If you're lucky you'll never make it out alive, and that's a good thing!

"So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the LORD. And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD." Lev. 22:31-33

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward You are serving the Lord Christ." Col. 3:23,24

It isn't what we do, or how we do it, it's Who we do it for.

Leviticus is full of really hard laws. Everything in the tabernacle must be done just so. Absolute perfection is required of both the sacrifices and the priests who serve. Now we know that perfection was needed because it was a picture of the Perfect Sacrifice and Perfect High Priest, but that wasn't quite as clear to those who had to keep the laws. I can imagine the priests listening and thinking, "How can I ever keep all of this straight? Is it even worth it?"

In a similar way, the Law of Love is hard. Patience, humility, counting others more significant than ourselves... seriously? Our culture and our selfishness insist that a life like that is crazy. Why would we work toward those goals? I mean, sure, living at peace with all men sounds great, but not if that means living a life of inconvenience and pain, right?

And so God gives us a reason.
You're not working for people who will take advantage of and disappoint you.
You're not working so that you can check off everything on a cold, impersonal checklist.
You're not working to make yourself look or feel better.
You're not working to be accepted into a group or organization.

Most likely, as you work all of those things will come about in some way or another.
But none of these are the encouragement that God gives us.

We work and die to ourselves because the One who loved us when we were unloveable asked us to. We work because the One who rescued us from Egypt, Who called us out of Chaos into Order, has asked us to. We offer our lives as a living sacrifice, because the Perfect Sacrifice died for us!

We're not working for them. We love, because He first loved us. Because His Spirit is in us, enabling us to follow His example. Our True Love is helping us to have all of the character traits that we love and admire in Him!

He loves us, my siblings, and He's gone to great lengths to rescue us and prove that love to us. Now He asks that we follow His example and show the world how He loves us, and He gives us the ability to do it. Is anything too hard when you know it will make your Beloved smile?

Be encouraged: HE is worth it!


Peace to you,
Sarita

*Title taken from lyrics to "Love is a Good Thing" by Andrew Peterson

We dream in the night of a King and a Kingdom where Joy writes the Songs and the Innocent sing Them

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Revelation 5:8

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of  all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Revelation 8:3,4

Have you ever sat and watched incense burn? It's mesmerizing. The smoke swirls up, sometimes smooth, sometimes jerking around at the smallest invisible puff of air. Dancing slowly up and out, it hangs about you in a faint cloud, and then melts into a sweet, woody scent that stays with you long after it has all burned away. So far it's the loveliest, most peaceful way I've found to make my room smell nice.

This evening as I lit a stick of frankincense, I was thinking about how strict God was in his regulations on which incense was burned when in the temple. It made sense to me that God would want something so beautiful and sweet to be a part of worshipping Him. And then I remembered these verses in Revelation.

He enjoys our prayers like that! OUR prayers! Part of me wonders if He made the burning of incense such a beautiful thing just to show us what our prayers are like to Him. He probably had many more wonderful reasons that I'm not noticing, but it's a special thought.

Another thing I noticed about incense is that the stick itself gets almost no attention at all. I light it and it slowly smokes down to ash. All of the focus is on the pleasure that the product of its burning gives me.

That's me, you know? On my own, I'm nothing special. I look no different than the lame little punk you get to help you light fireworks, except that I've been coated with something that turns my burning into something beautiful.

Here I am, living a life that seems so pathetically insignificant. Every day the ember moves further down and more of my life is ash. And yet! And yet this lame life drives me day after day to prayer, and that prayer is more beautiful, more cherished than I could ever imagine! These prayers that seem so insignificant are swirling up before God, and He enjoys them!

It's a humbling, trembling thought that someone as unimportant as I could be pleasing to Him (only through Christ, of course)! Maybe right now He doesn't want me to be some bonfire of passion and action. Maybe He just wants a little incense stick to smolder her way to eternity and fill the air with the sweet scent of her prayers.

I can do that. By the grace of God, I can do that!

*Title taken from lyrics by Andrew Peterson in his song 'Carry the Fire'

Hail to the King!

I love my Facebook friends and their statuses this morning! Some are overjoyed at the results of yesterday's election, and some are overly despondent. More than a third, however, are chill, and most of those who are chill are so because their hope and happiness are not dependent on a man, but on God. This makes my soul sing!

What a great God we serve, who has allowed America to reelect President Obama! How will He use him to strengthen His Bride and call more people to Himself? Maybe in a scary way, like some are saying, and maybe not. The fact is, in the great plan of God, the presidency of Barack Obama is the best way to come to the best possible ending! "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

I'm excited.
Congratulations, Mr. President! I pray that you will grow in wisdom, and will lead our country well. I pray that you will uphold righteousness and defend the helpless. More than anything, I pray that you will come to know the King who has granted you this presidency!

Doesn't it just make you want to dance, knowing that God might save the president? How awesome would that be?! Don't be cynical; pray! and trust in the God who is trustworthy!

Oh isn't He good?! He is the king of all! Whether the next four years reveal that we have elected an Ahab or a Hezekiah, our God is the same, and He is faithful!

Dios te bendiga!
Sarah

And the answer is...

Thank you, thank you, a thousand times, THANK YOU for your prayers! I wish I could express to each of you how much they mean to me.

August felt rather like a spinning, twisting rollercoaster that I wasn't sure I'd survive. It was very busy, and my mind and heart were very full of weightier matters than they are used to. The decision of whether or not I should move to Peru for two years troubled me more than I ever would've expected it to.

For starters, it revealed some serious idols in my life. Not necessarily bad things, but dreams I had put on a pedestal without even realizing it. I spent at least one morose week finding myself challenged at every turn by dreams that I had told myself I'd given to God, but really hadn't. It was good, but oh! it hurt.

When I came to the end of that idol-crushing fest, however, I still didn't have peace about going. I don't really know how to describe it. I was finally willing to go, and sometimes I was even excited at the thought of going, but there was always... a heaviness. It never seemed right. So I continued to pray, and I could tell I was being prayed for.

Finally, during the hours of silence on the ride from Indianapolis to St. Louis, with a little over a week left until I needed to send my reply, I knew that I needed to take a step. I remembered that God is sovereign, and if He didn't want me to go to Peru, He was completely able to make that clear to me. At the time, aside from a few things I needed to ask about, I couldn't think of a good reason not to go besides the unsettling lack of peace, but I wasn't entirely sure that wasn't just my selfishness.

I decided to apply and see what happened from there. The next night at the dinner table, I told my family. They were, as they have been during this entire decision-making process, very accepting of it, and agreed that if God didn't want me to go, He would make it clear. That night during Family Bible Time, Dad prayed just that: that if there was anything I needed to know, God would show me quickly. I thought to myself, "Why is he praying that so fervently now, after I've decided to apply?"

That night, I was finally able to chat with a sister who lives in Peru, and who was actually the one who first told me about the position. I hadn't talked to her at all since the interview I had with the General Director, and so she wanted to know all about it. As I was typing, the lack of peace I'd been feeling began to turn into something more concrete. She made some points that I hadn't thought of, or had thought of, but had just assumed I was misunderstanding because of the distance, and advised me not to go. By the end of our chat, the lack of peace seemed to have transformed into the letters N and O. It felt rather like a whisper of fresh air.

However, it sent my mind into total chaos. What about learning Spanish? Doing something meaningful and cool with my life? What about finally knowing what I was going to do for at least two years, after all these years of not having a clue? What if I never got another chance to leave the country? What if I was just being selfish?

It's crazy, isn't it, how I can so easily make any decision for the wrong reasons? All praise to our patient, gracious God for His steadfast love!

I now had exactly one week until September, and my mind had changed direction completely. I decided that I would decline the invitation to apply, unless the Lord showed me otherwise during the week. So I prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and the more I prayed, the more peace I felt about not going.

So now I've sent in my reply. I am, until God leads otherwise, staying in the USA. Thank you again for your prayers! Please join me in praying that the Lord will send the perfect teacher to that school.


Glory to the God who hears and answers the cry of His servants!

Dios te bendiga!
Sarita

Please Pray with Me.

Hello, my dear friends.

I apologize for not updating you on how the latest trip to Texas went. For that matter, I'm sorry I didn't even mention it before I left. I've been insanely busy, blah-blah-blah. You've heard it all before, but I truly am sorry.

I'd love to give you an update, and tell you all about how God blessed us on this last trip (and wow, did He ever bless us!), but I can't get my brain to focus on that right now. Instead, I would like to ask for your prayers.

I've been presented with the possible opportunity of teaching preschool in Peru. Crazy, right? Believe me, I never thought I'd ever be typing those words on this blog! But it's true, and I said I would give them an answer by early September.

Basically, it's a missionary position, so I have to raise a little support. It also requires a two-year commitment, and I'd be in Peru from February to December each year.

There are a lot of really great things about it, like learning Spanish and getting to work with preschoolers in a Christian school. But then there are things that make it a complicated decision, like the fact that I have no formal experience teaching, and that I'd be away from any sort of family situation for two years.

Add to that the fact that all I really want to do is move to Mission, TX, and my life-long desire to see the world, and you can see how it's difficult for me to commit one way or another.

So I'm praying a lot, and seeking wisdom from those who know me best. And I'm asking you to pray for and with me.
I hesitated to tell anyone at first, because I'm so sick of letting everyone down. It seems like every time some amazing possibility is set before me (working with Wycliffe, for example), it ends up not being the Lord's will, and I sometimes get the impression that people who have been praying for me are very disappointed something exciting didn't happen. Do not pray this way.

Pray that God would make the wise way very clear to my family and me, and that He would equip me to do what He asks, just as He's promised to do. It's always cool praying that God would do what He's already promised. Maybe it's kind of cheating, but it's still awesome to see those prayers answered. :)

Thank you in advance for your prayers. I'll be sure to let you know how God leads!

Also, as you read this, you may be tempted to respond in a very dramatic way. I humbly ask that you would please not reply with, "NO!!! You can't leave me!"
Unless you're going to follow up that exclamation with a proposal of marriage, please keep it to yourself and remember two things:

1. THIS IS NOT A DEFINITE THING!
At this point there's about a 50/50 chance of me going or staying.

2. You do not need me.
Believe it or not, you don't. You need Christ. So as much as I love you (and if that's your reaction I'm sure I love you very much!), I am not necessary to your survival.

May God bless you and keep you and cause His face to shine upon you!

Dios te bendiga,
Sarita