The message of Comfort (and a weekend re-cap)

Re-cap of life on the spot

Sat with these kids at the yardsale Saturday. Middle schoolers are tolerable when they aren't running around and screaming. 

Had an awesome worship service Sunday with these guys pulling the train

 

Sat next to this loser at church (Theo, my prayer brother)

Partied with these guys afterward

Had a choir party Monday (wish I would have gotten some pictures of that, had some pretty funny moments)

Hung with these guys at the yearbook meeting

These little ones (Maddie and Lizzie) both took their first steps last week… so proud of them :)

Packed my first few boxes yesterday. I’m not really liking any of this moving stuff. It’s a bit much (although I’ve only packed like three boxes so far). In fact, my nonsense pictures and plaques and paintings and scriptures and license plates are coming down off my walls after everything else is gone. I can’t stand seeing my walls blank. It makes everything feel too empty…

Tonight while cleaning out my school binder to store in a box as more memorabilia, I was listening to a Misty Edwards sermon from an IHOP conference that happened some time ago. Really I listen to it frequently when my iPod is on shuffle, but I get a new revelation from it everytime I hear it.

 At one point after really digging in on prophetic things written in Isaiah, she started talking about the time the earth is living in right now. Honestly, I can say things may seem to be okay at times, but really underneath of it all, they aren’t. Right now there are people dying every day who are going to hell, or people getting drunk in bars or cutting themselves or committing suicide or sitting in their room depressed at night and it’s all from a feeling of emptiness and not being wanted and it happens right here in this small town, Murfreesboro, and it happens to people in my school. As people God created, he made us with the desire in our hearts to feel wanted and loved. Without that need met in our hearts, we get empty and depressed. Without knowing that we serve a God who really enjoys us, we stay awake at night with worries about what other people think about us and how they can satisfy us and fix us. And perhaps in this life time we will face struggles what we don’t know we can handle. While the dark gets darker, the light will get lighter. Black will be separated from light. Gray areas will no longer exist. But even as these things get harder, Luke 18 asks this: will God really find faithfulness in his people on the earth when justice is brought fourth? Will he find faithfulness in us? It could be easy for a Christian reading this now to say Yes, but are we just saying it?

When we’re staying steadfast in the word of God, connected to the body of Christ, serving, giving and filling up in his presence, we’re equipped. But when we’re not staying equipped, it’s just much easier to fall away. At prayer last night my youth leader was talking about a cry being written in the heart of our generation. As we began to pray, I realized that the cry of our generation has to be united and it has to be the cry of God’s heart. One cry. 

This is how revival sparks. In America, in the nations, in Oakland high school.

When our hearts unite for a specific purpose and it’s one goal, one cry,

Then revival is here. 

We can’t force revival to happen. It has to follow.

It follows when we get personal with people, both people who want to serve God and give love and people who are in sin or think they’re worthless or unwanted.

It follows when we reach out to the hurt and say “I understand, and I know who can help you right now. I know how can heal you. It won’t go on much longer, and it’s going to end. There is a comforter and he’s here, right now.”

This is the message of comfort.

 Not that it isn’t going to happen, but that it’s going to pass over, and that Jesus Christ is here to hold us.

Have a good week to all who is reading this. If you know any good blogs I should read, share them with me. :)