to learn & to love.

I've been trying write a blog update for about a week now, but every time I have a free moment, whether it's Friday night before church, Saturday evening after hiking, or stealing a few free minutes poolside between classes, the words just haven't seemed to flow. I don't know where to start. Do you want to hear that life is great? That I love my team and the worship is beautiful and the sun is tanning my skin as I lay by the pool on Colorado's hot spring days? (the hot days are few and far between, by the way). Do you want to know that I love the mountains, that I thrive off community living, and that I'm being poured into from students, speakers and staff? All of these are true, real statements.

But do you also want to know that I'm being broken apart? Do you really want to hear what it's like when I fall to my knees sobbing as I intercede for other nations? Or that each day every belief I've ever had in God and in myself are challenged, stretched, and often broken to be reformed? That I don't know what God has planned for my life, I don't know where He's taking me or what the future brings. I have no security plan. I have no savings account. I don't have a house, a car, a job, or ANYTHING that brings security to the average American. And yet God is asking me to take it one step further, to trust him more, to seek him further. And what other choice do I have? Say no? I rather be broken.

As we worshipped Monday morning, God was moving so powerfully, and I asked him to show me the plan that he has for me. The response I got was this, "Seek me further first."
I responded with a question. What am I doing right now? Why am I here? What he told me was simple, "Learn. & Love"

This week we are learning about love. Well, the title is technically "relationships," but when you break it down, Love is the one commandment God gives us - the one thing that brings us closer to him, and closer to each other. It's completely essential in our lives, especially if we ever want to have an impact on others. I realized here that I have no idea what that word truly means (which I guess fulfills a chunk of that learning requirement God sent me here for). I'm learning about humility and truth and to love according to one's value and not their behavior or my feelings towards them. I'm being broken daily. And it hurts.

But it's so good.

God has asked me to seek his face, not his hand. I'm pursuing his heart, and not his works. It's that intimacy, that realness, that fellowship with him that has been bringing me to life. And as scary as it is, I know that's what I was designed for.