Chris and I escaped to California for a much needed getaway and also to visit a church that we love called Bethel. Many of you may be familiar with the place, but for those that are not, all you need to know is that it is comprised of an amazing body of believers.

We stream their sermons and worship just about every week in our home because AMAZING. And we really just identify with them as a church because their priorities are as follows:

1. God (+Jesus+Spirit obviously..or maybe not super obviously since there are many churches that like to divorce certain aspects of the trinity. But that's a whooooole different ballgame.)

Yes. Their priority is God and all that he is and none of what he isn't. Their priority is the word and worship and community and prayer for people in their church and outside of their church and the nations and the sick and the poor and the every single thing you could possibly take to God in prayer. AKA-everything that occurs on this earth and within the hearts and bodies of people that are not as they are in the Kingdom.

We love that place.

People line up there literally up to an hour early on Sunday mornings just to get a seat or to wait in the front to worship. People literally wait in line and in the sanctuary as if their favorite band or performer was about to walk on in....which makes sense......because......Jesus. He's much better than any band or performer or teacher that you've ever waited in line to see. And he lives inside of us. And everyone there is very very very comfortable and familiar with that concept and they don't take it for granted and they don't quench the spirit and they let. him. do. His. thing. Open hearts and open minds. It's a beautiful thing what happens when that happens.

In case you're nervous about what "His thing" is..it's always good. The end.

It was impossible to walk into that place of worship and not feel compelled to smile. I encountered zero amounts of spiritual attack there. Zero distraction. Zero nightmares. Zero negative thoughts. If that isn't evidence of the fact that these people welcome God with open arms...I don't know what is. Darkness can not stand in the face of light. And that place is a super amazing testament to that fact.

We received tons of prayer (of course) and there were some definite highlights there. But mainly we just rested and soaked in truth. Mind blowing truth that comes in the form of great worship time and great teaching time and great prayer time.

Did we see people get healed? Sho' did. Did we hear truth? Sho' did. Did we have amazing worship time? Sho' did.

It's easy to come home and compare certain aspects of churches you love with others, and that's not what we're doing. We appreciate them and they are still a church made up of people who sin and struggle and certainly every church has flaws. But I think one of the main reasons they thrive (both as an inward church body and also (importantly) as a mission minded/outward focused body is that they are quick to believe what the bible says about who God is and who they are AND that knowledge of truth leads somewhere. It leads to transformation. It leads to mind renewal. It doesn't just sit unused in their brains. Again, they are so open to allowing truth to actually seep in and do something and take action.

Sometimes we have the tendency to wait on God and wait on God and wait on God to do something when he's instructed us that we are his hands and his feet and we have minds that he made and what are hands and feet good for? MOVEMENT! Taking physical steps forward. Getting out of this mental game where we pick apart the gospel with our brains and have philosophical debates and pray by ourselves and really we're supposed to do something. And that looks like a lot of different things...a lot of different things that that particular body of believers does really well. Because they let God take control. He's got the solutions, I tell ya.

It was inspiring.

We're back from our runaway trip to California and we had a blast. I haven't written in a while and plan to write about what we did there as soon as I'm able to process it all :)

Elsie must have loved that the time zone was different, that the humidity was next to nothing (compared to here), that we ate really good food, and that we got loads of prayer because she was a crazy little person all day err'day. I loved all of those things too, though, so I don't blame her.

We heard almost every person from there talk about how dang hot it was, but we were LOVING the weather. It appeared to be hot by the temperature listed--but totally didn't feel like it because the humidity was so much less. Even six month pregnant me didn't feel all that hot hiking a really awesome trail to a mountain peak. It was relatively toasty at the top but definitely bearable.

We drove by Chris' childhood house but didn't drive by mine because we would have had to backtrack, but we determined we lived about 20 minutes apart during our early years. How crazy is that!?

Anyway, we are home now and I have a head full of frizzy hair to prove it.

I'll write soon!

Something has been pressing on my heart lately and usually that means I am going to end up writing about it. Yet again, this is one of those posts that I was hesitant about..but after countless sleepless hours tossing and turning over it I finally decided to let it work it's way out of my head.

It's about God's will. And I'm just going to go ahead and put this disclaimer out there: I don't understand all of scripture and I am NOT a theologian, but I do know that I'm okay with not having it all figured out. I know the love and the voice of the Father and that is good enough for me. All I can do is keep digging and to give people a window into how certain life experiences change the way you think, and how certain life experiences force you to dig deeper into the heart of the Father.

It is my very very real belief that, as a believer, one of the very worst things you can say to someone who has just lost a child/found out they have cancer/lost a spouse/had a painful divorce/etc.....that it "must have been God's will."

We cannot attribute all of life's happenings to "God's will," because we know for a fact that we live in a world where sin and destruction and the reign of the enemy has entered in. If we want a look into God's heart for humanity--we already know the end result. (Rev. 21:4)

If we were to begin attributing things of death, destruction, and sin to "God's will," we would put ourselves in the sticky situation of deciding which belong to the hand of God and which do not. A bombing that kills innocent people? The death of a child? An abusive husband or father? Often when I'm perusing pinterest in the "everything" category, I see SO many quotes that say things like, "Sometimes we ask God to change our bad circumstances not realizing he put us in the circumstance to change us."

I cringe every time I see something like that. We are so quick to believe that God moves us around like chess pieces into less than favorable circumstances to "make us stronger," when in reality-some of our circumstances are based on choice and others are based on the fact that we have to live in a world where bad things happen and in the end God can always bring good out of it but that does not mean he caused it.

Let me give you an example:
My dad is an awesome dad.  He's always had my best interest in mind and he always had a desire to protect me and to have me experience all things good in my life. Despite the fact that I could have gone to my dad and gotten all the wisdom I needed to avoid this (and most) negative situation(s), I decided to be an independent individual and date someone who was not good for me. I was almost college aged and felt that I had a good handle on who I did and did not want to date. As the relationship began, my dad was able to point out red flags to me that he saw, and encourage me to think again, but ultimately I decided I was going to continue dating this fellow. So I did. And then he cheated on me multiple times. And I experienced some serious heartbreak. Now, this obviously is an example of a cause and effect circumstance, but there is a major difference between my dad allowing me to date this man versus going out and choosing him for me to date knowing that he would eventually hurt me. After the incident ended, my dad was there to comfort me and to offer his protection and also teach me about what kind of guys NOT to date, but he didn't ever look at me and say "I'm so glad you agreed to date him so I could teach you this lesson."

To reiterate: there is a major difference between God allowing pain and suffering to happen and causing pain and suffering to happen. The part I claim to not understand is not whether he caused the suffering, but rather what causes him to allow some and heal others..knowing that ALL of it can't be fixed right now...but that eventually all pain and suffering WILL be erased.

*When you tell someone that their baby died because it was "God's will," you are essentially saying that you believe in a Heavenly Father who kills babies for the greater good. For a greater purpose. That he is literally causing death to come upon an innocent child so that we will be made into stronger/more faithful/more mature individuals. Sounds intense, right? But this widely held belief is not supported in scripture. When Jesus taught us to pray "on Earth as it is in Heaven" he didn't include for us to pray "on Earth as it is in Heaven unless it's more beneficial for some of the crappy earth stuff to keep happening to make super strong believers!" 

I thought about inserting scripture verses here to help me make my point, but I urge you-if this idea is new to you, just open your bible and read an entire book at a time starting with the birth of Jesus. Jesus tells us that if we have seen him, we have seen the Father. There were some people that did not get healed by Jesus, but he never walked around "not healing some because it would teach them a lesson." And he certainly did not CAUSE death and illness to teach anybody anything. There are SO many verses taken out of context in regards to God "causing evil" so do your research when something pops up that seems contrary to all of this.

Do you see the difference? It may seem small, but it is the difference in believing in a loving father who helps you in hard times versus a father who calls illness and strife upon you to teach you a lesson.

I've mentioned this before, but one way to see into the heart of the Father is to look at the place where he currently resides. His kingdom is marked by full restoration/no suffering/no pain/no illness/no sadness and Jesus asked us to pray that His kingdom would break in where we are and that his will would be done on earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. This clues you in to the fact that where we are is not a place where his ultimate will is being realized at the moment.

Which also clues you in to the fact that babies dying and cancer happening and terrorist attacks and child abuse and all other horrible things that happen here are not the work of his hand but a condition of this earth and the enemy's reign.

If you LET him, he can take any bad circumstance you have faced bring good out of it, just as my earthly father did for me after my high school heart break (and countless other times.) But that does not mean that he caused it to lead you to a higher place.

 So, please. No matter what happens with Elsie, and no matter what happened with Ellie, and no matter what horrible thing your friends and family may be walking through or have walked through in the past--do not tell them it must be God's will. Instead, pray that God's heart and Kingdom would invade where they are now. This IS how Jesus taught us to pray.

And I'm not going to argue with Jesus.




Here's a nice little article with scripture references if you're looking for more.
http://www.greatbiblestudy.com/gods_will_on_earth.php