Spiritual Counterfeits (part 2)

I have always been known in my family for my stubbornness/tenaciousness. Wound up within my heart is an energy that is fierce and ready to stand against whatever gets in my way, no matter the cost. The sheen in my eye, the curled lip, I won’t give in. At two it took the form of not giving in when mom and dad told me for the umpteenth time not to tease Krista. At five it took the form of not wanting to wear the new shoes mom bought me. As a teenager it looked like me rebelling against my parents and not heeding their warnings about the young man I was dating that I should not have been. As a college student it looked like me being unwilling to surrender to marriage, “I will never marry!” Oh how I digged in…how I wanted my way. How I manipulated and stood my ground. And the list goes on and on and on!

That was what my stubbornness looked like. That is when I’m living for self. But when turned around that stubbornness could be tenaciousness, could be useful. At two it could look like me wanting to stack the blocks and not giving up till they were stacked just as they were supposed to be. At five it looked like me witnessing to the new kids I met…making sure everyone knew about Jesus.  As a teenager it could look like me sticking to my decision to honor my parents and break off the wrong relationship with that young man.

I tell people all the time that I was my parent’s hardest child to handle, and my parents would say the exact same! It’s true I have grown over time, but it has been very evident this summer that I still have a LONG ways to go!

 

I could feel it. I knew God was trying to get a hold of my heart in the area of my eating disorder, but I wouldn’t give in! I wasn’t ready. Sure I was praying about it everyday, begging God to change my heart and mind about it. I begged Him to change me from the inside out. But really I still wasn’t ready.

I dug my heels in. I had just graduated college in May, and was looking forward to a wedding, but first I had to survive ten weeks of serving the Lord at IRBC as a cook. I knew that I was struggling, and felt so inadequate to serve the Lord in such a position, such a low spiritual state. But no one will know right? No one will find this out…no one will even be able to tell.  Besides you need to lose weight for this wedding…you have gotten HUGE lately, I mean just look at yourself.”

“I hate how I feel so fat….something has to change. I know I can lose lots of weight while I work at camp! Working long hours in the heat and running everyday. Things will get better! No one will know. Sure mom has warned you not to lose weight while at camp…but she wont be up there all the time…this should work.”

“No…No Bethany! People will know! People will find out…you need to heed your mom’s warning! There is so much at stake! Purpose in your mind now to change, to stand strong and to grow at camp and not fall back into your sin. Stand strong!”

 

Oh the battle that was raging for my heart ever since I was sixteen. Satan knows my struggle well, he knows how easy it is to trip me up. Oh how I fight, how I struggle…and it seems that a lot of the time he wins battle after battle. But I know that God is an awesome and loving and gracious God, and no matter how many battles Satan wins, God will win the war, and that’s all that matters!

 

It was Sr. high camp now…I had made it thru most the whole summer as a cook at IRBC. I thought I was “getting away” with my little secret…but people knew…God wouldn’t let me hide (praise Him). I remembered the verse “be sure your sin will find you out.” How true that was!

“You are so skinny!”… “Have you lost weight?”… “That’s all your eating?”… “you can’t run in this heat!”… These comments were made by many people. Each was a warning directly from God. Unbenounced to the people whose lips passed these questions at me, God was using every single one of them!

And is’nt that just like Him? Have you ever noticed how in scripture when someone disobeyed Him, how He always asked them questions…graciously giving them a chance to speak truth and come to Him in repentance and be restored though they do not deserve it. Some examples would be Adam and Eve, Cain, and countless others. That is just God’s way though, it is not a wonder at all that the scriptures refer to our God as a God of grace and mercy! He never lets any sheep of His to stray long!

 

These questions kept coming at me all summer long. I avoided them seemingly easily, with excuses and glossing over the issue or worse lying about it. I wanted to stay in the dark…but God kept turning on the flood lights! I couldn’t hide long.

 

As I said it was Sr high camp now.  One of the biggest and hardest weeks of our entire summer. Serving close to 600 at every meal, staying up a little later, and working harder. It was the big push to keep going!

But oh how the Lord always seems to do a mighty work this week. If you asked us as a staff, we wouldn’t trade any hardship or trial of Sr. High camp for the great work that God does in the hearts and lives of all those teens. While it is exhausting it is also encouraging and uplifting!

 

There I was, trying to hide…quenching the spirit time after time. I knew God was on my tail…He wouldn’t give up. Every sermon…every devotional that I had heard and read this summer all seemed to shine the light even brighter on my sin of an eating disorder.

I was beginning to get tired of hiding…beginning to break down and see my need for a change…see my need to come back to the One true God and forsake the idols I had stuck up. They were not delivering…I still felt empty...longing for more. I also knew I was getting dangerously thin...and I needed to be rescued and set free from the Lord.

 

What do you think happened next? Let me guess you think that I heard a sermon that just leveled me. Exposed and enlightened me like never before..right? Wrong! He actually used His Word (sermons and devotionals all along the whole summer) but the thing that was the “final straw” was God using the song service and the choir’s song to get a hold of my heart.

 

Never in my life has the Lord used that as He did that day. The song leader at Sr/ High camp does a wonderful job every year at putting songs together. Tim Jones is his name. And I always thought that putting together a song service would be a “piece of cake.” Right? You just pick out a few songs, line up a pianist and put together a choir piece. Wrong! Not for Mr. Jones. This past year I learned that he stays up late into the night praying and pouring over the prep of the song services for the next day.

 

God used the message of the songs that night to finish the work He had started in me at the beginning of the summer. He helped me to see my selfishness for what it was…helped me to remember that I had been bought at a price (the life of His One and Only Son Jesus Christ). And helped me to realize my need to surrender to Him.

 

I usually try not to cry in front of people and usually do a pretty good job of that…but I broke down right there in my pew amidst a sea of sr. highers. I cried out to the Lord and surrendered in that moment before the service even really started.

 

Now, it’s true I surrendered in that moment…but as I saw in the following days (and even now) it really is often a moment to moment surrender. The battles still rage…I still struggle. But the amazing thing is God sent me accountability (the other cooks as I was able to confess to them and enlist their help)…Lynnae also stepped in and we had some good discussions about it…my mom was the most help checking with me daily…and of course Joshy has been used by God as well J.

 

The battles are far from over…they will rage until I am finally set free from this body and forever sanctified and join my Savior in heaven (whether by death or rapture..MARANATHA!).

 

It’s a daily struggle…I stumble a lot, but the amazing and most wonderful thing is: I have seen first hand the kind of gracious God we serve! I didn’t just read about His grace, I have SEEN it first hand!

Also how wonderful to know that when I surrender to Him, He has the power to take my ugly stubborness and turn it into tenaciousness to be used for His passion and purpose!
How AMAZING is our GOD?? He can take sin and turn it inside out and use it for His glory!
May I allign myself under Him and forsake the counterfeits of Satan...they never work and their end is devastation and destruction!

 

Friends,  I pray that you know today beyond a shadow of a doubt that God always seeks that which is lost (Luke 15). If you, like me, are lost/were lost may you come to Him! Whether that be the first time for Salvation from your sin and sinful self, or once again because you are saved but you (like me) have wandered. I pray that if you need more help or if you have questions that you reach out to God first and foremost in prayer, but then also to the Christians around you, or even myself! I am here, no question is a dumb one...no need to feel shame...I am a sinner same as you! So please reach out and get the help if you need it!

 

From one wandering sheep to the others out there, may you come to the fold of our wonderful and loving Shepherd!!

Counterfeit (part one)

The green ball flies through the hot summer air, whizzing ore the grassy green field. The ball lands and is instantly engulfed in the green blades. Camouflaged now by its nest in the grass, the ball eludes the little pup that sprang for it when it was thrown. The pup is not deterred however, despite the tall grass and the fact that the tennis ball has totally disappeared from view, the puppy tenaciously keeps after the ball. Zigzagging left and right across the field, nose to the ground, she pauses only every once in a while to sniff the air, trying to catch even the faintest odor of the familiar smell. My scent is what she is striving to catch. Joshy and I watch her with pride. Fiona has been a delight to both of us since Joshy got her for me for Valentines Day. She is quite an odd looking dog, with her brown eyes that have blue swirls in them, and her blue merle coat (typical of the Australian shepherd). She has a very slender body and long legs and ears that stick up and quite a long snout, all this combined I guess makes her look like a coyote, for I have been asked on many occasions if she is one! Makes me even more proud seeing as I love wild dogs J.

Anyways,  Joshy and I were greatly delighted when we first discovered how good she was with fetch. Running hard after the ball, she always brings it back and gives it to us for another round. She will play fetch all day if we let her. Even when she is beat tired, as soon as she catches sight of her Frisbee or hears the sound of a tennis ball on concrete, she is to her feet, eyes sparkling; they dance almost daring you to throw whatever is in your hand.

 

“Look at her Joshy…she won’t give up till she finds it or we call her off and stick her in her kennel.” A winsome grin tenderly lights upon his handsome face, that cockeyed grin I love so, as he says “I know. She won’t.”

“She is a good dog…I’m so proud of her.”

 All the while, all she can think about is finding that ball and bringing it back to us. For she knows that we will be most pleased with her, and this is the her soul desire at the moment: for her masters to be delighted. And Nothing, nothing would stop her, she will keep after that ball till she finds it, and find it she always does, because she is tenacious, she won’t give it up!

 

The  hot summer wind blows my fly away hairs all about, Joshy slips his hand into mine as we walk side by side. We were both buzzing with talk about different things, lost in conversation. Suddenly Fiona begins to bark and strains at the leash. Our attention is ripped from one another to a stupid squirrel in a yard we were walking past. Josh pulls Fiona in closer. “Fiona, NO! Fiona that’s enough, Fiona…” That stern tone is hardly ever heard from Josh’s mouth. He is such a sweet man, he is usually either really happy (hyper lol) or sad, never usually angry or stern. But when he is, he gets a stern tone. Employing that now, Joshy continues to call her name, pulling her from the yard and back onto the sidewalk. Had Josh not been stronger than Fiona and able to pull her away, she would stay after that squirrel till it got away or she got it.

So was this her tenaciousness at work again as it was with the tennis ball? Or was this something else? Stubbornness is more like it! It is her tenaciousness twisted around in an ugly and most annoying form.

 

For every good thing of God, Satan always offers a counterfeit. This is something that looks very similar to the “real deal” but is totally false. It’s like having a bowl of whipped topping (God’s goodness) before us and then a bowl of shaving cream (Satan’s counterfeit), they both look alike but are obviously very very different! Used for two very separate purposes, and won’t work well in either’s place.

The one that is probably most popular is God’s Creation Account in Genesis 1 verses the Evolution Theory in Darwin’s’ book. They look alike in that they both try to answer how everything got here, but the difference is one is a theory and one is indeed fact (Romans 1)!

            As I have pondered these things betwixt Satan and God I have found that there are many “real deals” and their “counterfeits” combinations.

Some that hit closer for us perhaps are the world’s philosophy of “love yourself” verses God’s law that says we ought to love Him first and then others (Matthew 5:45).  Notice even how different the wording is there. One is a philosophy, this carries with it the notion of if you want to, it’s up for grabs and for debate. While God’s is not a philosophy it is a command. It is a must, it is not up for debate or discussion; we are to love God and our neighbors, end of story! Notice the very different purposes as well. One is centered on purposes and goals that help to satisfy and delight self; while the other is centered on purposes and goals that help to satisfy and delight God.

           

The one that hits closest to home for me is tenaciousness (God’s) versus stubbornness (Satan’s). Some might say “well are they not the same thing?” My argument is that they are not. True they are both energy that stands against something. Like a rock in the midst of a mighty and raging river. All about the rock things are tossed too and fro. Sticks, logs, foam and leaves are all at the mercy of the currents. They are moved along by the current, taken wherever it goes, but not a rock. It stands firm in its place, despite the pounding water against it. Both tenaciousness and stubbornness are like that rock, they both stand against the currents that come their way. They both don’t budge.

           

 However, there is obviously a fine line betwixt the two. The difference lies within their end, within their goals. Tenaciousness has a good goal, a goal that is set on delighting in and satisfying God no matter the cost. While stubbornness is focused entirely on self, on delighting in and satisfying self, no matter the cost.

 Think back to the two scenarios with my pup Fiona. In the first scenario, with the frisbee, we would say that Fiona was being tenacious. She was focused on pleasing her masters and would not give up till she did it. However, with the squirrel, she was being stubborn, digging her heals in and not willing to move. In one instance her energy and ability to not give up was good, in another it was entirely wrong and a hindrance to us, her owners. The same can be said of us and our relationship to God! When we are focused on what God wants us to be doing (the Frisbee), when we have delighting Him as our highest goal, then our stubbornness is actually tenaciousness. But when we have delighting self as our goal that tenaciousness is twisted into stubbornness. So what we need to watch most closely is not what we are heading after (the Frisbee or squirrel) but WHO we are heading after. For when we truly have pleasing God as our goal our stubbornness becomes tenaciousness. Our pride becomes humility. Our selfishness becomes selflessness. Our hate becomes love. Our anger becomes peace. Our stealing becomes giving. Our lying becomes integrity and honesty. Our hurtful and wrong speech becomes blessing the Lord and others, and the list goes on. It’s no wonder than that Christ told us to “guard our hearts, for out of it spring the issues of life.” He knows that we were made to worship, made to delight someone other than ourselves, and He knew that whoever/whatever has the thrones of our hearts would be played out and seen in the things we do and say.

So much can change just with (W)who is on the throne of your heart!