I’m not a carpenter.  But I know a few things about tools.  And one very specific and important tool can take splintery contours of wood and transform each plank into a smooth surface: sandpaper.  I’m talking about a kind of paper that’s has bits of sand and particles firmly adhesed to it so that with the right friction and angle upon a myriad of surfaces the a more refined, smoother surface emerges.  In James 1, the author invites believers in Christ to take a “glass half full” approach to the pressures of life and faith.  He writes,

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. James 1:2-4 (The Message) 

I think James is asking us to be sanded, letting the tougher and rougher surface do it’s painful work on our flesh – maybe even our souls.  The process is not pleasant by any means.  It can even include tears, heartache and sleepless nights, but it will be the result of a loving and all-knowing Creator who knows exactly what he wants to create in us.  He also says that we can pray for the help and endurance to make it through.  Remember, God wants what BEST for us all…and he’ll do what it takes to get us there.

The following post is from Nathan Hager, WFU Class of ’13:

We are called to follow Christ, love him, and proclaim his name, but this year I have learned that we are not called to do that alone. From the beginning, the church of Jesus Christ knew the importance of being together, growing together, and serving together (Acts 2:43-47). This past year has shown me the importance of communing with other believers. I have spent time one-on-one with friends discussing how God provides and leads us every day. I have spent time reading the scripture with others and trying to understand what it means for us. And I have spent time simply acknowledging God’s presence whenever I was with fellow believers (Matthew 18:20). God has used the men in my Bible study, my closest friends, and even non-believers to show me that the God I trust needs to constantly be present in my distractible mind. Actively seeking the community that Jesus started with his apostles has helped me be closer to my Savior than ever before. Be grateful for your community, for your Emmaus family, and the command to fellowship and serve with each other. Get to know the hearts of your friends (believers and non-believers) and get to know the heart of your God. Commune.

The following is from A.W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy.

It is a strange and beautiful eccentricity of the free God that He has allowed His heart to be emotionally identified with men. Self-sufficient as He is, He wants our love and will not be satisfied till He gets it. Free as He is, He has let His heart be bound to us forever. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10, NIV)

“For our soul is so specially loved of Him that is highest,” says Julian of Norwich, “that it overpasseth the knowing of all creatures: that is to say, there is no creature that is made that may know how much and how sweetly and how tenderly our Maker loveth us. And therefore we may with grace and His help stand in spiritual beholding, with everlasting marvel of this high, overpassing, inestimable Love that Almighty God hath to us of His Goodness.”*

Prayer:  Father, how is it that You could identify with us? You want our love and will not be satisfied until You obtain it.

*Read more… Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love.

Who do you think you are?  If someone asks you “Who are you?”, do you give a name?  A hometown?  A hobby that brings you utter joy?  Are you someone’s son, daughter, girl/boyfriend?  Do you throw in other descriptors, such as white, West Coaster, ADPi, short, smart, strong…?  Many of us sum of the totality of DNA and cells and thoughts and emotions in another way – based on an not-so-positive emotional state: I’m a failure.  I’m not enough.  I’m a loser.  I’m a …sinner.

Regardless of who you think you are, I pray the following excerpt from The Good and Beautiful God (James Bryan Smith, IVP, 2009) reminds you of something TRUE today:

John of Kronstadt … was a nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox priest at the time when alcohol abuse was rampant. None of the priests ventured out of their churches to help the people. They waited for the people to come to them. John, compelled by love, went out into the streets. People said he would lift the hungover, foul-smelling people from the gutter, cradle them in his arms, and say to them, “This is beneath your dignity. You were meant to house the fullness of God.” …

Like John of Kronstadt, we can say to the broken, “Your brokenness does not define you. You are one in whom Christ dwells. You were meant to house the fullness of God.”

We welcome them like the prodigal son, restoring them to their true birthright, even if they have trouble accepting it.

May you, dear sinner SAINT, hear His words over you: You were meant to house the fullness of God.   Live this day as one lifted up to undeserved glory – as he has lifted himself up for you.

He is mighty and we are morphed.

It’s easy to look at other students and say, “I want to be like that; I want to change.” But what does attempting that kind of change really mean for us? It means conformity. It means that you want to become more like the smartest person in your class, or the student on track to be raking in a six-figure income in three years. With this conformity, you are saying that tweaking your life here and there will bring you joy and security. You are naming your idols (smarts, money) and conforming your life to give them power over you. What if you wanted a more complete change, a transformation? This transforming change rejects our idols and acknowledges God as the only one worthy of our praise. Even the PowerRangers understood the importance of absolute change! In the heat of battle, the Red Ranger didn’t just start growling like a bear and the Pink Ranger didn’t simply wave her arms about in her best pterodactyl impersonation. No, they morphed! They changed inside and out, in order to fight for good and reject the selfish and destructive Rita Repulsive. In contrast to their ordinary, teenage selves, they could not be beaten as the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.  Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

Give your idols and sins up to God, right now and every day. Be intentional about this and allow God to transform you. It’s amazing how you have more time for God when you release your idols and even more amazing is the desire you will have for him as he transforms you into the person (or Zord) he wants you to be.

At last night’s Ash Wednesday service I heard a lot about running the race of faith. This comes from Hebrews 12 which talks about putting aside the weights, or sins in our lives, and running with endurance. Justin gave us the illustration of his best race, 2^nd grade, he came in 2^nd place. He said he can remember his parents at the finish line cheering him on, and then reminded us that as we run this race of faith, Christ is standing there cheering us on, not just to finish but also to victory. According to scripture we have already won this race. Why? Because Christ ran the race perfectly for us! He has already secured our victory.

Sticking with the theme of running, have you heard of the game Temple Run? It’s a game where your goal is to stay alive for as long as possible and along the way you pick up coins. What strikes me most is that in this game you don’t see every obstacle you will face until it is right in front of you. You can only tackle each obstacle one at a time. For instance, you can’t jump until you’ve finished sliding under the tree, or you can’t slide until you’ve turned the corner. I believe this is like our own race. We must learn to start taking life one obstacle at a time. Run the endurance race set before you, but don’t focus on the obstacle around the bend, instead worry about the one right in front of you. But rest assure Christ has already dealt with each obstacle and finished the race. 

John 18:10-11
¹⁰ Then SimonPeter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) ¹¹ So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

This part of God’s story amazes me! We see here the confidence in Christ’s voice and how he has complete faith in his task at hand. Yes, he had spent the night in agonizing prayer over God the Father taking this very cup away if only it is his will, but now he is certain in this being the way. (For those who don’t know this cup that Jesus is referring to is the cup of God’s wrath, the just punishment for all sin past, present, and future.) Jesus has absolute trust that God the Father is in control and that even though this plan will be tortuous; his obedience is easy because his trust is so great. God will be glorified through the Son’s submission. This is the trust and confidence I pray for us all to have. A confidence that says, “you God know my heart and what I am capable of,” and a trust that says, “God you are sovereign and you will be glorified through my obedience.”

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:9-14 )

Read verses 11-14 again. Can you imagine what our community would be like if we all prayed this for each other? How would our lives be different if we lived out the last two verses? If we lived as a community that had been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God’s beloved son?

As you go through the day, remember that we are praying for you. Pray for one another. Remember the redemption you have, remind each other of the redemption that we have through Christ. May we live in the light of the kingdom into which we have been delivered.

“And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them… I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.” Isaiah 42:16, 45:2-3

A.W. Tozer prefaces these verses by saying, “God has charged himself with full responsibility for our eternal happiness and stands ready to take over the management of our lives the moment we turn in faith to Him.” (The Knowledge of the Holy).

Often times, as college students, we fear giving up control. We like to have our schedules just right, our classes arranged like so, our free time carefully allotted. To give God control, complete control, sounds scary to a lot of us. But how utterly refreshing would it be? How liberating to put your life in the hands of an infinitely wise God who has your good in mind? We don’t have to worry about where God will take us or what he will put before us. His heart for us is good. He will not forsake us.

So stop worrying about school, about relationships, about money, about your future. Stop trusting in your own wisdom and trust in God’s. Let him handle it. And experience the freedom of his love. He’s called you by name and is ready to lead you in paths you don’t know, leveling the ground before you and breaking down doors of bronze. Will you let him lead you?