a God that's FOR me

I need to do a better job of writing here. I do think about it often, it just doesn't get from my mind to my fingertips.

Here is the scripture I've been thinking about tonight...

"If God is for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:31

Max Lucado makes an interesting point in his book, Grace for the Moment, "The question is not simply, "Who can be against us?" You could answer that one. Disease, inflation, corruption, exhaustion... We're Paul's question, "Who can be against us?" we could list our foes much easier than we could fight them. But that is not the question, The question is, If GOD IS FOR US, who can be against us?"

The first statement puts the question in context.

I started thinking about the people I am not for. I'm not really for the man behind me in the grocery store line. I'm not really for the mom at school whose name I do not know. I'm not really for the person at church who I just say hi to in the hallway (shocking, I know). Nor am I really for the people I see on t.v. whose lives are crumbling under them. I have no connection to them. I'm not really for these people. I don't know them, they don't know me. There's no reason I would be for them. It would be silly for me to go to great lengths for people I don't know.

In contrast, I've been thinking about the people who I am for. There are a handful of people who I would drop everything for. I would stay up late praying for. I would go to the hospital and wait in the waiting room for. I would step in front of a bus for. I would give my life for. I would sacrifice my needs and desires for their needs and desires. There is one stark contrast between the people I am not for and the people I am for. The major factor is that I know one set intimately and the other set I do not know.

I have every reason to be for my friends. I know them. I love them. I want the best for them. I have shared in their joys and sorrows. I have fought in the battles of everyday life with them. And because of that, I am for them. I am fighting for them. I am loving on them. I am walking daily life with them.

Isn't it the same way with God? He is for those he knows. Those of us who are in relationship with him, are in his camp, he is for us. He wants the best for us. He wants to bless us. He wants to be near to us. My earthly self can drive fast, pray hard, and max out my credit cards for you, but the all- powerful, all- knowing, all- seeing God of the universe is for you. So, what can be against you?

Absolutely nothing.

time gone by...

How has it been almost 4 months since I have sat down here... oh wow. Student teaching absolutely consumed my life. But in all honesty, I was exactly where God wanted me to be. And I am absolutely blessed.

I am done student teaching! Yeah. It's sort of bitter sweet. At the end, I just wanted to be done. But now I want to go back. As frustrated as those 13 boys and girls would make me, I am somehow drawn back to them. I know that I can never go back, so I am thankful for the time I had with them.

I had a very specific word over student teaching. And it was to pursue a family that I have become friends with. I have fallen for them, but more for the fact that they are real people. How many of us are real? How many of us wear our hearts on our sleeves? How many of us love the best we know how and give everything we have to the people around us? I am blessed to know people who do.

The scripture I got for this season is this: "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you." - 1 Thessalonians 3:12

My prayer is that whenever I'm with people, they would know that they are loved. I pray they would think, either consciously, or subconsciously, that they were loved. And they were loved well. I feel like I'm in a season where I have the opportunity to love well. I have the grace to extend love to the most unlikely of people. And so that is my goal. To love well.

I want my love to increase and overflow.