More Binding than a Pinky Promise

Salutations!

I want to start of this week’s blog by saying I was going to write about something completely different until just a few moments ago. I’ve been really excited about this blog since I’ve started, and I’ve had a few people say it has encouraged them and that’s truly exciting to me. For my writing to help someone is amazing. That’s all I’ve ever wanted it to do. Anyway,

I changed my topic this morning. I have a little notebook I keep with me when I do my devotions, and I write down what I feel like God is speaking to me there as well. I was flipping through it and my eyes landed on something I wrote on January 26 of this year, and my mind immediately took me back to the moment.

I was sitting in my living room alone. No one was home but me and I was praying about something when God spoke to me and said 2014 would be the year that lost dreams, passions, and visions would be rekindled in people. I know without a doubt God spoke this to me because the next part was an analogy using mathematical terms, and I never would’ve come up with that. He said many people lost hope in what God promised because they couldn’t see it. But the thing is that he only gave them part of the equation because they weren’t ready for the formula yet, and because they didn’t have the formula, they couldn’t solve the equation.

(I about danced around the room at that moment because it clicked in my spirit immediately.)

I can relate to that, as I am sure many people can. God’s told me things before and I didn’t understand them at all, but weeks, months, years later I looked back and had an “ah-ha” moment. I had the formula and could understand the equation. And more often than not I’m grateful I only had a piece of the equation because if I had the formula, I would’ve known everything ahead of time and probably wouldn’t have been able to take it all in.

There are a couple of verses in Hebrews that really stick out to me concerning promises.

“Let us hold firmly to the hope that we have confessed, because we can trust God to do what he promised.” Hebrews 10:23
 “You must hold on, so you can do what God wants and receive what he promised.” Hebrews 10:26

The author of Hebrews believed holding onto what God said was key to receiving what he promised. He must have because he said it twice within a few verses. I love looking up words, so I looked up “hold.” Sure, it’s a simple one-syllable word, but I find words fascinating. When I looked it up, the definition that stuck out to me was this: to keep or sustain a specified position (New Oxford American Dictionary). God promises are huge. Sometimes we don’t understand how in the world they’ll come to pass. But we have to hold onto them. Because God doesn’t lie: It’s outside of his nature. No matter what comes against us or how impossible everything seems, we have to keep our specified position. We may not always like where we are at, but sometimes we have to sustain it to receive the promise. 

When speaking of promises, I’m reminded of Abraham. The other day I was reading in Romans and a few verses really stuck out to me in a way they hadn’t before (I guess God was already preparing me for this blog. He’s pretty on top of it all way before I am.) I’m sure everyone knows the story about Abraham and Sarah, but I’ll summarize anyway to refresh your memory. Abraham and Sarah were nearly a hundred years old and wanted children. Romans 4:18 says,

“There was no hope that Abraham would have children. But Abraham believed God and continued hoping, and so he became the father of many nations. As God told him, ‘Your descendants also will be too many to count.’”

It looked impossible. They were well past childbearing age, but it says Abraham continued to hope. He held onto God’s promise.

“Abraham thought about all this, but his faith in God did not become weak. He never doubted that God would keep his promise, and he never stopped believing. He grew stronger in his faith and gave praise to God. Abraham felt sure God was able to do what he had promised.”
Romans 4:19b-21

Abraham thought about what God promised him and his faith became stronger when he did. Why? Because he thought about how great God was. He didn’t doubt. He knew God could and would do what he promised. Often when we think of God’s promises, we think about how impossible they are. We need to change our thinking. When God makes a promise to us, we need to continually remind ourselves how great he is and how nothing is impossible with him. We won’t understand everything all the time, and we need to be okay with that. Abraham had a piece of the equation: he had a promise. And God did fulfill that promise, but Abraham didn’t see it fully come into fruition. Sarah gave birth to Isaac, but that was only a piece of the equation. The fully fulfilled promise didn’t come about for a long time. We tend to want things now and not wait, but we have to be patient. We will receive the formula to solve the equation at the right time.

Remember doing pinky promises when you were little? Nothing could break a pinky promise. If you did a pinky promise, you couldn’t go back on it. It was binding. But we’re only human and we sometimes break our promises. Pinky promises may be the ultimate binding promise for us, especially as children, but God’s promises are much more binding. He doesn’t break them, won’t break them. It may seem too big, but nothing is impossible with him.

“‘For people this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’” Matthew 19:26

So what must you do to receive what God promised? You have to hold tight to it and not let what people around you or what circumstances look like distract you from the beauty and magnificence of the promise. You must think upon the promise God gave you and think about how great he is and how able he is to fulfill it. Doing this will build up your faith and help you hold onto the promise. And lastly, you must not doubt. Abraham didn’t doubt, but his actions caused his faith to grow.

“But when you ask God, you must believed and not doubt. Anyone who doubts is like a wave in the sea, blown up and down by the wind.” James 1:6

Doubting will do you no good and the next verse says doubters won’t receive anything from God. Build up your faith by thinking about God’s greatness. Hold onto his promise and remember his promises are more binding than pinky promises. They may not come about today, tomorrow, next week or next month, but they will at the right time. And along the way you will get pieces of the equation. You’ll see bits coming together and soon you’ll have the formula to solve the equation and the promise will come to pass. Keep holding on.

Here's a word: Willing

Have you ever felt called to do something or had a passion for something or had a creative idea, but felt you lacked the ability or skills to fulfill it? Have you ever beat yourself up because something you did wasn’t perfect or because it was a 91% and not a 100%?

There have been times when I have. My writing wasn’t what I wanted it to be or I didn’t do as well on a paper or test as I thought I would. When my desire to go to England started, it was just a dream. But God turned that dream into something much bigger. He told me I was going to go there for His purpose and not for my own pleasure. And it scared me at first. It took me a while to fully accept it.

I didn’t know how it was even possible. I mean I was the shyest kid you’d ever meet when I was little. One time someone tried to pay me a dollar to talk to them. Whether it was stubbornness or not I’m not sure, but I didn’t take the dollar. I wouldn’t order my food at restaurants or even talk to my friend’s parents. But the older I got, the more I opened up. I changed from being shy to just being quiet. I don’t have the super outgoing, bubbly personality that I felt you needed to have to be a speaker or something. I could get in front of people and do skits and human videos and even talk, but I didn’t feel like I had to skills for public speaking. (Face palm, right? What did I think the other stuff was?)

In short, my vision was limited.

I saw being a missionary as only being someone who went and spoke to people or something like that. I didn’t see them as people who built relationships with people around them and I especially didn’t see them as people who developed programs to reach people. But as time passed, my vision became broader. I went to Haiti and Peru and saw a different side I hadn’t seen before: relationship. And finally, when I went to visit Krista in England, I saw the things she did and I was intrigued and excited about it.

My vision was illuminated.

Steps led me to helping out a lot with design on genesis – the literary and art magazine of IUPUI, and I later became one of the managing editors and received a certificate in desktop publishing. The skills I learned there are invaluable to me. Without them, I don’t think I would feel as comfortable and prepared I do with what lies ahead at the Creative Lab. That doesn’t mean I don’t expand my knowledge, but genesis prepared me in so many ways.

But even so, when I was going through the application and interview process for the Creative Lab, there were times I would kick myself over something I said, thinking I should’ve said it differently. I had peace about it all, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have to fight for it. Peace isn’t something that just stays with you without you pushing for it. You can’t be negative and keep your peace. It’s something you have to accept and you have to have the right attitude and mindset to keep it. One day while I was waiting to hear back, I was reading Undaunted by Christine Caine and I don’t remember exactly what I read, but I remember this sentence coming to my mind after I read it: God doesn’t ask you to be perfect, but he asks you to be willing.

Will-ing – adjective : not refusing to do something
: quick to act or respond : doing something or ready to do something without being persuaded
: done, made, or given by choice
(Merriam-Webster)

Think about that for a moment.

I can be a perfectionist. In school, if I somehow misspelled a word or had even the tiniest typo in a paper, I would be so annoyed because I expected a lot of myself, which isn’t a bad thing, but we can take it too far. It’s good to try to be your best and do your best, but no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be perfect.

per-fect – adjective : being entirely without fault or defect
: having no mistakes or flaws
: completely correct or accurate
(Merriam-Webster)

Yikes. Perfection is unrealistic and if you’re always trying to be perfect, you’ll only burn yourself out and bum yourself out.

But when you’re willing, when you say I’ll do it, you’re doing the best thing you could ever do. A lot of people miss out on what God has in store because they’re not willing. They’re comfortable with where they’re at and what God asks of them is too scary or too difficult and they can’t do it. And the truth is, a lot of the time we can’t do it without his help or it’s not as simple without his help. But when you let go of all the fear or hesitation and say, “I’m willing,” wonders are ahead. God will never ask you to do something and not give you the ability to see it through.

Seek after a willing heart and not after perfection. God doesn’t want or ask you to be perfect, but all he asks is for you to be willing.

Let's have a cup of happiness.

Wingapo.

For those of you who are not familiar with Pocahontas, that means hello.

Welcome to my revamped blog. My other one felt a little stiff and I wanted something that could express more of my personality. I’ve started off greeting you with “Wingapo,” so I think I’m headed in the right direction.

Anyway, to the purpose of this post, my first post on “Adventures of an Anglophile.” I was sitting in the living room, drinking my morning chai and thinking about this blog and what I wanted it to be. And I decided to make the web address: anicecupofchai (a nice cup of chai). For me, chai lattes are comforting. They’re something I look forward to; they are a little cup of happiness. And that’s what I want this blog to be. I want it to be funny, comforting, encouraging, and a little cup of happiness. But I also want it to be challenging.

“How in the world does that go with a cup of chai?” you’re thinking. Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever made one, but I use a concentrate and to make the cup of happiness you have to do half concentrate and half milk and sometimes it just doesn’t turn out right no matter how you measure. There’s the challenge. You didn’t think it was going to work, did you?

So here’s my first post. I hope it achieves some of those goals.

People always have questions because they’re curious. Questions help us get to the heart of the matter and help us better understand those around us. A few people have asked me whether I’m nervous or scared about the journey ahead of me. The first time I was asked was by a girl I work with. When she asked me I stopped and thought for a moment and smiled to myself.

“No, I’m not scared,” I told her. And I’m not. I love that I’m not. Sure, sometimes I lie in bed at night and wonder how I’ll cope with not seeing my family and friends and being so far from them, but I fall asleep in peace because I have such strong assurance in God.

Everything about this process has been easy. But that’s not to say I haven’t been stressed at moments or when I was going through the application process I didn’t get nervous. It just means that everything has gone so smoothly. I haven’t had anything be difficult; I haven’t had to force things to happen.

It’s June and I already have my Visa in hand, my plane ticket purchased, and I’m so close to raising all of my support.

There have been moments when I’ve thought, God, how am I going to do this? But then I’ll read something or I’ll pray or spend time with the Holy Spirit and peace will overwhelm me. I don’t have to think those things because I have all I will ever need. I can’t do it on my own, but I can do it with Him. I’m always reminded of 2 Peter 1:3.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Even when we feel like we can’t do something or we’re not good enough, we can do it because He wouldn’t ask us to do something and not give us the ability or knowledge to do it. It all comes down to trust and faith. We have to believe and not doubt that He’ll do what he says. Sometimes it doesn’t look like there is a way out, but there is. There always is.

I love being able to encourage people and tell them that they aren’t alone. I remember being in high school and not really having a clue what the path I would walk down would look like and it stressed me out. I’m a planner: I like to plan. I can go with the flow and be spontaneous, but I like to know what’s ahead. But when I finally let go of everything, peace overwhelmed me.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re going through, know you’re not alone. Someone out there has gone through the same or similar thing. But you can beat any obstacle if you trust and believe.

I’m not scared and I’m not nervous because I know without a doubt I’m on the path I’m supposed to be. Yes there will be times I will be homesick, but we make sacrifices in life, and right now, that’s one of mine. And I know God will comfort me and bring relationships into my life to help me through. He doesn’t leave us hanging.

I lift my cup (or mug) to you and hope you’ll follow my blog, post a comment, and laugh with me, cry with me, rejoice with me, and think with me as I embark on my adventures.