“Honor is fidelity to a system of fixed values and relations. Is there anything today, even in the imagination of the Christian, for which we are willing to pay the price of self-sacrifice? Any ideal left, any clear-cut goal, any control of passion? Surely there is somewhere, but it is hard to find… I write in the hope that those who know what honor means will be cheered to see that they are not entirely alone. It may strengthen them to find that, even in recent decades, there are those who recognize something far greater than their own passions, even though for the world at large there seems to be nothing else of any consequence. The majority will sacrifice anything-security, honor, self-respect, the welfare of people they love, obedience to God-to passion. They will even tell themselves that they are obeying God (or at least that He doesn’t mind) and congratulate themselves for being so free, so released, so courageous, so honest, and ‘up front’. The greater the potential for good, the greater the potential for evil… A good and perfect gift, these natural desires. But so much the more necessary that they be restrained, controlled, corrected, even crucified, that they might be reborn in power and purity for God.”

– Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Elliot

God, You speak so boldly and loudly to us.
May I dare to live up to Your standard in my life.
Your standard, Lord, not my own.

I love You, Lord.

After a few instances in my psychology class, I found myself reflecting upon priorities as I walked home for lunch today. And I came to these conclusions:

~ When I prioritize giving my best for the Lord, then it will be seen in my discipline of eating and sleeping, so as not to hinder the Spirit by the flesh.
~ When I prioritize prayer, then just maybe I will start praying as much as I promote.
~ When I prioritize service, then I will discover ways to prepare my heart prior to the mission field entrance.
~ When I prioritize obedience, then I will reach out to the Body of Christ pleading for reprimanding and disciplining in all areas in which I fail to uphold the Lord’s standard.
~ When I prioritize God, then my life will reflect the growth and change that only the Spirit can accomplish as He prepares my heart for an encounter from the Most Holy of Holies.

I am learning that it is not the final product that defines character, but the time in between the assignment and the due date.

Lord, God, reprioritize my mind. May my life in turn be affected and changed by you. But please, God, start at the source… my mind.

I need You.

I came in the door tonight, thankful to have made it inside before collapsing from exhaustion. I can’t keep doing this. These 5 hour nights are killing me. Everywhere I turned tasks lay at my feet, waiting to be completed. Priorities are priorities… food.

Rice looked easy enough and yet a break from the usual Mac/cheese or (in all honesty) granola bars that I had been making meals lately. “Just trying to get by,” I’d tell myself, “If I can only make it through this quarter…” And I will, Lord permitting.

“Where’d you go?” her loud voice filled the room.
“Church.”
“Do you go there every day?” came my roommate’s disapproval.
“Pretty much.” I brushed her comment off, not feeling quite as motivated for the mission field called ‘my apartment’.
Seeing that I was working on a project (I was attempting to fix my turtle’s light) and I’d assume a bit disappointed that she had not received my usual spunk, she moved on to speak to my other roommates.
I tuned them out, grateful that they were talking to eachother, but fully understanding that my energy failed to permit multi-tasking. I tuned back in, after completing my project just as one roommate yelled above the other, “I’ll have to take you out and get you drunk to celebrate your 21st.” The comment was met with much cheering. It then occurred to me that the roommate speaking seemed a bit louder than usual. Then the story emerged of her previous activities earlier this evening, thus explaining her “altered” sense of vocal volume and slightly delayed thinking.

Joy, my thoughts arose, what a wonderful end to this “wonderful” day.

Then the conversation of age arose and someone was quick to announce that I was the “baby” of the group and my other roommate was the “oldest”. Being as how I have been referred to as a baby for my entire life, my lack of emotion quickly extinguished the teasing. Then the focus shifted to the oldest who was then referred to as “mom”. I just stirred my rice and listened to their ranting/raving.

The conversation concluded and everyone parted their ways. The apartment is now quiet. “Mom” has left to spend some time with a friend. My “louder” roommate is in her room, watching television. And my final roommate who was lacking complete coordination and brain-power due to previous decision this evening, well she has gone to study in the library. In all honesty, I am not sure how well that one shall work out.

Needless to say… this baby is going to bed. I shall arise early tomorrow when I am more fully energized to prepare further for this exam. But as for now, this baby is nothing but cranky, and I am well aware that cranky is not very glorifying to the One worthy of all praise.

As for the roommates, I have four words…

Jesus is worth it.

Lord, may I do more than just occupy space until Your coming.
Moving with Your aim, not just wasting time on things that don’t even matter in the end.
Teach me to prioritize Your time, cause it’s not mine.
Teach me to invest in Your things, cause they’re not mine.
And maybe even teach my heart to find Peace in brokenness.
I want to do more than just occupy space and fill time until Your return.





And You’re coming soon. You said so. So, the time to Live is now. Guide me in obedience to Your schedule, not mine. Your will, not mine. Your cross, Lord, teach me what it means to take it up daily and not just nod my head with the rest of the crowd in agreement to moving while we sit comfortably. No, Lord, teach me to stand up and move because You call me to be more than idol “faith”. Jesus, Your cross was because of my lack of good priorities. Your cross was because of my selfish “only what I want to do” schedules. Your cross was because of my commitment to one-inch relationships. Your cross was because of my wasting of time when You clearly said “go”. Your cross was because of my fear of this world more than my fear of the God who destroyed many nations for unfaithfulness. Lord, teach me to fear Your wrath and not just accept this monotone, casual Jesus image of the world. No over-analyzed theory, fancy belt buckles, or even creative campus ministry propaganda can hide my lack of devotion to my God. Lord, only Your words ignite my soul to willing service. Only Your name is worthy of praise, not my weak efforts to make a name for myself. Your focus is the heart. So regardless of how I display myself, if my heart is not fully focused on You, Jesus, then I am lying. Remove the obstacles, Lord. Remove all this fluff, Lord, that keeps my focus on my worldly status and not Your Eternity. I was only designed to serve one Master. Lord, make status mean nothing. Conquer this self-pleasing, self-determining, but self-destroying mind of mine. Only One Master, Lord. Clear out the other “masters”. Only One Master.





I love You, Jesus. And even when I feel like I’m the only one, You are indeed worth it.





You are well worth it all.

SOC 200 (sigh) is much like any other freshman course in that it inspires basic fundamental thinking of putting aside selfish high school thought and becoming a more responsible citizen. So, being as how I find myself in that class (don’t really want to go into why) in order to get my last Gen Ed requirement, I’m trying to make the best of it.

So yesterday to wrap up our lecture, our Prof brought up slides with inspiring statements like, “One person cannot change the world, but they can be a CATALYST of change.” Granted this saying is true, but at the same time… come on!!! This is corny! So then the Prof asked, “how could we do things different in order to be a catalyst of change?”
Oh great! I thought. Now we get to have a corny discussion in which someone will raise their hand and say… a girl interrupted my thought as she raised her hand, “we could be kinder to people and give money to the people who need it.” Yeah, say that. Point proven.

Then it hit me like a brick truck, these are babies, they have no idea about life. (Like I have room to talk, by the way) But these Freshman are still going through the invincible stage of stepping off curbs in non-pedestrian crossings in order to prove to their friends that they don’t fear getting hit by the speeding Semi. They haven’t gotten a chance to think for themselves yet, to realize that there is more to your identity than the latest wacko and impure fashion statement and watching crap TV for 9 hours a day. (So I just realized after writing that sentence that there are non-freshman on our campus that still haven’t figured it out either.)

My hand shot up.
“Yes? Did you have something to add?”
“We could make a difference by being an example. Like instead of going with the crowd in disrespect, we could dare to be respectful. You know, like going against your initial reaction to situations which makes you want to fit in. (referencing to Galatians 5:19-21)”
“Right, but we can’t always go against the initial response.”
I nodded my head realizing that sometimes going against our initial response could be not so good and also realizing that this woman and I did not share the same opinion of Truth.
She continued, “Because sometimes you can be too radical. And then people get uncomfortable. You know, like parents who are too religious… turns their children off to their religion. You know, sometimes it causes their kids to be radical in their beliefs as well, but most of the time it just turns their children off. So you want to go ahead and not be too drastic, you know; don’t make people uncomfortable.”
It was in that moment that I realized I was hearing a lie that had been whispered into society for a long time.

“Are you referring to what you just said as a general statement or in a specific situation?” A male student called out from amidst the crowd.
“Well, generally.” Our Prof responded walking toward the voice.
“Ok, then I disagree with you.” He boldly stated.
“Ok…” (a moment of awkward silence) “ok, so class,” and she continued to conclude the class.

To the student in the crowd, thank you. Sincerely, thank you.

I am blessed that not all people in society are buying into that lie.

There is hope.

I’d like to share with you an excerpt from my first paper that I wrote for my Social Life class. In order to better understand this excerpt there’s a few things that you need to know.
#1. Yes, I am a nerd because I want to share an excerpt of my paper on my blog. [Proud of it!]
#2. Schwalbe is the author of the book, “The Sociologically Examined Life” that I was instructed to read chapter 1 of and then summarize/ comment on. Where you are jumping into the paper, I am summarizing some of the text and then moving on to comment on one of the author’s quotations.
#3. Sociological Mindfulness is defined by the author as, “the practice of tuning-in to how the social world works”.

Ok, I think that’s all you need to know. Enjoy! [If it’s possible.]

Schwalbe nears the conclusion of the chapter with commentary on the rarity of the use of sociological mindfulness. He ventures forth various reasons for this rarity; “that sociological mindfulness doesn’t seem like much fun”, there “might be a belief that it [sociological mindfulness] won’t matter”, and “American individualism” is an inhibitor of sociological mindfulness, just to list a few. Schwalbe then concludes, “people resist being sociologically mindful for many reasons, but not because they are naturally selfish, competitive, or cowardly. If such feelings arise and inhibit sociological mindfulness, it is because of how people have grown up” (Schwalbe, 7). This conclusion is far from beneficial. How are we as individuals to ever grow into mature, responsible citizens if we are continually diverting blame for our mistakes onto our pasts? What benefit does this conclusion have? Are we honestly to believe that we are not responsible for our own actions because our past has such control over us that we are incapable of making positive and productive conclusions in this present time? We must find it within ourselves to maturely conclude that everyone in this world has influencing pasts and, therefore, we must decide to no longer use that fact as an excuse for unsound behavior in our present. Once we are able to maturely accept these facts, then we can move beyond our pasts and become the responsible citizens that we desire to have in this world.