while i was walking to class in the cold winter air today, i became so aware of my every breath.  in and out with every step it came, fogging up the air in front of me, clearing as i breathed in, and the rhythm repeated.  it was all i could focus on as i walked.  it reminded me that i am ALIVE.  i love that winter does that.  and in awe, i let that fact sink in for a while.  i carry LIFE within this frame!  what a gift.  what a crazy wonderful thing to be a living being!  i am ALIVE.  but so much more than that, i am truly living on the inside, too, because Jesus is there.  i know, deep in my bones, in my soul, and in my heart, what it means to be truly alive because of Him...  life in freedom, life wrapped in love and goodness of the only One who can fill to the top. 

but i was also reminded of the stinging truth that i can't say the same about my classmate maybe, or that girl down the hall, or perhaps my professor.  friends, we have been given life, and life with purpose.  we are intentionally made, and we can't let life slip through our fingers without spreading true life!

it is my prayer today, and every day, that we would never forget that we are alive, with purpose... that we would never forget that there are people all around us who don't know this true life because they don't know Jesus.  that God would instill within us urgency and drive and perspective and deep love for the people around us.  and that out of a love that's deepest desire is to see them truly ALIVE, we would act.


this life is a beautiful gift, but it's short.  i hope that the next time you find yourself outside and you see your breath in the cold winter air, you think of what a gift life is.  let it remind you not to waste the day, the hour, the minute that has been given!  because it will be gone.  may we never forget!

your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone.

james 4:14

"God, put salt on my lips, that i might thirst for You."

saint augustine

exodus chapter 33 has always meant a lot to me and perplexed me and fascinated me and stirred up desire within me time and time again to know and speak with God like moses.  it says they spoke as friends.  and the one thing that moses asks of God is just to see His glory.  that is his request.  moses pleads that God's presence would go with the Israelites.

and then recently a teaching by jonny hughes really grabbed me & made me think.

he says: "this is our big idol: comfort.  and so we live and as we get older, we try to create these cocoons that are more and more comfortable.  but actually I don't think comfort is the place where we meet with God.  i think actually it's often desperation...
hunger is the soil in which God's presence finds growth."

luke 51:53 "He's filled the hungry with good things, but the rich He has sent away empty"


these words really pulled me and my prayer for you and for me is that we would hunger to meet with the living God and become desperate to know His presence, like moses.  jonny hughes also said, "if Jesus needs to encounter and meet with God face to face, then so do we.  i've tried to live the christian life in terms of spiritual performance, trying to impress God, and it just leads to burn-out.  what we need as christians is to be continually encountering the person of Jesus through the Spirit.

& encounter with God is the bread & butter: sitting in front of Him every day."

a prayer to know intimacy with Him.

p.s. i would love if you would listen to this teaching, too, friend.  click HERE!

i think praying over relationships is really really important.  they were designed by God to be a representation of His very own relationship with His bride, the church, and i know that He finds relationships between men and women to be good and pleasing.. so of course there is going to be a lot of attack and a lot of hurt in this area in the world because if something is meant to represent Christ, there is no doubt that satan is going to try to thwart and taint it.

so maybe there is a relationship that comes to your mind that you know you should pray for:                         that couple that is having a hard time, your parents', your aunt & uncle, your best friend who's getting married,  etc..

maybe it's your own relationship, or maybe you're not in one,

whatever the case, whatever the status, whatever the thought that is coming to your mind, whatever the situation of your heart on this topic, let's pray baby pray!

haha, first for revelations of God's intentions for relationships... what He wants them to look like.

for Him to reveal ways and inspire ideas about how to better serve the other person if you're in a relationship, and for Him to reveal the parts that should not be there or are not glorifying to Him,

maybe, as a single person, it's for comfort in the midst of hurt or lonliness, or for God to even further reveal Himself as our satisfaction, for wisdom about entering a relationship, etc, you know what it is!

maybe it's even for ways to serve another person or another couple to be revealed (offering to babysit so that they can go out, offering to listen or hold someone accountable, etc!)


whatever the case, this is important!  i think God cares about this topic really a lot.


p.s.

i've mentioned diane comer and the wisdom that pours from her as she listens to the Lord, but i wanted to mention it again.  i always find myself coming back to her blog, he speaks in the silence, for reminders and encouragement and to learn, especially when it comes to relationships, and i just can't speak enough of how much it has blessed me.  i don't have much wisdom on this topic, but i definitely know where to find it, so i want to point you to such a wealth of it... finding this is like gold!  obviously, she is a person, she is not God, and the words she says should be tested and held up to God's word because everything she says will not be completely perfectly right, but i believe she has been so inspired by God and that you need to click >>>THIS<<< and scroll baby scrooollllllll! especially if you're wondering about godliness in a relationship, and actually even if you're not!  oh please oh please!  soak in this wissssdoooooooomm, friend!!  for men and women alike!

oh wait, did ya click it yet?? (( http://www.hespeaksinthesilence.com/category/letters/page/5/ ))

and stay warm out there, okay!
at my house it's -15 and dropping! yikesies!

that one you've been thinkin about lately. 

maybe your neighbor, maybe that girl you always see in the caf or your acquaintance down the hall,

let's pray for that person that is comin to your mind right now.

i'll be honest with you.

often, the first thought of my day is not "i need more of God!" or "i have to have Him, have to spend time with Him before i can even think about breakfast!" or  "breakfast can wait, i need God more than i need food!"

those thoughts are beautiful to me, and i'm so excited for when i get to that place of being so constantly aware of my need for Him, but right now, i'm not there yet.  this could be so discouraging, but instead this is where something i learned this summer that i have tucked in my heart comes in handy... God is okay with us being on a journey.  He knows i'm not at that place yet, and He knows i'm on a journey. He knows i'm getting there and i don't have it all together.  for you, too, friend!  we don't need to be discouraged about where we still need growth because God knows we're not there yet and He is patient with our journey. (which is not meant to say we can take it easy and not pursue growth, but this is for our mindsets as we move through growth)

but one of the things i desire for every single person, including myself, is that we would be made so aware of our dependence on God.  so that is my prayer, if you'll join me, that we would become so humbly aware of our reliance and dependence on God in every area of our lives.  one of the things that really stuck with me from when francis chan spoke at the onething conference this past weekend, is when he said, "God, we are only able to take our next breath because You have allowed it!" ...our next breath!  too easily i forget!  even our very breaths are not our own!

like these little plants can't make it without the care of sun and water, neither can we without God.  the minute we forget our need for Him is the minute we become self-sustaining, and the minute that our self-sustaining efforts lead to our self-destruction.  let's pray that God never loses His place as Lord of our lives.

"for in Him we live and move and have our being."

Acts 17:28

my sisters and i had lunch with my mom downtown today and she showed us around her building in the target headquarters.  one thing i found to be incredibly cool to witness was all of the little meetings going on all around us in the big open areas with couches and tables in the middle of the work day.  notes and graphs being shown and coffee-on-the-go and badges and just the buzz of purpose and drive really got to me.  mom said there are 12,000 people working in that building.  i became so moved at thinking about how this big international corporation exists because of so many minds and thoughts and talents and creativity...  because of the buzz that i had witnessed.  so many things were being accomplished right before my eyes, and so many people with different responsibilities and vital roles.

so today i want to pray over our passions and gifts.  that God would inspire ideas and remind us of our individual giftings and purposes and reveal how He wants to use them to make His name known.

because really, what a thought... using our individual skillsets together in order for God to be known...

He didn't have to use us.  He doesn't need us.  He can accomplish everything on His own.  But the thing that gets me, is He chooses to use us.  He chooses to work through the gifts He's given us and chooses for us to be a part of what He is doing.  what a wonderfully good Father.

that golden sun moves me a ridiculous amount.

so, something i really desire in my life is more prayer, which most days means i need to ask God even to have that desire to pray because usually prayer intimidates me and confuses me and sometimes, honestly, i just really don't want to.  (which, i do realize is okay if i do not want to, because we're not always gonna feel like doing necessary and good things), but the problem comes in when i allow these things to hinder me from doing it.  and lately i have noticed squirminess within me when i have any amount of time dedicated to prayer, which i have found to be the first inclination of being out of practice with prayer.  (this is not to say that when you are more in practice with coming before God in prayer you will not feel squirmy about it,) but i think there is a lot of continual, day-to-day, even-when-it's-terribly-dry-and-i-don't-want-to-pray-for-that-person practice involved with learning what things God is impressing on your mind and in understanding the ways He speaks.

what i know about prayer is that it is vital and essential to the life of a follower of Christ.  as God's ambassadors (a person who acts as a representative) on earth (2 Cor 5:20), and as His dearly loved children, prayer is of extremely high importance.

so, i had the thought that for the month of january, i will provide a prompt for prayer focus each day.  this is not to say that you can't pray for anything else that day, or even that you have to participate, but while i'm home for break for most of this month and with it being a brand new year (happy 2014, hey!), i thought this would be prime time to take a good hard look at my life and do some adjusting and rearranging of things that shouldn't be there, and really dedicate myself to prayer.  so you should join me if ya wanna!  i just really like the idea of this blog being a place where people are reminded to pray.



so here's day one: let's pray for our dads

for his discovery of God in whatever way that might be for him (maybe he doesn't know God yet or maybe he's known Him for his whole life and needs to discover that God is his friend or his king, whatever the case, the beauty is there's always more growth and more discovery, and more characteristics of God to be learned).

for leadership.  it is biblically clear that God has put men in the role of leadership in homes, and i just think it's so important to ask God for clarity and guidance in direction of leadership, or maybe for your dad it means asking God for things like the overcoming of passivity and fear, in order to lead in his life.

for refreshment.  encouragement and things brought in his path that would inspire joy in him.

for whatever specific thing you feel God might be pressing you towards (that's where listening and waiting for God's prompting comes in)



hey, thanks, God, for dads.

***disclaimer: this is a collection of my thoughts as i grapple with the mysterious thing that prayer is to me.  these are just some of the things that i have gathered as i continue to learn, and there is a very large chance that i could be wrong or off with my thoughts, so please consider this as you read and i encourage you to challenge and probe and inquire of God and His word about prayer and any of these ideas that i bring up!***