We enjoyed the company of Bobby’s mom this weekend as she came to visit Thursday evening to Monday morning. We were noticing that since they have moved to California, we have seen them more times in the last six months that we have in the last three years! Our weekend highlights included: large blocks of time spent at our other apartment painting our new living room a more tasteful color (before and after pictures to come…), several rounds of Mille Bournes, a delicious dinner at Casa Lupe–which even included live Mariachi music!–and long discussions of church ministry philosophy and how at five and a half months, my shape has definitely changed. All in all a fun and profitable weekend together.

I was introduced to a new idea this weekend: “live-blogging.” Ty spent the weekend in Minnesota attending John Piper’s Desiring God conference. At home Bobby and I avidly frequented Challies.com to be updated on each session as Tim Challies wrote about and posted almost immediately after each session. We were quite into it and have not stopped talking amongst ourselves about what future event we could possibly “live-blog.”

Sunday, Bobby gave a stirring message challenging believers to seek God. Bobby has shown well in this series that Scripture is clear on a few points:

1) God is seeking worshippers (John 4:23-24)
2) No man seeks God (Romans 3:10-12)
3) Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10)
4) God draws people to His Son to be saved (John 6:44)
5) Once saved, we are to seek Him (Jeremiah 29:13)

True Christians seek God, wanting Him more than anything else. Seeking God does not return void. In Jeremiah 29:13 God promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” It isn’t enough just to believe that God exists. Even Satan and the demons believe that (James 2:19). Those who have saving faith will seek Him diligently. Bobby pointed out that “diligent” doesn’t bring to mind something casual, a weekend hobby or something done lightly. “Diligent” brings to mind something pursued energetically and consistently. This is how we ought to seek God, as if we want Him more than anything else. The truth is that we often want many things above God. Sometimes we try to get our priorities straight and say, “Okay God will be first, then family, church, school, work, friends…” We wake up to start our day with God and then forget about Him as we attend to family, church, school and so on. But this is not what seeking Him is all about. He must be first in all things in our lives. He must be first in our day, first in family, first in church, first in school, etc.

To remind us that God must be first in all things and what we seek, Bobby gave the following:

1) God must be the only thing I seek in life. “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord.” Psalm 27:4

2) I must seek the kingdom of God first. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33

3) I must seek God with all my heart. “Seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Deuteronomy 4:29

I found this lesson to be very convicting because I thought of how so much of my time and energy is spent seeking comfort, pleasure, reputation and temporary things of this world. Bobby asked the students, “If your family lived down in New Orleans and your parents were loading up the car and you had to evacuate that moment and one of your parents came to you and said, ‘You are going to have to leave all of your belongings, and everything we have is probably going to be destroyed in this hurricane, but pick one thing to bring with you, one thing you can’t live without.’ What would you say?” I thought alot about his question. Would I say with the psalmist that God is the one thing that I desire and the one thing I can’t live without? In all things, is what matters most a right relationship with the Lord? I want to say with the psalmist, “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord I will seek.’” Psalm 27:8

I am fortunate to have the opportunity to lead a small group of girls in my husband’s high school youth group at our church. My group includes both junior and senior girls, some whom I’ve had since they were freshman. To some a small group with high school girls might seems overwhelming. Surely they talk and gab about life and boys the whole time right? This is not always so for my group. We have had times where we are not too serious. People share hilarious stories and we all laugh together. We have inside jokes and can get distracted and off topic if we aren’t careful. My group used to be more formal, only meeting on Wednesday nights for the Bible study. But in the last couple of years we have all grown together and now enjoy movie nights, painting nails together, one of their favorite things is dipping graham crackers in frosting and watching the ’80’s mystery film “Clue”.

I’ve seen my group have as many as thirteen girls and be down to only three. People have come and gone, but we always still meet every Wednesday night to study the Word together. During my time as this small-group’s leader, each girl has really become special to me. I’ve had the opportunity to have one-on-one time for coffee, lunch or dinner with some of them. I hope that they will each learn and grow in the Lord. I pray for them all often and have really grown to love them. Last night I had an eye-opening moment with my small-group.

Bobby is teaching through the beatitudes in Matthew 5 and last night we were discussing verse 6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousnes, for they shall be filled.” We talked about the fact that we often don’t think we need much. None of us really have experienced hunger or thirst in any stark terms. If we are used to eating at noon and don’t get lunch till 1:00pm we say, “I’m starving!” We tried to define “righteousness”. We came to one question that said, “In what specific ways do we need God to live on a daily basis?” One of the girls said, “Well, we don’t deserve anything. God allows us our next breath and grants us life to wake up to each morning.” She wasn’t trying to give me the “right” answer. God had been teaching her this about how He grants life. She even shared how thinking from the perspective of “God gives me my next breathe” rather than “I deserve life” helps her focus on God each morning. I could see that she really is striving to live right before the Lord in her heart. It touched me.

Several of the other girls had shared similar thoughts during our time in small-groups at the cabin this last weekend. One girl said that she wants to be thankful for every thing that God gives to her because He has blessed her with so much. She knew she had become ungrateful at times and saw that God did not bless to give her some sense of self-sufficiency, but rather to draw her to overflow in thankfulness to Him.

When I see God working in someone’s life, I am encouraged. It is evident in some of these girl’s lives by the things that they say and what they do, that God is drawing them to come to Him and follow His will for them. I was very moved by the reality that God can use anyone to teach or encourage someone else. It does not matter your age, position in life, education, or how long you have been a Christian. He uses you. He uses the girls in my small group to encourage me. They may not even know that the simple things that they share can have such an impact.

Some of the girls in our small group seek to encourage others through blogs. Kelsey is one of the senior girls who writes a blog called Redeemed and Summoned. In her most recent entry she states well that worry is not something that we just have to cope with, but that, “if we were constantly having the right view of God, we would understand that He will provide for us.” She challenges, “Remember who God has promised to be to us and cling to it. Rely on Him fully and don’t worry, He’ll provide, He promises.”

One of the other girls, Julie is a junior who recently began writing at Julie Logan’s Blog. Her first entry is very inspiring as she asks, “Is sleeping 20 extra minutes a good substitute for starting your day off with God?” She answers her own question with, “No. If I spend those 20 minutes with God every morning, He is going to do something in me. I’m going to grow.”

Last night one of the girls mentioned that she had been really encouraged by something my younger sister, Monica had said as her camp counselor two summers ago. It was a simple story that Monica had shared of something a customer had said to her at work that made her realize she should be thankful for the life God had given to her. At Monica’s blog, A Little Bit of Monica, she wondered in a recent entry about her responses at her job, “Am I showing that I am a changed and different person amidst every moment of stress, every confrontation with an ornery cashier?” She writes, “Identify yourself with Christ by not responding like anyone else would. We’re in this together and should be encouraging one another on to love and good deeds…”

No matter who you are and all of the unique things about you, you can encourage someone. You don’t have to set out to be some motivating influence to all around you but can start by simply sharing the simple things that God is teaching you. If you are reading and studying your Bible, praying for others, meditating on who God is and what He has done, realizing the blessings you have and the God provides…you will have something to share.

Maybe this entry will encourage you to start a blog or update the blog you already have. Everyone doesn’t have to have a blog. Maybe you are better at e-mail or writing a card. One of our girls, Sarah, says that she prays for people while she brushes her teeth. Maybe you will have to go out of your way to share God’s love with others; it may take some of your time and energy. We can remember that everything we have is given to us from God and meant to be used for His purposed. So I hope we will all take some time today to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works…” Hebrews 10:24-25

After a great weekend in Bear Valley I feel refreshed and ready to take on whatever this week brings. Sunday night we picked up the keys to our new apartment, Monday at work we began the countdown toward our big October 15th deadline, and today the carpets in our new place are being cleaned. Our new apartment is privately owned by a nice retired Chinese man and so the protocol that one might think standard is not for us in this new place. It is obvious that the previous tenants enjoyed more than just a splash of color, as the walls scream bright orange, red, purple, blue, green and yellow. I’ll admit that it seems a little more like Toon Town than home at this point.

After a long talk with my mom reviewing the how-to’s of proper painting I was determined to tame my new kitchen (which is red on one side and yellow on the other). Don’t picture a pretty pale yellow; this is not the soft color of a post-it note, but rather the blaring yellow of an Awana team or yield sign. Last night I was excited to see how much nicer one wall looked with a smooth coat of semi-gloss white paint. Just one wall gave me hope that the rest of our new place could be brought under my palate control before we move in, three weeks from Saturday.

This weekend was a wonderful time of fellowship and conviction as Bobby spoke to the group from 1 Corinthians 15:58 about living for Jesus as a way of life. I was especially challenged when we talked about heaven and how everyone there is doing the will of the Father, glorifying and worshipping Him. Bobby challenged us to think about how we can be doing God’s will now, living on earth like we are in heaven. I was reminded how the essence of faith is inseparable from the call to obedience.