A different type of post...

Normally my posts are silly and funny with cute pictures, but you see I have this amazing friend who is a missionary in Mexico and she wrote something the other day that completely rocked my "little Christian world". I wanted to share this with you (I hope you don't mind Britt) and I pray that it challenges you even half as much as it did me. You see, it is so easy for us as Christians to "talk the talk" and forget that we are supposed to "walk the walk". Brittany has been a missionary since she graduated from college, 5 years ago, and has never looked back on her life, never wondered why God has called her to do what she is doing. She left her family, friends, and life here to follow Christ's will for her. Now I don't believe God is calling all of us to be missionaries in Mexico, but I know he is calling us to be his missionaries right where we are, here and now. I pray that one day I can be so bold and make such an amazing impact for Christ like my friend is doing.

today, as i drove through juarez and heard a song come on my radio that i've sung a million times in church, i realized something.

i realized the realness of telling God that we're willing to go and do for Him, to give us "one pure and holy passion" or to "take my life..."

i realized that in a church service, thinking and meaning these things may mean standing and worshipping God, surrounded by others, being in God's presence, maybe with tears pouring down your face and having a heart ready to serve.

i realized today what this looks like in action. and how it's the exact same thing, yet it looks completely different.

these words put to action, for me, mean spending a week with people i don't know. they mean being dirty, hungry, and exhausted. it's driving down a street in Mexico alone to drop off tools, so tired that i'm falling asleep as i drive. it's laying on top of a mixer as i dig through a million tools trying to find the one i need that is under everything, and getting covered in dirt and concrete in my clean clothes as the trailer door slam into me as the wind blows it shut. it's not being able to get a huge metal door shut as the sand and wind blows at me and the metal door throws me back and comes inches from slamming into my truck.

"here i am; send me" (isaiah 6) is being God's hands and feet when the tears have dried, the pounding heart and the safe church building is gone. its pouring out your life as you cry out and struggle through it. it's being exhausted, alone and dirty as i sit in a foreign country with a bunch of people i just met. it's Jesus dying after He carried His own cross on His bloodied body and then cried out to God.

"here i am; send me" costs everything.

being Jesus' hands and feet hurts, and is the hardest thing i've ever done. but it is the only purpose for my life.

the beauty of being His hands and feet changes from nice clothes and everyone on their best behavior and worshipping God together, to a different kind of beautiful. to a beautiful of dirty, calloused, blistered and worn hands, a sunburned face and an exhausted prayer as you fall asleep in the middle of it, in a dirty sleeping bag on a cot in a church in Mexico.

worship changes from songs in your Sunday best as you go out to lunch with friends and family afterwards; to a conversation in broken Spanish as you sit in the dirt eating lunch and talking with the family whose home your building that you just met. worship becomes pulling up trash from the landfill that we're building on top of, so we can level and build a solid foundation for this family's new home.

God's love is changed from words from a pulpit, to sitting on a roof in a poverty stricken colonia and watching an amazing sunset over cardboard and pallet houses as soccer games are played in the streets.

for me, this is faith lived out. what is seen and done beyond the words. for me this is Christ.

this is the life He intended for me.
giving, till i have nothing left to give.

"here i am; send me" is the most powerful and life altering sentence i've ever spoken