What's Ministry and What's "My" Life?

So many of my friends are blogging. It's mostly about their random daily lives and some life lessons thrown in here and there. I love reading them. They help me get to keep up with them and not miss them so much, unlike before facebook and blogging became popular.

I have been thinking lately about my own blog. Should I convert this into "all" blog and not solely my spiritual journal? Should I start blogging about my family life and other random stuff? That will be another blog added to four that I already maintain: Ministry Blog, My Boys' Blog, My Photography Blog (I think you should totally check out my photos! Hehehe! Well... all of those blogs, really!), and then this one. Whew! Four!

But then I had a light bulb moment! Aha!

There's really no dividing line, not even a fine dividing line between "my life" and my ministry. My life IS ministry. First, our house is also the ministry building. Second, my main ministry is my family. Third, my husband and I are the ministers in this ministry. Even our boys help out a lot in this ministry.

Someone once asked me, "Don't you want to live in a place where it's not the ministry building?" Another one asked, "Don't you want your privacy?" Yet another one asked, "Don't you want to get a maid or a nanny or a tutor for your boys (we homeschool) so you can minister?"

Here are my answers to those questions. "Yes!" But that is not what God wants for me. My life IS ministry. (I said that already, didn't I?) People watch how I keep my house, how I train my boys to help in the house, how we live as a family. Where we are, there's not much of that for people to see. We are a light here. Do I want my privacy? Ummm... Do I have something to hide? God wants us to be bearers of His light and His love. We need to SHOW what Christian life is all about. Who/what I am in private should be the same in public. I say, should, because I'm not always that way. God help me.

"That you may show yourselves to be blameless and guiltless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish (faultless, unrebukable) in the midst of a crooked and wicked generation [spiritually perverted and perverse], among whom you are seen as bright lights (stars or beacons shining out clearly) in the [dark] world." [Philippians 2:15 (Amplified Bible)]

Back to blogging. I'll keep this as my spiritual journal. You can read about our family/ministry life through our other blogs mentioned above. Even my photography blog shows a lot about our everyday random lives here. Thanks for stopping by this blog and I hope you are blessed. Please come back often.

God Loved on Me

I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the fullness of God's love until I started this "Love Journey" study that our home church Senior Pastor had put out for our church family over the summer months. It's an eight-week study that makes you dig into God's Word daily, have you memorize Scripture passages weekly, and challenge you to act on specific "Love God" and "Love Others" commandments. I'm only on the second week but I'm learning so much and I'm getting so much blessing from His Word.

I wrote this blog a few years back, "Are You Loved?" But now I realize I do not have a good grasp of God's love, especially for me. That's probably the reason why I'm still having a hard time loving others. Oh, I sure do love my family and friends; but they're easy to love. How about the ones that aren't? Yesterday I had just a tiny, ittty-bitty, little sneak peak of God's love through someone I met only twice. Both meetings were "chance" meetings which I like to call, "divine appointments."

During our first meeting I had no idea who this person was but from our conversation, all I saw was God's love and truth flowing out of her. Like I could almost see them spilling over like an overflown cup. My life was forever changed. I was challenged to change my life into a walking-by-faith-not-by-sight life.

Yesterday, I was sharing something with her from my heart. I felt so confident and so mature-like. Her response was, "I don't want to talk about those, I want to talk about your life. I think what you just said was an attitude of spite. Until you bend down on your knees before God and your heart goes down too, God cannot work amazing things through you." Ouch! The rebuke I got was spoken in such love and compassion that I felt like I got spanked by the Heavenly Father but yet at the same time, I felt very much loved. If was a weird feeling. I didn't feel condemned or shamed. I just felt... LOVED!

As I was leaving the room and walking out in to the hallway, this "older" sister in Christ called out to me, "I love you!" I responded, "I love you, too!" And all of a sudden I felt this warmth all around my body and I was in tears.

You see, I learned shortly after our first meeting that this dear sister is of royal blood (literally, a royal descendant). She didn't look at me as a commoner and a foreigner in this country. She looked at me with equality through the royal blood of Jesus Christ. All I showed her was immaturity, lack of faith, and a judgmental attitude... amongst other things; but she saw past that.

God knew I needed that experience to make me have a visual picture of God's love, just to get a glimpse. Just a glimpse.

Noticed something in that picture above? There are lots of roses all around but the butterfly chose to land on the withered one and it sat there for a long time! I'm kind of like that rose - withered, ugly, ready to fall to the ground. But like the butterfly, God saw something in me, landed on me, and loved on me.

1 John 3:1, "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!..."

Wow! You Blow Me Away, God!

I don't know how many times I said this today: "You blow me away, God! You blow me away!" God is working in our lives in ways we've never seen before. It's one thing to have faith to believe that God can and will do great things for His glory, but it's also another thing and a totally, equally faith-requiring, life-changing experience to be a part of that great thing and knowing that it could only get greater because God is ready to display His unlimited power and His unparalleled greatness.

[OK. Sorry, that was a looooooooooooooooooong sentence. Probably the longest sentence I've ever written in my life! Hahaha! You can tell I'm just really blown away. Please bare with me.]

I'm awestruck. This is beyond my faith; beyond my reasoning; beyond what I ever dreamed of. When God speaks, He speaks - in His terms. When God gives vision, He gives vision only to advance His kingdom - what we are are nothing but broken vessels. When God commands, He commands in His will with so much unconditional love attached to it. When God leads, He leads and provides what we need (spiritual, emotional, physical) along the way - without us having to think or worry about those things because He already prepared the provisions.

Deuteronomy 10:21 says, "He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen."

The question now is... Is my heart ready and open for Him to do all that He wants to do through me? Am I totally 100% without any reservations going to make myself see His greatness and His glory?

"Oh, Lord! I am but a pebble in the sand. My faith is even smaller. Please work a miracle in my heart. Amen."