The Year of No Limits... to living by my feelings

I know it's a little early to do a Year In Review, but I've been thinking a lot towards 2010. In conversation this week I was talking about the year 2009 as "The Year of No Limits," and before I had a chance to think, I said, "This has been a crap year."

Wow.

The minute the words were out, I knew they weren't true. And to classify an entire year as "crap" ... that's a little overly-dramatic, right? This has been a groundbreaking year for me. I bought a house - something I NEVER thought I could do as a single woman on one income. I got out of credit card debt - yet another feat I NEVER thought would be accomplished without divine intervention (thank GOD for his intervention that made it possible). I had an opportunity to be a part of a groundbreaking worship recording at City of Life. I accomplished projects at my job that were difficult and time-consuming and hard; things I'd never done before and never thought I'd be asked to take on. Yet I accomplished them and (most of the time, if it was in my power) did them excellently.

Yet those words betrayed the position of my heart. Because while so many amazing things have happened to me this year, my own personal mental state, my spiritual state, and my emotional state has been pretty out-of-whack. I started the year with a break-up, which is never fun. Plus, this was my very first break-up, so I was experiencing feelings I never had before. For once, I didn't know how to handle something. And while God was incredibly merciful to me and worked a miracle in healing my heart quickly and fully, I think starting the year this way sort of threw me off, emotionally.

I began living from and out of my feelings. Insecurity gripped me and drove me, guiding my decisions. I literally felt like I was living on the brink of losing my mind, as my fears surfaced and took the driver's seat.

And, unfortunately, as all these amazing things happened to me that I listed above, I was so disconnected from all of them that I didn't truly enjoy any of them. I was so busy scrambling, working, striving, grasping, all to maintain some kind of security for myself that I couldn't provide anyway (Hey did you know I'm not God? No, really!), that these glorious moments passed as nothing more than a bother.

I'm looking forward to a fresh start. I've been truly putting effort into putting my feelings in their proper place. I've been re-ordering my life and letting God re-introduce himself to me, starting with the basic and only lesson I'll ever really need for life with him: his love and, more importantly, his LIKE for me.

Develop In Me A Longing That Is Unrestrained (Richard Rolle)

I ask you, Lord Jesus,
to develop in me, your lover,
an immeasurable urge towards you,
an affection that is unbounded,
a longing that is unrestrained,
a fervor that throws discretion to the winds!
The more worthwhile our love for you,
all the more pressing it does become.
Reason cannot hold it in check,
fear does not make it tremble,
wise judgement does not temper it.

A Psalm from me to You

My heart is like an overflowing fountain
Like an endless series of waves breaking on shore
Praises keep on coming and coming and coming
For You have come to my side at every cry for help
At the mere whisper of a need, You have provided
And in moments when I wasn't wise enough to know I needed help, You came anyways, without me even knowing
For these things, I praise You
For these things, I exalt You
For these things, I magnify You
Lover, Protector, Provider, Shield, FATHER

Are You Hungry?

I'm sure you've heard people talk about being hungry for God. We sing songs about it, hear messages about it, and even pray for hunger. This talk has been especially big around City of Life, as the spiritual climate escalates and we prepare to experience more of the supernatural than ever before. My pastor mentioned recently that he didn't believe that God could MAKE anyone hungry, and, in fact, to pray for God to stir up a hunger or make us hungry for Him was an impossible request. He asserted that we have to make ourselves hungry.

You know, when I first heard him say this, I was a little offended! I had prayed, "God, make me hungry for you" many times! But the more I think about it, the more I believe him to be true.

There are many theories about why we become physically hungry for food. However, most scientists agree that hunger has a physiological part and a psychological part. First, the physiological part: our bodies were created with certain chemicals like insulin and glucose, along with hormones, that cause us to be hungry. In a quest to regulate these chemicals, we become hungry until our brain and stomach are satisfied.

Then there's the psychological part. No doubt you've looked at the clock around noon (or whatever time you usually eat lunch) and become hungry simply because of the learned behavior of eating at a certain time. I know this from teaching. One year my class had a 10:30 a.m. lunch. I've never been a breakfast eater, and the thought of eating so early in the day was a little strange to me. But yet, a few weeks into the school routine, when 10:25 would roll around, my stomach would begin growling at the thought of lunch. Or what about the psychological affect that our senses have on hunger? You may not be hungry, but sometimes hearing the McDonald's jingle and smelling their delicious french fries is enough to make you take on the dollar menu! (If you're like me, your thoughts are now calculating the length of the drive from where you are right now to the nearest McDonalds. Stay with me here! Focus!!!)

At any rate, spiritual hunger has the same components. God created you with an innate, inborn desire for Him. Kind of like the physical component of hunger - it's built in. We've all heard the "man was created with a God-shaped hole" message a thousand times, right? In the core of all of us is a hunger for God. The wise ones fill it with God. Yet most attempt to satiate it with whatever is available that tickles our fancy and comes at the least cost to us. Slapping the snooze alarm a few times is easier than getting up and spending time with God. It makes us feel good. It fills (for a time) that need, that hunger, for God. We fill our lives with work, family, entertainment, church, friends... all GOOD things, yet none of which can truly satisfy that deep hunger. If the hunger for God isn't filled with God, then all of other pursuits are basically idolatry. Ouch.

The problem with filling your spiritual hunger with things that aren't God is that eventually, it shows. Just like a strict diet of mountain dew and sausage pizza would lead to vitamin deficiencies and weight gain, thus causing a physical manifestation of what you've been taking in to your body, a diet of idols eventually shows in your disposition, your faith, and the fruit that your life produces.

And then there's this other component of hunger for God, the learned part, similar to the psychological aspect of physical hunger. I believe that there's a mental component to our hunger for God. Being around people who stir you up, who encourage you to press in for more of God, has an effect on your desire for God. "Like iron sharpens iron," sometimes we are driven to search for God because the people around us encourage us to. We see our pastors and spiritual leaders delving into Bible study and teaching us out of the rich treasures they discover, and it inspires us. We hear believers around us praying passionately, using different words and different communication styles than we've ever heard, and it pushes us to go further in our prayer lives.

Just as your environment can encourage you to pursue more with God, it can also dissuade you. I've been in circumstances where I am hanging around new people, and when one of them asks me, "Are you hungry?" I make a casual statement like, "I could eat," or "I'm ok," even though my stomach is growling and I am ravenous. Or like when you go to a restaurant with a bunch of girls, and you're really hungry, but the others order salads with fat-free dressing, it dissuades you from ordering that big greasy bacon cheeseburger that you have been craving all day. In these environments, I choose to limit my expression of hunger because of my surroundings... I don't want to seem out of place, or greedy, or look unladylike. When we surround ourselves with people who have low standards and who mock those who pursue God in a deeper way than the norm, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Their hunger (or lack thereof) will mirror itself in our hunger.

The word says in Psalms that "Deep calls to deep." I believe that spiritual disciplines, such as regular, daily Bible study, is tough at first. It's a LEARNED process. But as you get further in, deep calls to deep, and the more you do, the more you want. What starts as a learned, environmental thing becomes something that possesses you and drives you.

So, are you hungry? Honestly? If your answer is no, then why not? Stir YOURSELF up. Examine the areas that you may've replaced your desire for God with different things, and then clean house! Get them out of your life! Surround yourself with people who are hungrier than you are, and let their hunger rub off on you.

God wants to fill your hunger. Why pick at a salad when he wants to be your cheeseburger? :-)

The Party's Over!

A man's as miserable as he thinks he is. -Seneca

So lately I've been having these parties. Big ones. Frequently. The guest list is short by my own choosing, and those in attendance don't ever say enough or do enough to satisfy me with their presence. Some of the guests refuse to stay, because they've been to my parties, and they know what to expect and would rather not participate.

Yeah you got it - I'm the host of the world's largest pity parties.

It seems lately I've been doing a lot of wallowing in self-pity. Self-pity is a very egocentric thing, too, because unless you have honest people around you to snap you out of it, you can be up to your elbows in it, and yet have no idea that you're in the middle of it. Thankfully, there's one person in my life who isn't afraid to point my sessions of self-pity out to me (we all need at least ONE person who will do that!).

So what is self pity? Well, here's what Websters says:

Self-pity: pity for oneself; especially : a self-indulgent dwelling on one's own sorrows or misfortunes

And the definition above is entirely true - self-pity is so self-indulgent. At the very core of it is a focus on SELF. In the middle of self-pity, we choose to look exclusively at our problems, our lack, our shortcomings, our circumstance; we allow it to envelop us to the point where we feel as though the world owes us something: sympathy, a shoulder to cry on, or little assurances like "you're so strong" or "you're such a hard worker" or "you don't deserve that."

Self-pity is the polar opposite of a grateful heart. As one who struggles continually with self-pity, I know that I have to FORCE myself to be thankful. I have to take the very things that I want to whine and gripe about, and instead turn them around and use them as sources of thankfulness.

So here's some common complaints, followed by ways you can turn your gripes into gratitude:

Your job sucks? At least you have one. 13.7 million Americans are unemployed right now.

Your marriage is on the rocks? At least you're still married. 50% of American marriages end in divorce.

You're single and you're feeling sorry that Mr. or Ms. Right hasn't shown up? Well, given the statistics above, it seems better to be single than in one of the unhappy marriages that fall prey to divorce. That's something to be thankful for! My mom drilled into my head from the time I was young that it is better to be single and lonely than married and lonely. You could be in an unsatisfying, unconnected relationship that you're locked in for life! Maybe you're single and unsatisfied and unconnected, but at least now you have options!

You're facing financial ruin or foreclosure? In Honduras a few weeks ago, our team tore down a shed on the Hands to the World compound property and piled the left-over wood to be burned. A Honduran lady who was cooking for the team saw the wood pile and begged that it be set aside for her. A few days later, she invited us to her one-room, dirt-floor home, which, to our shock, had been newly constructed using the "trash" we had been so ready to burn. Whether you're own a home, rent, or live with someone else, at least you have a place to lay your head. You probably have a bed (these Hondurans didn't), and the walls of your home are probably insulated (the cracks between the planks of the walls were large enough to let wind, insects, and rain in). You probably even have indoor plumbing (these people didn't). Furthermore, this family was so proud of their newly built home, and their pride humbled me. I was embarrassed that I had ever complained about my house: the dirt on the carpet, a cracked tile, the lack of hardware on my cabinets.


I say all this not to downplay the circumstance that you're dealing with at this very moment. Yes, life is hard, and yes, God sees and cares about your situation and your worries as only a father can. But I can't help but wonder if our God, the one who has the global perspective, the one who is just as close to me right now as he is to that Honduran family in the shack, looks at my crappy attitude about my 2008 Mazda and sighs a little, rolling his eyes that I would dare enter my car with disdain as I secretly wish it were a Lexus or a Mercedes. I mean, really?!


So, instead of embracing this martyr complex, what about looking at things a little differently? (I'm preaching to myself here.) What about changing every opportunity for self-pity into a moment of gratitude, a moment where we stop and just thank God for His goodness, His faithfulness?

And if this isn't a struggle of yours, but you see a good friend slipping into the mire self-pity, why not be a true friend and, in the most loving way possible, tell them to snap out of it? Instead of doing what's easiest and joining in the pity party, refuse to attend. Help your friends see the many blessings that their momentary lapse into self-pity has blinded them to.

As I once heard a friend say, sometimes you just have to put on your big-girl panties and get on with life!

Five Year Plan

Tonight I sat in a booth at a wings restaurant with a friend who knows me well. We were discussing some pretty heavy things when my friend looked at me and said, “Cassandra Hendon, where do you think we’ll be in five years?”

What a question. I honestly didn’t have any clue.

It’s not a profound question. It’s repeated often in job interviews. It’s lectured in business schools – “A Five-Year Plan.” But for me, it gave me pause. There’s been a lot of talk around me lately about forward motion. Moving to a new place, a new level.

But where do I think I’ll be in five years? I haven’t thought about it. I’ve been so concerned with the “now”, with what’s right immediately in front of me, with a reactionary sort of life, immediately responding to the dilemma, tasks, or goals right in front of my face, that I haven’t ever thought of where I’m headed. So where am I going?

Tonight I sit here and question myself. What do I want? Do I have the courage to even dream, to think that there could be something possible for me outside what is in front of me, outside of the swirl of the business of life?

So here are some things I want for my life. Real, honest, brave things that I’m saying, acknowledging to everyone.

I want to be completely in love with Jesus. I want to pursue a love relationship with Jesus so fervently that it drives every decision I make, even the small ones. I want to be the woman of God I used to think I could be as a child, before I saw people fall, before disappointment jaded my view of Christians and of myself. I want to live above mediocrity. I want to pursue Jesus above all else – above the mundane, above my own desires for comfort, for fulfillment, for satisfaction. I want to consistently fix my eyes on Jesus, not on my circumstances, not on my schedule, not on whether I’m too tired, too burned out, too busy, too lazy. I want to guard my relationship with him so zealously that nothing can come between him and me. Instead of being a Gomer, I want to be faithful, through and through. I want everything in my life to flow out of the time that I spend with him, so that I’m not shaken in hard times.

I want love. I want it in the right time and I want it in the right person. I don’t want love for love’s sake, or because I feel my clock ticking, or because “everyone else” has love. I want it because I was formed to want it, I was created to love a man, to be a helper to him, to support him in his pursuit of being who God has called him to be (and through that support, fulfill part of my own purpose as a woman), to have his children and love them and raise them to love the Lord. I’m tired of pretending that love is gross or overrated or not for me just because I don’t have it right now. Whether I get it or not, I want it. Maybe within five years, maybe not, but whenever God sees fit to bring me to the one He made me for.

I want to rescue children. I want to take in children who are abused and neglected and become a foster parent. I also want to reach out to women (both in the US and abroad) considering abortion. I want to approach them in a new, unorthodox way that transcends judgment. I want to go to other countries like China where abortion isn’t a big deal, where it’s offered as after-the-fact birth control, and minister destiny and hope to women contemplating it. I want to save babies from death by introducing women to a God of purpose and love. I want to use creative methods to take an inflammatory political issue and put a face and a name to it, to make it less about left and right and more about wrong and right. I want my friends, who are the most creative people in the world, to play a part in this.

I want to write and record songs. I want to write songs that bring hope to people, songs that transport people to the throne room of heaven, songs that stir people up, songs full of the Word of God that pop into peoples’ heads in decision-making times and help them discover and do God’s will.

Connected by the Covenant

Most of us know what it is to feel that something about you "counts you out" of the better things in life. Whether it's your looks, your talent (or lack thereof), your social skills... I think at one time or another, we have all felt that we don't have what it takes. We often look at the promises that God has given to others and wonder, "What about me?"

This happened to me recently. I was so excited to hear an awesome prophetic word spoken over a friend. Yet later, when I stopped to think, I realized that no one had ever spoken a prophetic word about me. What about ME? My thoughts then went down that all-too-familiar "I'm not cut out for this" or "I don't have what it takes" path. And pretty soon, my friend's joy became my own self-centered pity party!

I've been studying Romans, and somehow this study has led me to think a little about the story of Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was a great man of faith. In fact, Paul held him up as the archetype by which we should model ourselves concerning faith. Over seven times in Genesis, God mentioned or promised to him that he would have many descendents and become a great nation. If anyone had a great prophetic word spoken over them, it was this guy! Especially in the face of his age and his own wife's inability to bear children, this guy stood fast. But what about Sarah?

Here's Sarah, hearing all of these great accounts of the wonderful words that God has spoken to her husband about how he's going to make him a great nation, and give him many descendants. But this woman is barren. Even early in Genesis (11:30) before any promises were made to Abraham by God, she's referred to as barren. This was a long-standing problem. And no doubt, Sarah felt that she was not enough, didn't have what it would take to help God's promise come to pass, and was counted out of this promise. In fact, we can see this in how she offered up her servant, Hagar, so that she could help God out in keeping his promise. We can even see her attitude towards herself in the way she speaks to Abram: "See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her."

This is a woman who looks at herself and her own inability and immediately counts herself out. In fact, she thinks that even GOD has counted her out. But what she doesn't realize is that because she is in a covenant relationship with her husband, God's promises to her husband will come through HER, because God honors that covenant and would never do anything in a round-about way. The promise of God isn't for everyone else but you. It is for YOU, because you are in covenant with HIM!

And thinking about it, the same goes for other covenant relationships you are in. If you're committed to a church body, and great words have been spoken over that church, it's time to start taking those words personally and grabbing ahold of them for YOUR life. I've heard too many times that a waterfall is about to break forth at City of Life and passively nodded or said "amen." But it's time to stop passivity. This is MY promise. This waterfall is for MY life. I will see signs. I will see wonders. It's not for everyone else BUT me. I don't have to be smart enough, anointed enough, beautiful enough, talented enough, or ENOUGH of anything to qualify for the promise of God! I'm included in the promise JUST as I am because God honors the connection that I have with the house and with Him. And you're included too!

And another quick note. In Romans, it says in chapter 4, verse 19 and 20, that Abraham was not weak in faith and didn't waver. It's easy to skim past that and take it at face value, but when we think of the whole Hagar fiasco, then we see that, yeah, Abraham did have moments where he didn't trust God. Where he did waver. Yet he didn't camp out in his doubt or his wavering. And that is what sets the great men and women of faith apart. Yes, they may have faltered. Yes, they may have sinned. But they didn't stay there. After their sin, they got up, dusted themselves off, and kept pressing forward. And because of their entire walk, not just one moment of failure, or even one HUGE mistake (like Ishmael), God called them "not weak in faith" and unwavering. Isn't that cool? Momentary moments of doubt don't downgrade your status as a woman or man of faith. God sees the whole picture. If you are a person who sometimes struggles, sometimes questions, but overall presses forward and keeps going despite faltering, you are still called "faithful" in His eyes!

Realize that God's promises are for you. Who you are doesn't count you out, because God likes you and takes great delight in You. If you'll stay faithful, you will see His promises come to pass in you and through you.

And if you happen to have tripped up in your faith and your pursuit of God, don't stay on the ground. Get up! Keep going!

"God-loyal people don't stay down long. Soon they're up on their feet." (Prov 24:16 MSG)