Pilgrimage

A couple days ago I wrote this 500some word essay for my humanities class. We were asked to sort of define what the spiritual journey is and defend it. I wanted to put it up on my blog because I feel like it fits:

The spiritual journey is a pilgrimage. It is believers in this world trying to make it through so that we can worship Christ perfectly in the next world. The problem is not everyone knows Christ as his or her Savior and in order to get into that paradise each person must. Our sins separate us from God. God hates sin and he needs to punish it. In His great mercy He sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for all those who repent and believe on His name as their Savior.

The pilgrimage begins with a confession of your sins and repentance for them. Repentance looks like a turning away from your sin. This means that you were headed down one path and God intervened and stirred something in your heart to see your sin and confess it. You then feel remorse for your sin because it is wrong and it is against God and you turn from it and walk back towards God.

Once you have repented the journey continues. The Holy Spirit is leading you through this journey so that if you ever stumble and fall you will be picked up again. The fact that the Holy Spirit is leading you should start to show in who you are and who you become. You should begin to bear fruits of the Spirit because the Spirit is leading you and you become like those that you follow and hang around with. Fruits of the Spirit are words, actions, deeds that look like characteristics of God. God is love, so when you love others you are producing a fruit of the Spirit. In fact the commandment of the Lord that sums up all other commandments is love others just like you love yourself. Because when you love others you are sacrificing something of yourself for them, just like Christ did for us on the cross. When you have joy you are producing good fruit. The greatest joy comes from the Lord and when you find eternal joy in Him it should spill out onto other people so that they see your joy and want to join you on your pilgrimage. There are several other fruits including: peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When your life is producing these fruits you are continuing on your spiritual journey. It is important however to understand that these fruits are not what save you. Christ is what saves you and these fruits are a result of that saving grace.

It is also important to understand that on this spiritual journey you will not stop sinning. You are not perfect. You are not God, so you will continue in sin. But it is important to understand that that does not make it okay to sin. But when you sin grace abounds and you are forgiven. When you sin you should feel guilt and remorse and you should repent. Remember these words, “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent,” (Proverbs 1:10), “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

This is where it ended, but I would like to add more:

It is also important to have other people along side of you on this journey. When other people are with you, working through trials, and celebrating joys, the journey becomes more enjoyable and more worshipful. It is more enjoyable because you have someone to talk to and share problems with. Friends who are believers can sharpen you and point you to the cross when you are not looking in the right places. True believer friends will tell you when you are sinning so that you can repent and continue on the journey. True believer friends will pick you up when you are struggling because they want you to feel loved and to find the grace in each situation. True believer friends will weep with you when something is hard. True believer friends will whoop and hollar when something is good. True believer friends will you lead you to worship. They will show you the grace in their own lives and in your life. Seeing this grace should lead you to worship. They will worship with you in other ways too. Fellowship and friendship are vital to your journey as a believer.

Now, there is much more that I am leaving out, I know, but I think it is more complete. This is the more fun part anyway. I would like to give praises to God for giving me all these things and more in my life. By God’s grace I confess of my sins and He turned around to repentance. By God’s grace I see fruits in my life in many of the activities I do. By God’s grace I see the fruits that I’m strong with and the fruits that I’m weak with, and Lord willing I will get better on both and God will get the glory. By God’s grace I see my sin. I would not be able to see my sin on my own because all I would see is my good deeds and my good fruits. Each day God shows me sin in my life that I need to bring to Him. By God’s grace I have friends. Over the years I have had many friends who point me to Christ. But I had never had one that would bluntly tell me when I’m sinning and be willing to work on it with me. She does not know I’m doing this, but I would like to praise God for Annie. She is so real with me. It is like she knows when I need someone to tell me to stop saying words or thinking thoughts that are sinful. Then she is not afraid to tell me. That is awesome. I mean it in the real sense of awesome. Like I am in awe that God gave me a friend like that. The reason God gives us friends is to do just that. I praise God for Annie and the work that He has done in her life.

I pray that you will pursue friendships that will sharpen you,
Greta

What season is this?

Sorry it's a bad picture, but this is our front yard this morning.

It is so pretty in Minnesota. The first real snowfall happened last night. The snow sticks to the trees and makes them look so pretty. The first snowfall is always very exciting because it is always the prettiest. God’s creation is amazing. The fact that our trees became bare and ugly and then He covered them with snow is just great. Sometime I would like to ask God how He is so creative.

Although this is the first snowfall and it is November the major thought on my brain right now is the summer. Not because I want school to end, but because there are options the Lord is giving me for what I should do to honor Him this summer.

Summer Beach Project is a 6-8 week long training in Myrtle Beach with my church’s college ministry (Campus Outreach). In South Carolina students get jobs, stay in a hotel, and are trained in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. This would be an awesome opportunity to develop evangelism skills and see the gospel impact my life in a new way. Both my sisters have done SBP and God used it to develop their walks with Him. Hannah went last year and grew so much from it. I think the idea of being away from home and learning to love the gospel and share it would be awesome.

Another option is to work at camp. I love camp. God used the instrument of camp in my life as a kid. He used it to show me the gospel and to help me grow. The hardest part was coming home, knowing that I wouldn’t be forced to read my Bible at the same time each day. Yet, God was good and He used camp to help me grow into who I am today. I think it would be the sweetest thing in the world to work at a camp for the summer. I think it would be so challenging and tiring. I think God would used the body surrounding me to help me grow. Plus I would be working with kids. I love working with kids and I think that that is something God is calling me to do.

I have really been wrestling with what the Lord is calling me to do next summer. I want to follow His will and not let my own desires or the desires of others get in the way of what I need to do.

This brings up some questions:

What does it look like to seek God’s will?
I think that part of seeking God’s will is asking people what they think. That does not mean doing exactly what they say, but asking them to help you decide the pros and cons of the decision are. I think seeking God’s will is asking myself what my desires are and trying to figure out are those holy desires or just desires because that’s what I want. I think seeking God’s will is praying hard about it. Asking Him to give me ears to hear His will and a heart open to whatever His will is. I think seeking His will is going after the Word.

What does going after the Word look like?
This is also something that I’m working through. How do I go hard after God’s Word? How do I really study His Word? I don’t just want to read the Bible and think it was real good and then just forget everything I read. I want to be able to really absorb something and take away from it. It is especially hard right now because I’m reading in the Old Testament.

Why does God give us the Old Testament?
It is so hard to read. There are names that are way too hard to pronounce and there are way too many of them. It is so long, so why is it so great? Also something I’m working through, but I think God is changing my heart towards the OT. God uses the OT to show His wrath. People in the OT sin, are punished, change their ways, sin, are punished, change their ways, over and over and over again. It is the same thing, but I think the punishment is what I want to say something about. God hates sin. This does not mean hate like 5th grade I hate you type of hate. It is a despising, must get rid of this because it’s disgusting hate. He punishes sin very explicitly both in the OT and the NT. It is important to see that God is a wrathful God. He is not just love and kisses all the time. In order to be perfectly loving He must be perfectly just, angry, and wrathful. He needs to get rid of the sin that so opposes Him. In punishing the OT people He shows them love. In Christ dying on the cross He shows us love. This is awesome.

How do I study this?
Pray. Pray. Pray. It is way too hard to read the Bible without prayer. How will I get anything out of 2 Chronicles without the Lord giving me eyes to see? To any non-believer the OT will look boring and like a lot of names. To many believers the OT is long, boring, and has a lot of names. But when God gives us eyes to see it becomes clear that the names matter. The kings matter. The people matter. The punishment matters.

I’m not saying I got this down at all. But, I think with God’s help I can go after the OT, go after His will, and grow deeper in love with the cross. I just don’t want to be like so many of the rulers in 2 Chronicles who don’t do the Lord’s will, turn away from Him, sin against Him, and then die. Which maybe God is using the OT to show me that. I don’t know.

Seeking God’s will,
Greta

WHY GRETA?

This is a guest post by Annie Vavra. I am sick and it's all Greta's fault. Why do I still hang around her? Beats me! Actually, Greta and I have known of each other for a long time but finally connected this year when we had American Sign Language together. I have been realizing that God puts different people in our lives at different times and it's all for a specific reason or reasons. In the last couple years I have really been blessed with the friends that are in my life. I have made so many deep connections and I feel like it has really helped me. It allows me to have certain friends that understand and help me with all the different branches of my life. But, I would like to specifically talk about the timing and purpose of Greta in my life. I feel like Greta has been specifically placed in my life, by God, because she adds something to what I already know. I worked at a camp all summer and it really challanged my faith and allowed my relationship with God to grow. I love the challange and one of my worries after I left camp was that I would fall into the same place I was before I went to camp. I thought I would grow distant from God and that I would lose my accountability. Then I met Greta. She is someone that I really trust and feel I can share my thoughts with. I really enjoy discussing things with her, whether it's just some small topic or something that I really, deeply care about. I feel very comfortable talking to her about things that relate to my beliefs and Christianity in general. Lately, I have been discussing things regarding my Christian Theology class with her. I think these discussions really help me understand what I believe and help me discover more and more who I am in Christ, my purpose. I also feel like God put Greta in my life to give me someone who isn't scared to challange me, to give me someone that I feel is stable and has a lot of experience and wisdom in life. I love that I can talk with Greta about anything and not have to worry about being the strong one. I think we both carry equal weight of our friendship, where as in most of my other friendships I feel like I have to be the strong one, the one that everyone else leans on. It really ways my down but when I'm with Greta, I get the energy to stay strong. Anyways I feel like I have really just been blabbing about I don't even know. I am trying this blogging deal because Greta said that it is easy, but I told her I'm not very good at writing. Any hoo, all I really wanted to say by all of this is that God have purpose for everyone that is involved in our lives and until we take the time to sit down and really thing about it, we don't fully understand all that we have. So, I would like to close in saying that I am very happy to have Greta in my life, love the girl and I thank God for her everyday.

Through randomness we will see God's purposes and plans for us,
Annie

Greta here. I promised Annie I wouldn’t read her portion of this post until I actually posted it on the internet, but I do know a little of what she wrote. I know the title is “Why Greta?” and I’m pretty sure she tried to answer that question. So in light of her question I will ask, why Annie?

History:
My parents and Annie’s parents graduated with one another from Cambridge High School. Our families have been friends our whole lives. We did not become friends until a few weeks ago. We discovered we knew one another in our first ASL class together and the rest is history.

After a couple of times of seeing each other around campus we started chatting on facebook and then texting. Soon we were very good friends.

Who:
Annie and I are very similar. After spending some time with one another we discovered we are rather scary similar. We have the same opinions, same likes and dislikes, same ideas, same hobbies, same pleasures, same God. All of these things combine to form a super amount of commonalities, but we have one major difference. She likes science. She is a science major and she loves the facts. I am not too good with facts and I don’t particularly enjoy science, especially blood. This difference is so great because it helps us to be even better friends.

She claims she is no good at writing and that since that is my stronger suit we get along great. This may be true, but I wanted her to explore her writing abilities, so I asked her to post on my blog. I told her to write what she wanted. But, she said she needed to discuss it first. I love discussing things because it means talking and hanging out which are my two favorite things to do.

True story:
I cut my finger recently. I didn’t think anything of it. Probably because I didn’t look at it to make sure it was okay. I don’t like blood or flappy skin. I covered it with a band-aid and moved on. Annie checked it out and strongly suggested that I get stitches. I couldn’t believe it. So she gladly took me to the doctor where they put stitches on and told me to stop cutting my fingers and that it was a good thing I had such good moral support. Annie thought it was the most entertaining thing ever to see them put stitches in me and make fun of me for cutting myself with an X-Acto knife.

Why?
She makes me think. She asks questions that other people won’t ask because she cares. She helps me to see the smart and the dumb in many situations. She’s like another brain for my busy mind.

She makes me question. She helps me to question what I believe so that I make it my own. We discuss deep stuff because that is how we both grow and we question one another because only most the time do we agree.

She makes me feel convicted . She is one of the most humble people I know. She opens up her heart for people and lets them in because she genuinely cares. She is so real and she lets me be real with her. This genuine realness convicts me that I’m not always this way and it shows me where I could improve. It is such a grace. She was with me when my mom told me I should sleep. I tried so hard to pull her into my sin, but the Lord granted her grace to stay out to show me some more stuff.

She is wise. She gives me advice when I need it. She gave me wise counsel when I was sinning against my mom and God has used her for that purpose and many more.

She prays. If ever I ask her to pray for me, she says something along the lines of, “Of course. Anytime. I would do anything for you.” I strongly believe that when I do ask her to pray she does pray. I love that comfort in being prayed for.

She makes me laugh. We have a very similar sense of humor and her remarks are always witty and exciting. I’d like to think that I’m becoming more witty by spending time with her.

She’s silly. We laugh together all the time. In fact we probably mostly laugh together. Her laugh is so great because it is hearty and weezy and it makes me laugh harder when she is laughing hard. Her eyes get all squinty and she can’t hardly breath, but I just laugh at her more because she is close to tears.

She likes playing games. We are both highly competitive so it makes it very fun to play games and beat on one another.

She likes hanging out with me. This one makes me really happy because I love hanging out with her too. It doesn’t matter to us if were just doing homework, we just like to hang out.

She likes to be cozy. I love being cozy because it is so fun to be warm and cuddly, and Annie likes it too.

She’s good at listening. If I talk she listens. And then she responds in a respectful loving way.

She takes care of me. Regarding both the stitches and many other things including, whenever we watch movies she covers my eyes when scary or bad parts come up.


Why not?
God has given me a great friend. I praise Him for His awesome grace in this relationship. Why wouldn’t I take joy in being friends with Annie. And now I’m so proud of her for writing on my blog. I know she can write and I’m glad she’s my friend.

I encourage you to choose someone you love and figure out why it is you love them. It is very cool to look at all the reasons and in the end I am confident you will praise God. I love Annie even more now because I see the grace in her life and the grace in our friendship. God gives us fellowship and friends for a reason. That reason being to spur one another on and to love one another like Christ loved us. Take advantage of fellowship and friendship. Give in fellowship and friendship.

Praising God for my awesome friend,
Greta

In and out of The Word

I didn’t get in the Word last week as much as I usually do. I can totally tell. My heart was much more willing to sin last night because it had not been impacted by God’s Word enough last week. Instead of doing devos last week I would excuse myself because I was too tired. This was a big mistake. Even when I’m just reading the Old Testement (which is what I’m doing now) the Lord is feeding me. If I don’t get my daily dose of seeing his grace and mercy and justice in the OT then I don’t see those things in my life.
Last night I was planning on going to Vespars and then hanging out with friends. My mom came in my room and told me I couldn’t do either of those things because I sounded sick. I couldn’t believe it. I told her that I had lost my voice and that I was getting over being sick so I would be fine. I would be fine with going to Vespars and hanging out. She said that that was not a good idea. So with much anger and anguish I obeyed. As I sat in my bed trying to figure out why my mom wouldn’t let me go God showed me some major sin in my life.
The lack of Bible reading in my life caused me to be much more willing to be angry with my mom and not care. You have to understand I hate being angry with my mom. She is like my best friend. I tell her everything and if I’m mad at her than I won’t talk to her.
I tried so hard to figure out the good in this terrible situation. The terrible situation being that I couldn’t be with my friends. I was so angry. I sat in my bed asking the Lord to forgive me for my ridiculous anger at my mom. She was worried about my health; she didn’t hate me and my friends and want me to stay because of that. She wants me to be better so I can hang out. What an awesome mercy that is, but I did not se it that way. I prayed the Lord would help me see it that way.
I still had one chapter left to read in one of my assignments, so I asked the Lord to use what I was about to read to convict me. Just to let you know if you pray something like that God is going to answer yes because he wants you to see your sin and his mercy. I was reading The Confessions by St. Augustine. This guy is the most humble guy in the world. He spills his whole life to the whole world in a confession to God of the work that He did and the mercy in his life. He confesses disgusting sin, and I wanted God to use that somehow to convict me. He did.
Qualifiers for you to understand this:
• Lost voice…couldn’t talk good
• Anger at mom for keeping me home
• Hadn’t read the Bible enough in the last week
I believe God used the following quotes to show me my sins and lead me to confession last night:

“It happened by coincidence that in that same summer my lungs had begun to fail under the severe strain of teaching, making it difficult for me to draw breath and giving proof of their unhealthy condition by pains in my chest. My tone was husky and I could not manage any sustained vocal effort. These symptoms had worried me when they first appeared because they were forcing upon me the necessity of either giving up my professional career or, if there was any prospect of my being cured and recovering strength, at least of taking some rest.”

“Then I read, Let your anger deter you from sin, and how those words moved me, my God! I had already learned to feel for my past sins an anger with myself that would hold me back from sinning again. With good reason had I learned this anger, since it was no alien nature from a tribe of darkness that had been sinning through me, as they maintain who, though not angry with themselves, are accumulating a fund of anger that will overwhelm them on the day of anger, the day when your righteous judgment is to be revealed.”

“But by adding to that modest allowance daily modest allowances—for one who allows himself license in little things is ruined little by little—she had fallen at length into the habit of avidly quaffing near goblets of wine.”

He couldn’t talk so he rested. I couldn’t talk so my mom told me to rest. His anger was holy anger toward his sin. My anger was not holy anger and it was not preventing me from sinning, but in fact it was causing me to sin more. He told of story of a girl allowing herself to drink a little wine and then becoming a drunkard. I allowed myself time away from the Bible and then became okay with sinning.
God is rich in mercy. Even when I was doing homework he used it for his glory and my humility. I repented for my anger towards my mom. He revealed the good in this terrible situation. Mom wants me to be healthy, I needed to get in the Word, I needed to be convicted for my sins. God is good all the time.

Developing Holy anger at my sin,
Greta