Enriched

1 Corinthians 1:4-5 "Now that you are Christ's, He has enriched your whole life!"
I love how that verse is worded. I do live a life that is so enriched. Lately, I have been battling with my attitude and emotions. It's almost a constant fight to hold on to my usual smiling face and joyous presence. Am I drained? I don't feel like it. I am excited, actually. And have been spending time in His Word, and yesterday I watched several NOOMA videos from Rob Bell and really received from him. I think it might be the absence of just soaking in His presence. I hardly ever worship anymore, except in my car on occasion. And you know what I mean by that- we worship God in so many ways, but I've always connected deeply to Him with music.
I have some awesome news: my Grandma & Grandpa called me this weekend and told me that my dad got baptized a few weeks ago and is getting involved in church. They said they can tell a difference in him- that he's genuinely excited about life. It blesses me so much to hear that! I don't have a relationship with my dad, but I've been praying for years that restoration would come- first in his life, and then for us. Thank you God that you've started a good work in his heart!
We are planning on planting 2 new churches in our area. Being short of staff, we really are depending more than ever on the strength that only He can give. Please pray!
Our Disney World trip was so awesome. We were able to truly be kids again :) and friendships grew tighter and deeper. I love these people so much! I don't know why I always focus on the friends that are away from me... God has so richly blessed me here and now.

I rarely watch Christian television for obvious reasons- much of it is way oldschool, and honestly bores me. Or it's so corny that I want to laugh, and then feel bad. But I was flipping channels this weekend and started listening to pastor named Jenetezen Franklin (not really sure how to spell his first name). He has a HUGE church. It looked like thousands of people were in that sanctuary. He was talking about different covenants throughout the Old Testament- specifically, the covenant of salt. I had never heard of it before, so I decided to watch.
He had a loaf of bread and a salt shaker for a visual aid. He used the story of Lot as one of his examples (I don't remember the other ones) and how Lot was considered a righteous man. Lot had God in his life- the bread- but he did not have the salt. What is the salt? It's the high standard of purity and righteousness that we choose to take up when we surrender our lives to Christ. Jesus says that we are the salt of the world- we bring a certain flavor to this place that other people do not have. When Lot was fleeing from Sodom and Gomorrah, his wife disobeyed God and looked back on the city and turned into... salt? Maybe God did that to prove that a certain saltiness was missing from their lives. The pastor mentioned that God did not call us to be sugar- we are not supposed to sweeten up the message of the Gospel so that more people will be comfortable and come, but we are to be SALT. It can be bitter to the taste, but it makes you thirsty for more.
It was a serisouly good message. I was so challenged by it. We talked about this in our girls Bible Study a while back. Colleene took a cookie and poured a little bit of salt on it. We all agreed that if you tasted the cookie, it wouldn't be much different than before. But then she doused the cookie in salt, and explained that saltiness is offensive at times. We follow a God who is holy, who calls us to be holy like Him. We are supposed to be blatantly different from this world. And at times, it will offend.

Like I've written in a previous blog:
There are other ways to live that won't get you beat up, put down, or nailed to a cross.
Praise God that we can bear His image so beautifully that it would cause anger and guilt and conviction in the lives of unbelievers. But we must remember to respond with LOVE.