, but also so I have a ‘roadmap to my soul’ if I ever lose track. I love retracing my steps through what the Lord is teaching me.  Which has made this particular study fun – as I compare my answers I wrote in Africa 6 months ago when I first did this study to where my heart is today.

This week she asked, ‘What is your worth built on and how is it working for you?’  Take a moment to process the weight of that.  Along with this we were asked to draw ‘blocks’ and put on each of them you write something you have built your identity on…this could be your job, your family, a relationship, a friendship, etc.  So I sat and wrote five of my own.

Who are you if you lose all of this?, she asks.

Who indeed.

I sat on my red velvet couch in my home that I guess you could say now factors into my identity. This is where I meet the Lord most mornings.  And I stared at my notebook.  I read and reread the 5 blocks I listed, the foundation of my identity and wondered: if you took them all away, who would be left?  Do I know who I am without my Becca-made identity?  The truth is I do.  At the core of me I know who I am in Christ and that foundation is even stronger than this earthly one I’ve built primarily throughout these 7 years of being in my 20s. 

Does the idea of losing each of these 5 components scare me?  Absolutely.  Especially since one of those blocks contains the thing I love most on this earth – my family.  What this means though, is that this study is meeting me where I need it.  It’s getting to the core of what is defining me and by result, keeping me from defining myself wholly in Christ.  Jennie Allen and her description of David chasing the heart of God are challenging me.

She writes, ‘we have an identity crisis because we build our identity on things that move – things that aren’t dependable or constant’.  There’s so much wisdom in that.  While my love for my family never fails to be there – my family could.  Whatever your five blocks say if you study each one you realize that any of them could move.  Could I lose a family member or my whole family? Yes.  Could I lose my job or a friend or a guy I’m in love with? Absolutely.  And if I build my identity on these shifting, changing things then who is left when they’re gone?

Who indeed.

If this idea is panicking you a little bit: take a deep breath.  This study is based in Psalm and if you know me you know that I am in love with this book of the bible written by David who I suspect I would have been great friends with (I like to say he’s fiery and more than a little emo at times).  And in the twenty-third Psalm he writes:

The Lord is my shepherd;
    

I have all that I need. 

He lets me rest in green meadows;
    

he leads me beside peaceful streams.

He renews my strength.


He guides me along right paths,
    

bringing honor to his name.

Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,

 will not be afraid,
    

for you are close beside me.


Your rod and your staff
    

protect and comfort me.

You prepare a feast for me
in the presence of my enemies.


You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
    

My cup overflows with blessings.

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
    

all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord 
forever.

That’s just the first 6 verses.  If you’re in need of encouragement, please read it all.  And if you’re wanting more keep reading in Psalm – each chapter is truly amazing.  But I love that chapter 23, the one Jennie shares in this identity lesson is full of such rich promises:

I have all that I need.

He renews my strength.

Surely His goodness and unfailing love PURSUE me all the days of my life.

And I, for one, can’t hardly wait to dwell in the house of my God forever.

That is where my identity belongs, in His unfailing promises.  In He who created me to chase something.  In the one who created me to chase Him.  David, God bless him, had a clear picture of what he was chasing.  He was chasing the heart of God.  And we see over and over in the book of Psalm that David knew where his identity was, in Christ alone.  Not in being a King.  Not in being the man who defeated Goliath.  Not in being a murder or an adulterer (though he was both).  Not in being the youngest of Jesse’s sons or a soldier.  David had more labels and titles and responsibility then I could ever handle but he didn’t let any of those define him, his identity was found solely in His relationship with a big God.

Whew.  Only the first real week of study and already we're in the deep end.  Stay tuned, we're just gearing up.

BC