Hi everyone - following some publishing advice, I have switched my blog over to wordpress. All new posts will be found at:
http://findinggodsfingerprints.wordpress.com/
If you have chosen to follow this blog (AWESOME), but please make note of the new site!
Thanks so much!
Erica
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
When Christians Let You Down
I remember sitting at my church youth group, tears flowing down my face as our youth pastor confessed that he and his fiance had been having sex outside of marriage. I was completely devastated. I found myself questioning everything he'd taught us over the years, wondering what he truly believed. He had confessed, repented and was given a second chance... but, it would appear that sex was still more important to him. We were once again crushed when we were told that he would need to step down.
When my grandmother passed away last year, my family tried to have her funeral at a specific church because it was where my grandfather had his services. The church told the family "no" because she was not a member. Not only did this church lose an opportunity to share Jesus with a very non-churched portion of our family, but I heard repeatedly from family members that these are the reasons they choose not to go to church. Why be like "them"?
My husband and I also had an AWFUL experience at a church a few years back. We were severely wronged to the point where we could begin to understand why people believe the church is full of hypocrites. It is.
We are all sinners saved by grace.
We mess up.
We do things wrong.
We fall into temptation.
We put our foot in our mouths.
We do dumb things.
We sin.
We are all somewhere on our journey of faith. Perhaps the person you sit next to in church this Sunday will be there for the very first time or perhaps they have been attending for years. There will be non-Christians, new Christians and more mature Christians, depending where they are in their walk with God. Yet, it is so easy to walk into a church and simply think that everyone attending the service that morning follows Jesus and should be held to a higher standard - and in most places, that's just not the case. If a church is doing it's job, the church will be filled with hurting, broken, sometimes angry people searching for hope.
I largely believe that people use "The church is full of hypocrites and that is why I don't go to church" as an excuse. I can't help but wonder if their deeper reason for choosing to stay away from church is more that they identify with people within the church (feel they too would be hypocritical) and/or don't want to (or feel they need to) change.
The cool thing about Christianity is that unlike many other religions, you just come to God as you are. You don't need to earn His love or earn your spot in Heaven - it is given to you as a gift, if you choose to accept it. You don't need to change for God to love you! As you invite Jesus Christ into your heart and your life, He will do the changing.
Forget what you have seen in churches, forget what you have seen in "Christians"... your life is about your relationship with God - not theirs. Don't allow someone else's mistakes or sins keep you from the loving, incredible, compassionate, understanding and caring God that desires to love you. In a society that begs work-performance based promotions and measuring up to all aspects of society, simply believing in Jesus Christ for eternal life sounds way too easy! But, that is all God wants from you - to come as you are and to believe.
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have eternal life". John 3:16
When my grandmother passed away last year, my family tried to have her funeral at a specific church because it was where my grandfather had his services. The church told the family "no" because she was not a member. Not only did this church lose an opportunity to share Jesus with a very non-churched portion of our family, but I heard repeatedly from family members that these are the reasons they choose not to go to church. Why be like "them"?
My husband and I also had an AWFUL experience at a church a few years back. We were severely wronged to the point where we could begin to understand why people believe the church is full of hypocrites. It is.
We are all sinners saved by grace.
We mess up.
We do things wrong.
We fall into temptation.
We put our foot in our mouths.
We do dumb things.
We sin.
It's just as a Christian, we kind of expect a non-Christian to behave "ungodly" since we do not hold them to a Christian standard. Whereas the impact is so much greater when these hurts come from someone who claims Christianity because we just don't expect it from them. We automatically label them as hypocrites, instead of recognizing that they are sinners, just like us!
And when it is a Christian leader, we find ourselves devastated. We ask: If THEY can fall into THAT, is there any hope for me? We've held them on a pedestal for so long, they take a very hard fall in our eyes. We see our own sinful nature and humanity through their choice to sin and know that we are just as susceptible. And sometimes that is very scary.
We are all somewhere on our journey of faith. Perhaps the person you sit next to in church this Sunday will be there for the very first time or perhaps they have been attending for years. There will be non-Christians, new Christians and more mature Christians, depending where they are in their walk with God. Yet, it is so easy to walk into a church and simply think that everyone attending the service that morning follows Jesus and should be held to a higher standard - and in most places, that's just not the case. If a church is doing it's job, the church will be filled with hurting, broken, sometimes angry people searching for hope.
I largely believe that people use "The church is full of hypocrites and that is why I don't go to church" as an excuse. I can't help but wonder if their deeper reason for choosing to stay away from church is more that they identify with people within the church (feel they too would be hypocritical) and/or don't want to (or feel they need to) change.
The cool thing about Christianity is that unlike many other religions, you just come to God as you are. You don't need to earn His love or earn your spot in Heaven - it is given to you as a gift, if you choose to accept it. You don't need to change for God to love you! As you invite Jesus Christ into your heart and your life, He will do the changing.
Forget what you have seen in churches, forget what you have seen in "Christians"... your life is about your relationship with God - not theirs. Don't allow someone else's mistakes or sins keep you from the loving, incredible, compassionate, understanding and caring God that desires to love you. In a society that begs work-performance based promotions and measuring up to all aspects of society, simply believing in Jesus Christ for eternal life sounds way too easy! But, that is all God wants from you - to come as you are and to believe.
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have eternal life". John 3:16
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Temptation or Trial?
A friend of mine emailed me asking for my interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13 in reference to my statement that I believe the line, "God will not give you more than you can handle" is wrong and unbiblical. I LOVE that she asked me this and LOVE it when iron sharpens iron. Here is my interpretation based on the studies I have done...
Honestly, I think this verse is where the "God is not going to give you more than you can handle" line originally came from.
When you look at the context of this verse by the writer (Paul) and the audience (Corinthians) and the purpose of this part of the letter (in order to dissuade the Corinthians from communion with idolaters, and security in any sinful course, (Paul) sets before them the example of the Jews, the church under the Old Testament - Matthew Henry Commentary) - Paul is telling them that they have privileges now that they have been delivered from Egypt, but is warning them NOT to behave like the examples they have seen. He carried on in the chapter with admonitions and warnings of what not to do and showing the consequence of lusting after evil things.
And then, he goes into 10:13, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
The Greek word "temptation" used in this verse three times is Peirasmos (or a form of), but is often non-biblically quoted or mis-interpreted as the word "trial". When I looked up this verse in 18 different translations, including all the major ones, not once is this word ever used as "trial", though the New Revised Standard uses it as "testing".
According to the Strong's Concordance, this word peirasmos is defined as: "to try or test one's faith, virtue, character, by enticement to sin".
As well as: "the trial of man's fidelity, integrity, virtue, constancy: 1) an enticement to sin, temptation, whether arising from the desires or from the outward circumstances and 2) an internal temptation to sin"
I think this verse is used as comfort - that even though temptations will come (because let's face it, sin is fun), that God gives us the strength to endure and stand firm against that temptation when we CHOOSE to trust in Him. When we choose to rely on God, rather than ourselves, God will allow us to bear that temptation (the desire to sin) and to overcome it.
The best way I can describe my position on this verse is through someone suffering an addiction.
I believe this verse could potentially encourage that person that the struggle (temptation) they are going through is common to man, but that God is faithful and if they trust in God and use HIS strength, He will see them through this addiction, through this temptation and through the consequences they have imposed on themselves. God will show them how to overcome this addiction if they CHOOSE to trust in Him.
While I am certainly no Greek scholar, given the context and the word choice of "temptation" in the top 17 translations, this is how I understand this verse! =)
Honestly, I think this verse is where the "God is not going to give you more than you can handle" line originally came from.
When you look at the context of this verse by the writer (Paul) and the audience (Corinthians) and the purpose of this part of the letter (in order to dissuade the Corinthians from communion with idolaters, and security in any sinful course, (Paul) sets before them the example of the Jews, the church under the Old Testament - Matthew Henry Commentary) - Paul is telling them that they have privileges now that they have been delivered from Egypt, but is warning them NOT to behave like the examples they have seen. He carried on in the chapter with admonitions and warnings of what not to do and showing the consequence of lusting after evil things.
And then, he goes into 10:13, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
The Greek word "temptation" used in this verse three times is Peirasmos (or a form of), but is often non-biblically quoted or mis-interpreted as the word "trial". When I looked up this verse in 18 different translations, including all the major ones, not once is this word ever used as "trial", though the New Revised Standard uses it as "testing".
According to the Strong's Concordance, this word peirasmos is defined as: "to try or test one's faith, virtue, character, by enticement to sin".
As well as: "the trial of man's fidelity, integrity, virtue, constancy: 1) an enticement to sin, temptation, whether arising from the desires or from the outward circumstances and 2) an internal temptation to sin"
I think this verse is used as comfort - that even though temptations will come (because let's face it, sin is fun), that God gives us the strength to endure and stand firm against that temptation when we CHOOSE to trust in Him. When we choose to rely on God, rather than ourselves, God will allow us to bear that temptation (the desire to sin) and to overcome it.
The best way I can describe my position on this verse is through someone suffering an addiction.
I believe this verse could potentially encourage that person that the struggle (temptation) they are going through is common to man, but that God is faithful and if they trust in God and use HIS strength, He will see them through this addiction, through this temptation and through the consequences they have imposed on themselves. God will show them how to overcome this addiction if they CHOOSE to trust in Him.
While I am certainly no Greek scholar, given the context and the word choice of "temptation" in the top 17 translations, this is how I understand this verse! =)
Monday, January 24, 2011
What is your choice?
Last week was my sweet girl's 5th birthday - FIFTH... FIVE... CINCO!!
At first my brain could not wrap around how quickly the time has passed and how lucky I feel to be her mom. Memories of giving birth to her (oh how vivid those memories still are), her first smiles, her first steps, her first, second, third and fourth homes (gotta love the military), her first days of school... all these thoughts flooded my mind and made me smile.
And yet, there was a vague sadness in my heart.
Her birthday was very emotional for me and it made me cry.
I was sad to think that I only had 13 more years of major influence in her life before she headed out the door for college. Over 1/4 of my pre-college influence was already gone and I wondered what have I done in that time? What have I spent most of my time doing? And my first answer, made me very, very sad.
Of my daughter's first five years of life, I have spent so much time GRIEVING.
I was on bed rest for 4 months trying not to lose her sister while our daughter was being cared for by so many incredible friends and family - but, not me. I spent most of those 4 months terrified of miscarrying and living in fear. I gave birth to her sister at 22.5 weeks gestation and then spent the next year in a constant up and down battle grieving her death. 3 months after the one year anniversary of her sister's short life, I miscarried and we grieved again.
We pursued adoption and were very shortly matched with a birthmother. She gave birth 3 months later, handed him to us in the hospital and we took him home to be our son. We fell so in love with him. 24 hours later, she asked for him back. And we grieved...
The next 3 months were not just spent grieving, but I became obsessed with adoption and trying to "find our child". I felt like a complete obsessive mess scouring the adoption websites every day, looking at all the Heart Gallery's of America and getting involved in an adoption networking system that yielded 30 baby born or soon to be born situations in about 4 weeks. We received phone calls from agencies across America almost every day.
And then we found out we were PREGNANT!
A week later, we found out we were likely carrying twins (my lifelong DREAM) as I began to miscarry once again. The day we lost them, we received a phone call about our son who was born just the day beforehand.
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most incredible verses in the Bible to me. Matthew 6:11 states, “Give us today our daily bread.” It is one thing to grieve lost relationships or death (and to fully process your grief takes time - sometimes a LOT of time). But, when our sorrow turns into a habit, prevents us from moving forward, causes us to regress or becomes crippling by additional trials - our grief needs to be severely and swiftly dealt with. Tomorrow has never, nor will ever, be promised. This verse does not say, “Give us yesterday” or “Give us tomorrow” – it says, “Give us today”, reminding me that we are not meant to be crippled by the past or focus too much on the future. We are simply meant to live in the present - to live daily; to see each day for it's unique, beautiful and incredible gift.
I spent an entire year after our daughter died crippled by grief and many times feeling ineffective for God and inadequate as a wife and mother because of it. When her first year anniversary hit, I was so relieved! I felt like I could finally pick myself up and start moving forward. There will always be moments when I think of her. A certain song, a child with the same name, seeing another child that would have been the same age, hearing about other babies born too soon or hearing of someone's miscarriage. My grieving will not end until I meet my Maker in Heaven; when God will make whole all the things that have been broken and destroyed; perfecting all imperfections of this world. But, my grief does not need to leave me crippled.
Not that we ever forget those broken dreams or death of relationships - they make us who we are as they mold and shape our character. But instead of dwelling on and living in the broken dreams, we can approach each day with the reality of what we can still hold on to.
I have an amazing husband who loves me.
I have two incredible, gorgeous, amazing children.
I have a very supportive family.
I have some of the best friends in the entire world.
I have a been involved in some great church families.
But most importantly, I have a Father that loves me, that grieved with me, that cherishes me, that sent His Son to die for me. I have hope for Heaven and a relationship built for eternity where all grieving will one day be restored!
My choice is to live daily - to not allow grief to cripple me - to do my best to be effective for God through my circumstances - to understand that each day is a gift and to do all I can to use it wisely!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Why God gives you MORE than you can handle!
I believe the standard Christian line when someone is going through a trial, "God will not give you more than you can handle" is wrong and unbiblical.
I am 33 years old.
I've survived cancer 3 times.
I've buried 1 child.
I've had 2 miscarriages.
I've experienced a failed adoption.
Believing in this line, that God will only give you what you can handle, takes the emphasis off of what only God can see you through and puts the emphasis on what you think you can do. I believe it can easily create an innocent arrogance of "check me out - look what God is giving ME - look what God trusts ME with", even if in a joking fashion (which I've heard someone say) "I wish God didn't think so highly of me!"
In reality, the trial you are facing is not about God trusting you!
Your trials should be all about YOU trusting GOD!
If God only gave me what I could handle, I wouldn't need God. If through each of these experiences, I was not stretched beyond my own human capabilities, sometimes to the point of complete brokenness, I would never understand faith - a true, unwavering faith in the strength, love and might of our Creator.
Walking through trials bigger and more difficult than anything that we can deal with in our own strength, allows God to not just be our Savior, but to be our Lord. When we come to recognize that our lives were meant to bring glory to God (regardless of our circumstances), perhaps only then, can we truly see our circumstances through God's eyes.
I am 33 years old.
I've survived cancer 3 times.
I've buried 1 child.
I've had 2 miscarriages.
I've experienced a failed adoption.
Believing in this line, that God will only give you what you can handle, takes the emphasis off of what only God can see you through and puts the emphasis on what you think you can do. I believe it can easily create an innocent arrogance of "check me out - look what God is giving ME - look what God trusts ME with", even if in a joking fashion (which I've heard someone say) "I wish God didn't think so highly of me!"
In reality, the trial you are facing is not about God trusting you!
Your trials should be all about YOU trusting GOD!
If God only gave me what I could handle, I wouldn't need God. If through each of these experiences, I was not stretched beyond my own human capabilities, sometimes to the point of complete brokenness, I would never understand faith - a true, unwavering faith in the strength, love and might of our Creator.
Walking through trials bigger and more difficult than anything that we can deal with in our own strength, allows God to not just be our Savior, but to be our Lord. When we come to recognize that our lives were meant to bring glory to God (regardless of our circumstances), perhaps only then, can we truly see our circumstances through God's eyes.
So this is my blog...
Many people have suggested I start a blog and now that my book, Finding God's Fingerprints is in the proposal stage, I thought it would be a great time to begin!! My intention is to put excerpts from my book in this blog, along with other thoughts that follow as life progresses.
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