So lately amidst this Christmas season I’ve been thinking a lot about how blessed I am and how lucky I am to have the life that I do. I have a great family, friends, I’m healthy, my family doesn’t have financial problems, we have a boat. We have so much stuff that we really don’t need but just have for our entertainment. Then I think about my 10 girls in Zambia. Most of them have really tough upbringings. Many don’t have 2 parents, they don’t eat 3 meals a day, and when they do eat it isn’t much or nutritious. They don’t have many clothes, warm water, or a bed to sleep. They sleep on the ground with no blankets and let me tell you it gets very very cold there. We come from very different backgrounds. And when you look at our 2 worlds, most would say that I’m pretty blessed compared to those girls.

But what makes me blessed? Don’t get me wrong, I am very thankful for what I have and will continue to thank God for the things that he has given me. But I still have hard days, I still go through periods where I feel unloved. The “blessings that I have” don’t always fill me with joy. Sometimes they do for a little bit. But in the end, all those things that I have don’t actually fulfill me. You know why? Because they are all broken. Everything in this world is broken and tainted with sin whether its a person or a possession. They’re all broken and therefore will never bring me true joy.

What I’ve come to realize is the only thing on earth that will bring me true joy and full satisfaction is something that isn’t broken. And the only thing I can have on this earth that isn’t broken is a relationship with Jesus Christ, my savior.

And what I think is so cool about that is that this relationship is available to anyone. Although there are many things that aren’t easily available to my girls such as money, food, toys, clothes, good families, there is one thing that is available to them. And it just so happens that this one thing is the BEST thing available. I think it’s incredible that the only thing or person that can bring true joy to is available to the whole world.

I saw this to be true when I witnessed some of my girls come to know Jesus and accept him as their savior at camp. The transformation that took place in their lives in just a matter of several days was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. I saw joy enter into these girls’ hearts and then outpour in their laughter, in their relationships, and in their evangelism. Because although they didn’t have much, they had everything they needed. They had the Lord. They had the fullness of joy. They found something that so many wealthy americans spend their whole lives searching for.

From a secular perspective, I think most people would look at those kids in Zambia and feel bad for them and would not consider them very blessed. But I look at them and think they’ve found the only thing worth living for. The only thing that will bring true joy and satisfy them. They found Jesus. And to me, that is the biggest blessing of all.

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”

I used to think that wanting satisfaction and joy and happiness was just selfish. After several conversations and a lot of thinking, I started to get confused about joy. I know that we only find true, everlasting joy in Jesus. But while I knew this, I began evaluating myself and began to wonder if me wanting joy was selfish.  Because after all, aren’t I supposed to suffer as a Christian? Isn’t that what 1 Peter is all about? If I’m supposed to suffer, I shouldn’t be selfishly seeking joy. How silly I was though!

What I have been learning recently is that we were created for joy. In The Explicit Gospel (A lot of this post today will be coming from ideas and quotes from this book since it is what has been captivating me the past few days), Matt Chandler puts it this way: “this deep longing in the core of who we are that cries out for happiness and delight was put there by him and he means for us to be satisfied.” Happiness is the driving force behind all we do in life-ever since we were born. Longing for satisfaction isn’t the sin. It’s the pursuit of happiness that often leads us to sin.

God created us with a desire for him that would provide us with ultimate satisfaction. But when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden of Eden after they gave into sin, we too (all of humanity) were kicked out of the garden into a vast wasteland. Now the answer to satisfaction is still easy-we just pursue the garden. Pursue what God intended for us. The garden is ultimately where we want to end up. That’s what we were created for. That’s what our hearts yearn for.

However the action is not so easy. Instead of pursuing the garden, we try to make the vast wasteland that we are stuck in into the garden. But that will never work. The vast wasteland is simply made up of broken pieces of what the garden could have been. You see, something else I have been realizing is that some of the things we pursue in this world were created by God for our enjoyment. In his book Matt Chandler says “Pleasure, partying, gardens, work, money, material things, and sex were all his ideas.”

But when you take a good thing and make it the ultimate thing instead of God, it will only lead us to unsatisfaction. Every good thing in the universe apart from God is too broken to satisfy us. Because although these are all good things when you use them the right way, they are only supposed to point us to the source. To the creator of these pleasures. And to the ultimate source of happiness and joy.

So basically what I am trying to say is that God wants us to seek satisfaction. He created us to be satisfied….in him! But we are broken creatures searching for happiness in a broken world full of broken people.

C.S. Lewis says it best: “We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us…we are far too easily pleased.” Romans 1: 23 basically says that when sin entered the world, we exchanged the infinite creator for his finite creation.

What I’m realizing is that when sin entered the world, it’s not like that is when we started wanting satisfaction. That’s something that God placed in us when He created us. When sin entered the world, we simply began seeking fleeting things to satisfy us as we desperately tried to fulfill the void that was put in our hearts when we lost the satisfaction of enjoying God in the Garden of Eden.

Looking back, I see how silly I was to question joy and seeking pleasure. Although we are called to suffer like Christ suffered for us, that wasn’t God’s original intent. Suffering came with the fall. However we are originally designed for pleasure and satisfaction. That was lost with the fall. But how grateful I am that Jesus restored that for us on the cross so that we can feel that satisfaction again.

One thing I know though is that the pleasure that we feel here on earth is still tainted with sin and brokenness and therefore limited. So if it feels good here, I can’t even begin to imagine the satisfaction and joy we will feel in Heaven when we are made complete and free from the broken world!

1 Corinthians 2:9 ” However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”

I used to think that God would be upset with me if I didn’t read the bible every day. So I used to do my quiet time often half-heartedly as if God didn’t know the motives of my heart.

In high school I used to compare myself with other girls and see that I wasn’t doing the same “bad” things they did and so that somehow made me a better person because of it and that God must have been more pleased with me. I thought that he would bless me more because of it. So then when I wasn’t feeling very blessed, I would get mad at God because I thought he owed me something for obeying Him. I ignored the fact that there were some inner sins and struggles that I dealt with that I made sure to hide from everyone.

Even though I knew that the way to Heaven was through a savior, Jesus Christ, and not through works, this mindset of thinking I was better than others shaped the way I looked at life. I judged my life based on my works and what other people saw on the outside instead of finding my identity in Jesus.

 I began to seek approval from everyone-from my friends, parents, coaches, and God. But this want and need of approval turned into a never ending cycle of just wanting people to think I was cool or show that they cared about me. As soon as I would get any hint of approval, I would get a small high from it but then it quickly went away and then I would just want more approval. 

It took God giving me the approval in something that I had wanted for several years to realize that it wasn’t what I wanted at all. In fact, it just made me more unsatisfied. Sometimes it takes God giving us our idol for us to realize that it won’t give us the satisfaction that we think it will.

Approval is something that I struggle with on a daily basis and I don’t think that I will ever not struggle with it, but God is teaching me through it. He is teaching me that nothing I do can change his mind or his love toward me. I can’t make him love me anymore or any less by what I do. He doesn’t love me because of my works. He loves me because I am his child. 

It’s a hard concept for me to grasp that God doesn’t love me more for serving him or following his commandments, especially when I feel like I’m suffering for following him. But I’m learning this is a good thing because although I sometimes do things that I think deserve praise, more often than not I fall short of what God intended for me. I screw up more often than I don’t. If God loved me based on my works, I don’t think He would love me very much.

Today I am thankful for God’s unconditional love through the work of Jesus dying on the cross. Jesus did the work so that I don’t have to. So why should I work any more than I need?

Today tragedy struck the nation as 20 innocent children were killed in a school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Now as usual when tragic things like this happen, I always sit back and wonder why this happened. Why would God let something like this occur? If God is bigger than anything else, then He could have kept this from happening. 20 little kids could still be alive and getting excited for Christmas, which by the way has to do with Jesus entering the world to save us from sin and evil.

But He didn’t stop this evil from happening. Instead he allowed it. He may not cause suffering, but He does allow suffering. For the longest time, I have tried to cope with this concept and understand it. But as I’ve gotten older, I realize that I will never understand it while I am still here on earth. But I’ve learned that it is a good thing, and I’m actually better off not understanding.

I know that God is sovereign over this. I know that while I don’t understand, He does. And that makes me in awe of Him so much more. If we understood all the things that we are not made to understand on earth, then I don’t think we would love God or worship him the same. Job 11:7 says it best: “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”

Something else I have realized about evil and suffering is that the presence of it in this world makes me that much more excited for Heaven where it won’t exist! If life on earth was all good, then where would our longing for Heaven come from? We have to go through suffering in order to long for a place where there is no suffering and pain. Romans 8: 18 says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

In times of tragedy like today, I know it is common for people to want to turn away from God. They say things like “How could a God exist if he allows suffering and evil?” However I think it makes more sense for the Christian God to exist if there is evil present. The evil in this world must point to something greater. Something good. For evil cannot exist if there is no good. Just like cold cannot exist if there is not heat and darkness if there is no light. Therefore if there is evil, then there must be good. There must be something more than the evil that we see. Evil points towards God, not away from Him.

Although I don’t know the answers and I don’t think I ever will, I am learning to be okay with that. I am learning that evil makes me see God’s sovereignty more and trust in his plan.

Matthew 19:14: Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”