Thursday, October 23, 2008

Facebook: A great friend, An even greater Enemy


I hate Facebook...
Wait, I mean, I love Facebook.

Oh goodness it is a war within me. Too often I find myself on Facebook when I should be doing much more productive things. It is so frustrating because I know if I just shutdown facebook I would get done so much faster, but I love learning about people, looking at pictures, and chatting. It is so fun. And it is such a waste of time. How do I fight this evil enemy? I don't have wireless internet at home so there is no way I can go on the internet while I'm in my bedroom doing homework. It is great. Bless my parents for not falling into our begging trap of, "Please can we get wireless, life is so much better that way." But, when I'm at school I can get internet anywhere and I almost always have my computer with me. In order to defeat this distraction I promise myself I won't take out my computer, or I ask friends to make sure I don't take out my computer. It is very helpful. This morning I got to school early and on my way I said I wouldn't take out my computer until I was done reading one of the books for one of my classes. Since I didn't take it out it only took 40 minutes to finish. Which really feels amazing cause now I'm done with that.

Enough about facebook, let me tell you about God's movement in my life...

God has used the car accident a couple of weeks ago for my good. He used it to test my faith in Him, to show that even (especially) when stuff goes wrong there is a need to trust Him. If I trust Him than my prayers to Him seem very worthwhile.

Prayer has also been huge. I use prayer more throughout my day than I have ever before. I find myself silently praying while I'm talking to someone so that they feel more loved and cared for. I find myself trusting that God will answer prayers and then seeing Him answer them. When I don't have words to say I pray He will provide answers and words.

God has given me close friends who love the Lord. This is awesome and very encouraging. When I get to talk to friends about Jesus I get so excited and I love Jesus more and I love my friends more. This has been an awesome experience.

I wake up each morning and read my Bible and although it is a habit God has been moving so that I do it willingly and joyfully each morning. It's hard to read names in 1 Chronicles, but with God's help I see a couple words that draw me to pray each day. God did awesome things with those names in Bible times, so He can still do awesome things with those names today.

John Piper is preaching on the gospel of John right now and I'm amazed at how much God is using him to help me love the gospels more. I can't wait to be done reading the Old Testement so that I can read Luke and John explicitly.

I'm fighting many sins. One sin is idolizing people. Too often I put friends first because I love being with them. This means that I spend more time thinking about and spendinng time with friends than I do with the Lord. I find myself making having friends be God. This is really hard for me becuase I love friends and I think friends are vital to my growth, but I have to be careful no to make them my idols. At a school like Bethel it is very easy to make myself an idol too. Too often I find I'm comparing my sin to other people's sin and making myself better than them, I'm idolizing myself. I need to constantly remind myself of the truth of the gospel and know that I did not deserve Christ one bit. I deserved eternal damnation in hell and God's justice and grace prevailed in giving me eternal life! This is so awesome and humbling. The humility is what I need to bring with me each day as I walk around campus, go to class, and spend time with friends. Christ was humble in His sacrifice I must be humble to show the weight and joy of His sacrifice.

In the humility and joy of Christ,
Greta

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Where do I find joy?

Oh the pain of accidents,

Where do I find joy?

Except from the One above.

There is pain in losing,

Whether in death

Or in un-response

And there is joy in gaining.

No lives lost,

Some lives gained.

By the grace of God

These hurt teens will

Bring others to the joy

Of the King.

Oh the pain of accidents,

Where do I find joy?

In the King of Glory,

Let Him come in,

Let Him bring joy,

To those who do not know.

He suffered for our sins,

He knows what it is,

To be in pain,

He knows what it is,

To feel all alone,

He knows what it is,

To ask why?

Oh the pain of accidents,

Where do I find joy?

He asked, “Why me?

Why now? Please remove

This cup from me

I pray, but if not, let

The Father’s will be done.”

Remove this pain for these

Families, but if not, let

The Father’s will be done.

We ask you to bear this burden,

It is too hard to carry,

You promised you would.

Oh the pain of accidents,

Where do I find joy?

You promised not to give

Us too much and leave

Us hanging, help us to see

Your hand in all this.

Give the Lee’s hope that

They will one day again see

Sarah the happy girls she is

Give hope to Adam’s family

That he will be strong tomorrow

Just like he was yesterday.

Give them joy amidst their pain.

Oh the pain of accidents,

Where do I find joy?

Nowhere, except in the

Name of Jesus, who came

To suffer for me and

With me and bore my sin

On the cross. What a

Grace it is to have a king

Who did that for my

Eternal joy. Give this joy to

The families and to the

Other driver. May they be

Blessed to find joy

In the pain of accidents.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

God's amazing miracles

I don't know if I ever mentioned this but 4 kids from my church were in a car accident on Sunday. One (Bill) walked away fine except for emotionally. Another (Alyssa) walked away with a broken collar bone and hurt very emotionally. Another (Adam) had/has internal bleeding, broken ribs, punctured lung, ruptured spleen, torn kidney, and pelvis broken in 4 spots and is going into surgery tomorrow. And another (Sarah) had severe head trauma, the doctors said she shouldn't have made it but she is still alive because of God's amazing miracles. I visited the hospital today. I didn't get to see Adam, but he is slowly progressing. Sarah is in a drug-induced coma. My mom and I got to pray with Sarah's family. I got to hold her hand. It was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. We also got to pray with Adam's sister Kate. She and I are very good friends. She is a major blessing to me. It was also one of the hardest things I've done to hold her and pray with her. She loves the Lord and wants Him to be glorified even in Adam's pain. I praise God for that. God is working miracles in their bodies. It was amazing. I wrote notes to Adam, Kate, and Sarah on their caringbridge websites. I'd like to share them with you...

Sarah,
I got to come see you today. I got to pray with your family. It was such a blessing to recount all the gifts God has given me and you through His son. God is sovereign in all He does even in the pain that he causes. I pray He continues to heal you. I pray He continues to work in your heart even while you are not fully awake. I pray He lets you finish the work that He has put you on this earth to do. You are a blessing. You are always smiling and gracious even when people aren't toward you. That is an awesome quality. God is good all the time.
I'm praying for you,
Greta Johnson

Adam,
I pray you know the Lord as your Savior.
I pray you grow from this.
I pray that you glorify the Lord through this.
I pray you love the Lord more from this.
I pray you love your family more from this.
I pray you see the great gifts you have been given.
I pray that you find hope in the perfect heavenly physician.
I pray you know that Christ suffered as you suffer.
I pray you tell others of the great work that Christ has done for you and for them.
I pray you feel stilled as if by quiet waters.

I'm praying for you, hey can you give your sister a message for me?

Dear Kate,

I love you. When I learned of this accident I started to cry and pray immediately. My first prayer was that all the kids in the car would know Christ as their Savior so that if God decided to call them home they would be in heaven that day worshipping the Lord perfectly and in joy. My second prayer was that you would grow out of this experience. I prayed that you would know Christ as your Savior so that you could find reason to glorify Him in pain. I prayed that you would not be angry with God for His sovereignty in letting this accident occur. That you would see that what He did is for your joy in Him even though it caused immense pain. I prayed that you would know that He did this to show you that He provides only what we can handle and nothing more. I prayed that you would find hope in each morning because His mercies are new every morning. I want you to know that I’ve been praying for you. I want you to know that I care about you and your spiritual well being. I want you to know God is sovereign in all things good and bad. I want you to love Christ more through this pain.

I love you so much in all the world,
Greta

P.S. Thanks Adam because Christ is using you.

Please be praying that God continues to work in their bodies and in their hearts to the glory of His name,
Greta

Sunday, October 5, 2008

What does it mean to be in joy even when in pain?

This is a rambling. I don't know how to say what I'm trying to say. Sorry.

I am so totally selfish. I can't do anything for the glory of God without God's help. So when I'm in pain or when my friends are in pain how do I comfort them and bring them joy to the glory of God. I was just invited to a facebook group to pray for some friends who were in a car accident today. All of them are in pretty bad condition. I learned of the accident through the group. First of all, not a good way to learn. Second of all, I started to shake and cry. Immediately I wanted to try to comfort their families, but I didn't know what to say or how to say it. I just prayed. I prayed that those who were in the accident would know Christ as their Lord and Saviour so if it is the Lord's will to take them they will have eternal joy perfectly worshipping Christ in heaven. I prayed that if it was the Lord's will they would be healed from their injuries. I prayed that the families would praise God rather than curse God for His providence in this accident. But then I started to think how do I not just pray this and be this for these families. How do I be joy in their pain? I think the best way to do it is to just proclaim the gospel.

I don't know how speaking the gospel to the families will be helpful but I have hope that it would. One time my Dad said that in every situation sharing the gospel is helpful and of first importance to change hearts to praise God rather than curse Him.

The Lord doesn't will anything to happen to us that we can't handle. This is for sure going to seem like more than these families can handle. But if they have hope in the Lord he will provide ways to make it through. If they hope in the Lord That their family members are trusting in the Lord it will bring joy rather than pain. Don't get me wrong death causes pain for those left, but what a hope it brings because the person who has died was given eternal life in heaven if they are trusting in the Lord. How awesome is that?

If you have ideas of how to be joyful even when you are in pain, please tell me. I want to brink hope and joy to my friends because they are precious to the Lord.

Searching for joy,
Greta

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Major League

Hey it's October. Which is reason to write a post.

I'm really in the groove of school now. It's nice to feel like I fit in for the first time in my life.

My sister is home for the weekend, which is super exciting. I love her. She is one of the smartest people I know. She is also one of the most passionate people of Christ. She wants to spread the gospel because she loves Jesus so much. One day I hope to be passionate about spreading the gospel like she is.

I really like CO and feel like God will use it in my life.

I'm beginning to think about what I will do this summer.

God gives me grace each day because he provides friends, mentors, and family that teach me how to love the Bible more.

A while a go I said that Lord-willing I will major in Youth Ministry. A couple weeks ago I was talking to my mom and sister and Emily said, "Don't major in youth ministry; that's stupid." I was taken aback and I didn't know what to say. She asked me what I could do with a youth ministry major. Honestly, I don't know, all I know is that I wanna work with students and youth ministry is a good way to do that. Than I started thinking about it, I don't wanna just WORK with students I wanna be relational, that's what I like to do. So today I was looking around the Bethel website and saw a major called, "Communications Studies: Relational Studies Emphasis." I think that is so cool. Just what I would want. But I still I wanna work in Youth Ministry, so maybe a double major? Whatever the Lord wills.

All in all life is good and God is better,
Greta