Sometimes, life is just confusing. Sometimes its hard. Faith is such a crazy idea. To believe in something, even with no idea that it could be possible, yet somehow know- deep in your heart- that the risk is worth it. I can’t explain beyond that. It is more than just a leap. Anyone can leap. Leaping just involves a small amount of momentum. But the plunge-head-first-out-of-a-plane type of jump takes way more guts. You risk everything. You risk getting hurt. You risk the parachute not working. But maybe it is right. Maybe the parachute works just fine, but even then, the timing has to be right. The parachute cannot be released early. Everything is critical. It cannot be taken lightly. But the risk is necessary for the plunge- for the adrenaline. The successful plunge relies completely on you releasing the fears and facing the rush. Going head first. It means relinquishing all security into the unknown. That is faith. That is what I am trying to do. To plunge into whatever the heck God is calling me to, even if I do not entirely understand. Its just the risk my faith must take to be where God wants to be.

Philip is the fifth disciple mentioned in all of the disciple lists. And it may seem strange, but Philip in the Greek means “lover of horses”.  Though he was a Jewish man living in Israel only his Greek name is known. It can be assumed that because of the Greek and Roman worlds, many people would assimilate and take on the cultures. Philip, having a Greek name, probably was a Hellenistic Jew. He was from Bethsaida the same town Peter and Andrew were from. They most likely all attended the same synagogue right in the town. James and John were probably two of his friends as well. Looking at that history, it can also be assumed that, because of their closeness, Philip was probably a Galilean fisherman. Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, John, and two unnamed disciples [known later as Andrew and Philip] are mentioned as being fisherman. That means Jesus chose at least seven men, all ordinary fisherman- common group of friends all unexceptional men to change the world.

Little is really known about Philip. He is usually paired with Nathanael. According to John, Philip was a “process person”, by the book, practical, narrowly focused, and often a pessimist. He was not a visionary but a cynic. But like the brother pairs, he was probably in the wilderness and at the Jordan River with John the Baptist awaiting the Messiah. Philip was, in fact, the first disciple physically sought out and called by Jesus to follow him. Its the first time recorded that Jesus said “Come, follow me”. Immediately he went and got Nathanael. His response to Jesus was bold, and frankly out of his character. He said, “We have found him”. Although Jesus had sought Philip out, Philip understood the concept of personally accepting Jesus. He had found what he had been searching for his entire life. There was no reluctance or disbelief- complete opposite of his normal.

A few examples of Philip show his true character and how Jesus chose to use him in spite of it. The feeding of the 5,000 is a perfect example of Philip’s weak faith. Scripture says there were 5,000 men meaning there were probably at least 20,000 total people. Jesus told Philip that they needed to get bread to feed everyone. He immediately started counting heads, overwhelmed by the crowd. It was simply impossible. Right? He was obsessed with the mundane matters forgetting that Jesus the Messiah was present. He thus lost the opportunity to be a part of the miracle. Andrew stepped up in faith which led to the miracle. Another time a group of Greeks visited Philip in hopes of getting to see Jesus. The Greeks probably went immediately to Philip because of his Greek name. However, he was timid and indecisive. He had no idea what to do, therefore he found Andrew to take care of the matter. Twice, Andrew was used in opportunities that Philip could have been a part of. The third, and last example, is about the Last Supper. All of the disciples were pathetically weak in their faith that night. Jesus had already explained who he was to them. In fact, the disciples spent three years with him seeing clear miracles and supernatural occurrences that only the Messiah- the true God- could perform! [John 14:7] The night of the Last Supper, Jesus explained that anyone who had known him had known the Father. If they had seen him they had seen the Father. He was the Father, yet Philip was not listening. Philip spoke up for the group and said, “Show us the Father and it is sufficient for us”. He just didn’t get it. Jesus responded, probably painfully, “Do you not believe? …You have not known me…” Wow. Philip had been in the presence of the Messiah for three solid years. He had seen amazing things that only God could do yet he responded to Jesus so naively. For three years he was not really listening or seeing. He had been blind and deaf without knowing it.

Little else is known about Philip after the Last Supper. It is obvious that Philip eventually worked through his issues. He knew Jesus was the Messiah from the start, yet it remained a struggle to fully believe with strong faith for his entire ministry, if not entire life. But he was crucial to spreading the gospel of Jesus to Asia. He must have worked through his doubt. He was stoned to death for preaching about Jesus in Heliopolis in Asia Minor. It was eight years after the death of James. The key is to understand that Philip, a man of weak faith yet practical lifestyle, overcame his weaknesses and expanded the Message of Christ greatly.

I came across this old post that I wrote years ago…in 2008 to be exact. A lot had happened in that year and the years leading up to it. Most of this blogpost listed below still is not the same. But to clarify… I am not that same girl. With God’s love and grace in my life, redemption has been made. I am not some insecure girl dying for her rescuer. I am not in need of rescue. I am not wounded. Yes, I have scars, but I am not wounded. God has shown me who he has made me and I am not defined by my past. I will say this: I still long for a man- the one that I believe God is preparing me for and he for I to come and romance and woo my heart. I do want that guaranteed and this time I refuse to settle for less. Read this blog below knowing that it was written out of brokenness, pain, heartache, and hurt. Know that I am made new in Christ and have been made stronger.

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I am a broken girl full of insecurities. I hate being short because often I feel inadequate, especially when I am constantly made fun of. I don’t find myself very attractive some times. But then I carry a strange arrogance about my appearance. I am not sure how the two go together. I feel like I am fat [like a typical girl] but usually only when I am around really skinny people. I work out a lot to avoid gaining weight-but overall I am in good shape. I never know who my real friends are. They seem to change often. But more than anything I am afraid…no petrified of marriage and intimacy on every level. My greatest fear is betrayal by my husband. So far my luck with guys staying faithful remains a failure. I do not have much confidence in guys….it will probably take a long to get over it. I forgive the guys about the past, yet my heart is still in broken pieces. They broke it without a thought as to what it did to me. It is my scarlet letter…not what I did but what they did to me. I am forever marked as a girl who is hopeless. Anger has been shut up in my bones.

Because of them, I lack trust in every male. Will I ever get married? Because no guy I have ever dated remained faithful, or even gave me the time I feel I deserved, I am terrified of marriage because I feel I am doomed for failure. This fear haunts me. Forever? I want to be enough. I want to be worth it for a guy to truly romance me, to love me, to cherish me, to yearn for me. He will long for me and kiss me and just want to lay in his arms. He’ll love me no matter what.  To him, I will be beautiful and no other girl compares to me.  He will choose me. This time I will not be second choice. I will not be a rebound. I will not be an excuse or a way out. He will choose me…first. That is what I hope for. But I am a hopeless romantic. Every where I go, I wear a mask of confidence. a masquerade. a facade. That’s all it is. My broken smile gleams but waiting for someone to see…to see me. The real me. I want to be known, but I am always guarded. I want a man that can find a way to get through the walls, without penetrating me in pain. I want to be captivated. But I even want more than that. Dreams fill my head. My soul wants to dance, but everything is frozen. I want to be. I want to go. I want to become who God has made me. I am so sick of this pain of pathetic weak guys who have labeled me. They gave me the idea of being less than enough. Innocence lost. Lies. Deceit. Manipulation. The empty words. The broken promises…I refuse to hear anymore. My arm is already labeled with this past. One day a real man, a warrior, will capture me, romance me, and make me the beauty of his world. At least that is my dream. Until then, I am trying to remove this scarlet letter from my arm. It is painful.

A brother. A fisherman. A disciple. A Son of Thunder. Apostle of Love. Look at any of the those titles and one would think that would describe different men. However, each of those descriptions are all about John the disciple, the son of Zebedee, brother of James. John, like his brother was a fisherman in Galilee. As discussed in previous posts, John, his brother and Peter and Andrew became disciples of John the Baptist. John and James were a very bold set of brothers. There was no doubt they were related. From a prominent family, John, like his brother, often thought he deserved special privileges. They were quickly deemed a nickname called the “Sons of Thunder”.

Even with the names listed above, John was a very interesting and important figure in the transformation of history and the founding of the Church. He wrote the Gospel and three epistles named all bearing his name. He was the youngest of the disciples, yet allowed in the inner circle of Jesus with his brother and Peter. Being a fisherman, he was rugged, hard-edged, and tough. He spoke his mind, especially when he thought he deserved special treatment. He had zeal, both a virtue and a weakness. He was every bit intolerant, ambitious, zealous, and explosive as his brother. He wanted to call down the fire from Heaven to burn up the sinner. Everything John wrote was laced with his person…there were zero gray areas. Everything was black & white. He understood the necessity of drawing a clear line.

John was an extremist. There is no doubt about that. He was dangerously extreme which is how he and his brother were nicknamed Sons of Thunder. This extreme nature was both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, which caused imbalance in his life- lack of control. However, he was ironically nicknamed the Apostle of Love. So which is he? Thunderous or loving? Honestly, John was both. He learned to work through his temper, pride, and arrogance. He learned humility, compassion, and love because of Jesus. He learned by watching Jesus closely and seeing how he lived, and ultimately died. To reach his full potential, he needed to learn balance.

People today are too concerned about love and tolerance that they neglect the deep concern for Truth to be found. John learned the need for loving people and accepting them as they were, however he wanted the Truth and light of Jesus to be exposed. The authentic Christlike person knows the truth and speaks it in love…knows the truth in Christ and loves as Christ loves. Truth is never to be abandoned in the name of Love. But love is not to be deposed in the name of Truth.  John learned this the hard way. He started off thunderous, insulting, demanding, and arrogant, yet he was humbled by the love Jesus Christ.

He learned suffering, something that many people neglect. He was not martyred. However, he outlived every other disciple and Jesus. He was the only known disciple that watched Jesus be crucified. He saw everything. Wouldn’t that change you? Over the course of years, he had to painfully deal with each death of every disciple. Those men had been in his closest companions, his best friends, and his family.

Wouldn’t seeing Jesus die change you? Wouldn’t living longer than your closest friends and family impact you, knowing they died for a cause? John was undoubtedly forever changed by Jesus Christ as well as the disciples.  A man who started off as a simple fisherman, a painfully arrogant man, became the disciple known as the “the one whom Jesus loved”. It was not by mistake, but by three years of close discipleship and a lifetime of character -shaping circumstances.

I do not always like to listen to things people say to me. I do not like to be told what to do, especially if I think I know better. Problem is, I rarely know better. I rarely know what is the best for me. And I have an arrogance with God sometimes thinking I can walk through this life without his direction or will. And its not so much that I think I can do it without him, but sometimes I do not like what he tells me, so sometimes I ignore it altogether. I have had to learn the hard way before, in my past, where I ignored God’s complete and clear direction. I never want to repeat that. I was empty and hurting. And worse, I felt distant from God. I never want to reach a point in my life again where I am choosing my will instead of God’s. Every time I have ever chosen my way, I end up hurt. Oh irony. God created me. He knows everything about me- what’s good and what’s not. He knows every intimate thing about my life. So why I am I ever defiant to him? Why do I ever think I know best? Hello! He created me therefore he must know what he is doing!

“Obey what I tell you. Do exactly what I command you. Your obedience will close the deal. You’ll be mine and I’ll be yours.”  [Jeremiah 11:4]

It is far too stressful to go about life thinking I can handle everything without help. Without guidance, I am just a fool wandering. There is so much I can miss out if I do not try to listen for the clarity of God’s direction in my life. Every decision I make, especially life-altering, better be brought to God first. He becomes my ebenezer– my cry to God for help because I cannot do it on my own. God is my all. I need to trust him that He knows best. Whatever I do, if it doesn’t take me to the place where I meet God- that ebenezer moment, then it doesn’t matter.

[Ebenezer root words mean “stone” and “help”…”stone of help” from the Hebrew]

Service 3

• “avoid the drift”– story about being stranded in the ocean with a dead wave rider
• how do we become adrift? …we lose momentum
• the greatest way you can live a good life is a selfless life
• scripture: Book of Esther [her story]
• Mordecai mentored Esther
• who mentors you to be a better person? who do you mentor?
• Galatians 5
• “For such a time as this”- God used Esther to save a nation. God used Mordecai to guide her. She had purpose for her life.

Regardless of your life and what is good or bad about it, God can and will use you if you let him. God used Esther, an orphan girl, to change an entire nation. God uses people in our lives to guide us and help us along the way. Sometimes we are the help for someone else. No matter what, “for such a time as this” you have a purpose. Where you are right now and whatever you are doing, God wants to use you if you are willing.

Service 1

• Luke 19:10 – Jesus came to seek and save the lost
• the central theme of scriptures was in the pursuit of Love
• After Eden [the fall of man] the message of God’s love became the mission of God’s love– i.e. Jesus
• What do Costco, Sam’s and BJ’s have in common? They are stores that give away free samples for food in hopes of showing you that their product is good. Same thing with faith…Christians live as an example [a sample] to the faith in Christ.
• “lost” means: strayed, missing, not won or likely to be won, lacking clear direction
• “save” means: rescue from danger, to preserve
• We tend to hold tightly to thing that don’t matter and let go of things that do matter
• Jesus seeks those that are lost and desires to save them

Whether you feel lost or alone, Jesus seeks you out. He wants you. He can guide you and give clarity. He loves you, deeply.

• most days, you won’t feel overly qualified
• John 6…the boy with a “sack lunch [5 loaves/2 fish] probably did not think he’d be a part of a miracle feeding of 5,000
• “Crisis of Believe”- the moment when you wrestle with what you believe God has asked you to do
• the Word of God [Bible] is living and active, not a trend
• if you won’t get engaged in God’s mission of Love, he will use someone else and you will miss out
• God provides ministry opportunities in the everyday  conversation
• if you’re a Christian…welcome to the ministry
• figure out the dreams God has for you, don’t just rely on someone else’s dream
• Faith not fear it the glove that catches your dream’s potential
• Living according to the Bible and like Jesus will not always be easy. Dream BIG with Christ. Live life by faith.
• The cross is offensive! So not everyone will like you!
• Jesus always saw past the stuff and saw the potential

You have purpose. Jesus can use you no matter what you’ve done or haven’t done. He loves you. He died for you so that you might truly live. You have a choice to serve him and live big dreams for him. You have potential, so stop doubting that or listening to others. Listen God. He wants to do great things through you. His love compels us to want to do more for him and others.

How would you feel always being in the shadow of your much younger sibling? James was just that. He was the older brother to one of the better known disciples. However, James is almost always listed as the second disciple behind Peter before either of their brothers. James came from a very prominent family- the family of Zebedee with a great reputation. James and John were great friends with the other brother pair Peter and Andrew. They were all fishermen together in Galilee. But the main difference between them was that James and John were from a prominent family while Peter and Andrew were less than their status. However, all four of them were closest to Jesus, with Andrew being the least closest.

James, along with his brother, were nicknamed “Sons of Thunder”…which by all accounts in history, this was not exactly the kind of nickname one would hope to acquire. James was passionate but also abrasive. He was zealous, fervent, ambitious, but also bloodthirsty. You could probably assume that James was going down the road to self-destruction and possibly even family dishonor when he met Jesus. He was so overflowing with passion that it was rarely a good quality for him. But then he met Jesus. The way Peter must have felt when referred to as Simon, is probably the same way James (and John) must have felt when called the “Sons of Thunder”.

James was very opposite to Andrew. His focus was not the individual like Andrew. In fact, he rarely cared about others period. He was outspoken, intense, and overly impatient with any sinner. He was so quick to forget that he had just been someone like who he was condemning. The zeal he had was not good. It was apart from knowledge which, in turn, was damning and far from righteous. It was a dangerous zeal lacking wisdom. He was insensitive to the needs of others. His zeal was selfishly driven.

At one point in the ministry of Jesus’ and the disciples, a village did not want to turn to Jesus’ teaching. Samaria- the very people any good Jew should hate- was exactly where Jesus wanted to preach. He wanted to give hope. Selfishly and burning with contempt, James and his brother John asked Jesus- out of their arrogance probably one of the most insensitive and misguided things anyone could ask Jesus. They asked, “Lord do you want us to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?”

Who was James to think he had the right to do something like that? Who was James thinking he could lead his younger brother and ask such a ridiculous question? They were asking Jesus- the Lord who came from Heaven to let them have the power to incinerate a village. They expected Jesus to give them such a power, asking Jesus to enable them to do what they knew he would not do. Jesus stood on the grounds of grace and love, giving time for repentance when all James wanted to do was condemn.

How quick we are to condemn…to call fire down. How quick we are to forget where we came from.

There was another ridiculous moment in James’ life under Jesus’ discipleship that just makes me laugh. James and John, I am positive, were momma’s boys. They were rich kids from a good family among 10 others [the 12 disciples] that were probably all from lesser families. At one point, James and John asked their mom to talk to Jesus for them. Her request, of course came from their mouths, most likely James’. She went to Jesus asking him to allow for her sons to sit on each side of him on thrones in Heaven. Those were seats of honor they felt they deserved, for some odd reason.

Jesus’ response was profound, though at the time they didn’t quite get it. “Are you able to  drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I have?” Jesus was referring to his own death, the crucifixion. However, James and John said they were able, thinking purely in the literal. It wasn’t until 14 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection that James fully understood the significance of that question and he lack of wisdom in his answer. During those 14 years, James learned to turn his thunderous spirit into something good. He helped change the world. He was bold and unashamed of how Jesus changed his life.  He was condemned to death for preaching the message of Christ. It is recorded that in his death, which was to be by the sword (beheading), a Roman official also gave their life to Christ and died right there with him. So it was at the end of those 14 years that his final breath would be, not as a Son of Thunder, but as an apostle of Jesus Christ, the true Messiah.

I cannot help but smile. God is beyond amazing. Yes, life happens. Circumstances happen. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are less than desirable. But regardless, I try to smile. I try to look up, with my head held high. Jesus takes care of me. This past month has been extremely challenging to me in more ways than one- spiritually, physically, emotionally, and even mentally. Finishing up a masters degree is taking every bit of strength out of me. It is mentally draining. Physically, I am getting surgery on my foot that has basically been the thorn in my side the past 7 months. I am at a new job in a position that not all people support. But I know I am supposed to be here. Spiritually and emotionally the transition of so much is colliding with my heart and reality. Granted, right now I love where I am at. Life is just a roller coaster. But with all of this I can’t help but smile because I can see the beauty through clouds. Like gazing at a starry night, with some clouds, the beauty still remains- you just have to wait for the clouds to pass and clear. The things that are unclear right now force me to just simply wait. I have to wait and see what God is going to do. The desires of my heart ache and long for that which is deep within. Wait. Don’t push. Just wait. That is all I can do. This beautiful collision of my heart and God’s will is worth waiting for if it means I get to see the life God intends for me. Oh, this unexpected beauty makes me smile. No matter what. I am at a place- finally- where I can just rest and be at peace. And wait, because I know My God will not forget me or lead me somewhere without his guidance. In Christ alone I trust. Nothing else matters.

“Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure everything out on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume you know it all! Run to God…”