Trusting God.

"To question the goodness of God is, in essence, to imply that man is more concerned about goodness than is God... To suggest that man is kinder than God is to subvert the very nature of God... It is to deny God; and this is precisely the thrust of the temptation to question the goodness of God." (145)

Asking.

So the first book on my reading this summer for RUF is this book called Asking by Jerry Panas. And it was AMAZING! If anyone ever finds themselves raising money for either a short-term mission trip or starting a whole new ministry or even doing a small part of a HUGE ministry like RUF, they should have the requirement of reading this encouraging book. Panas outlines not the methodology or tricks to fundraising but the real purpose and attitude we are to have. I was most encouraged by a few tidbits that I will share. One this "fundraising" that I and 41 other interns are currently doing is not "begging". I did have someone tell me I was too good to beg for money. And to them I now know the correct response. I am not to good to beg for money, BUT begging is not what I am doing. I am offering an opportunity to anyone and everyone to be apart of a mnistry that has a purpose for Christ, a goal for Christ, and will change and save real lives. To think about it in this way is extremely encouraging. This is an opportunity for us all to embrace Christ and the gifts he has given us to reach college students with the gospel for the gospel. Secondly there is no failure in this process. Christ does not need me. But he has called me in this moment to persue this ministry. If someone says "No" or "Yes" they are under the sovereignty of God. He says, "In his career Michael Jordon said he missed nearly 10,000 shots, lost over 3,000 games, and missed making the decisive shot dozens of times."-pg.13 He failed many times but that was also apart of his success. How encouraging! You're never a loser until you quit trying and you don't have to be great to start BUT you have to start to be GREAT!!!! I could say so much more about this book and how I completely understand why they require us to read it. For now I want to leave my fellow interns with this qoute,

"Get ready for the great adventure. Because of you and the funds you raise, you'll be directly reponsible, through your organization, for changing lives. You're making it happen."-pg.11

RUF Orientation.

When I got off the plane and into my sister’s car I said “this past week changed my life, I think”. Why, with a laugh is what she said. Its possible to say its changed my life for numerous reasons but I think that mainly it has enhanced every reason I didn’t know before about why I want to work for RUF. Spending a week in Atlanta sounded like this cool vacation that I would get to have, however I could not have imagined the week without spending 10 hours a day in those freezing cold conference rooms.

To start off I got to meet probably 35 of the coolest people my age from around the country. I cannot praise God enough for calling them all to serve with RUF and to have them available to me as friends! They were kind, loving and supportive the moment we exchanged names and which schools we would be working at. I felt like it was summer camp almost with the amount of time we got to spend sitting next to one another, but overall I now have many more close friends to confide in as a result.

We spent time going over the logistics of insurance, how tos of this and that, who to call with a problem and who not to call. While all this was so refreshing because it now made this huge idea of working for RUF a reality, my favorite part of the week was the POM.

No we didn’t sit around and drinking that expensive pomegranate juice called POM, although I wouldn’t had minded. POM stands for philosophy of ministry and this is what I already see God using to work on my heart. We learned that ministering isn’t some big cloud of just sharing the gospel, but has purpose, goals, and principles.

The purpose of RUF is to reach students for Christ, all students not just Christians or non-Christians, but we all are in need of Christ everyday. And then to equip them to serve. RUF is a ministry of purpose not methods. No two campus are exactly alike. We then accomplish our purpose by working toward four goals. Growth in grace where students grow in understanding of the gospel and their need for the grace of Christ. Fellowship and service is where students are involved in genuine relationships to one another and looking for opportunities to be inconvenienced in love. Evangelism and missions is where students are using their gifts for reaching others and growing in their concern for the lost throughout the world. The fourth goal is a biblical world and life view that students will have when seeing everything in relation to God and His word. Those goals alone changed how I was approaching ministry.

The four principles that underlie our goals and purposes are Scripture, Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification. These are the four things that we as interns have to be more and more aware of as we desire to serve. Its not that I haven’t already extensively studied these things, but that I heard new and fresh ideas behind them all this week. How my sin can get in the way of me believing in all of them and that I will be growing in knowing and understanding how God works in them and through them for the next two years. This isn’t even a crumb of the cake we attacked this week. At points it was information overload and I am still trying to sit and process it all.

I am so thankful for God and his goodness to me and the 41 other interns who are in the new class of 2009! Please continue to pray for fundraising and all the things that are on my plate for the month of June.

Encouragement for the Week.

As many of you know the support raising has begun. Technically I don't have any official supporters yet but was surprised to talk to many people face to face this weekend who are most certainly interested in supporting the ministry. This past weekend I went home for a good friends wedding, which I am sure I could yap about the amazingness of marriage and its picture of Christ and the church but I won't. I was immediately discouraged when a seemingly close person to me said they didn't see it possible to raise this money. Earlier they supported my decision fully but now with a knowledge of exactly how much it was going to be, they lack any amount of faith to believe it possible. To this I began to wonder.......

If we deem the sun not there, does it still shine?
If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it not make a sound?
If we say where is love because we cannot see or physically touch it, do we say no one has it?
If I say there is no gravity but experience it every moment, do I not deny reality?
If we say there is no truth, are we not deeming what we say to be true?
And if you say there is no God because you do not see him, hear him, or believe in him, does that then mean that he does not exist or interact sovereignly in this world???
By no means. Just because I or we or us cannot see God's faithfulness to us and his plan for us doesn't mean He doesn't exist.

Later on in the weekend another friend said to me, quite plain and simple. "God works in such amazing ways. He will provide for you." This was also in the context of her knowing many other friends who have worked in campus ministry before. When we let our hearts muddy up situations things become much more complicated than they are. But it is as simple as God is good and He does work all things for those who love him. Christ died for us. How much more sacrifice and evidence do we need from a God who is perfect in every way and out of pure kindness stepped down to man to make us right with himself.

"And God is able to make all things abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." --2 Corinthians 9:8

RUF Summer Conference

For one whole week I got to be at one of the most beautiful beaches in Florida. It was a blessing that God provided financially for half of the trip through a gracious bible study. I was excited about the week for many reasons. My first week after a successful completion of undergrad, my last time as apart of VCU RUF, time apart from work, time apart from chaos, learning new things from the Word of God, meeting my new "boss" and students from Western, seeing white sand, oh the list goes on.

One theme of the week seemed to be the interesting variety of schools present. Many of the students I was with liked to point how different we are than most schools, especially southern schools. We certainly lack "spirit" and a school cheer thats for sure. But I found it quite encouraging. I have been told and have read all about the history of RUF and where the ministry exists in the country. However to see that many students come together from all over the country was amazing. The good work that RUF does in so many students lives through the grace of Jesus Christ alone was so clear to me.

I know I am a sucker for anything reformed and fluff free, so the week seemed to hit every spot of my heart. Whether everyone was a Christian or not Christ was made known and He was Glorified. At RUF there is no doubt that you will hear the truth of what GRACE is, how God is the creator of it and our need for it! That could be enough said but I will continue.

My favorite seminar I took was on Covenant Theology. It took my breathe away. I not only learned an abundance of new things that I truly needed to hear, but God humbled me through it to show me how he has been working for the good of me all along. Before I was born he was working a good work for me. I was impressed by a certain argument made by the campus minister for a certain controversial issue related to the topic. Note: email me if you want to discuss sed controversial topic

Another seminar I took was on keeping the Sabbath Day Holy..... Whoa a much bigger issue than you would ever believe. Not only do I now understand the Jewish Sabbath day better but I understand what ours should be. Its a day of celebration and thats why we should rest. Its a day of communion with other believers because God chose to commune with us. It is a time that we should give ourselves to resting in Christ and what He alone has done for us. He not only commands it but He creates us for it. And His work on the Cross compels us to celebrate his resurrection in a day apart from our daily routine. I loved how encouraging it was and to know it all comes down to the heart, Christ cares about the heart.

Finally then to mention something so amazing. The excitement I have about working with RUF. For sometime now I have been afraid to be excited about the opportunity that has come upon me. I allowed my feelings to dictate my reality and I allowed the post-modern worldview to seep into my emotions. I thought that if I got excited about things than surely it wouldn't work out. That I shouldn't get excited about it until I have raised all the money, thus truly "securing" my position. But the excitement was just to overwhelming this week and my realization of the true reality, that my assurance is in another.

This is the desire God has placed on my heart and thus I will see it through with excitement and joy. I do trust God to provide for me, as He is a faithful God that gives so undeserving. My faith in Him has already been increased by His provision of a campus minister who is not only godly but humorous. I got to meet Dave Osborne, the campus minister I will be working with and who will probably have enough of me in two years. Through meeting and talking with him at summer conference I realized how intimately God knows me. Dave seems to be someone that I not only will work well with but someone that I can easily become friends with. And if his family is anything as he is than I will be blessed even more. I rejoice in knowing that out of 120 campus ministers God chose me to work with Dave and I trust the good work that God is doing in him on the campus of Western will be fruitful. Now if only I can begin to be apart of it. Please be praying for my venture this summer of raising support.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea
A great High Priest whose name is LOVE
Who ever lives and pleads for me
My name is graven on His hands
My name is written on His heart
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there! The risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness
The great unchangeable I AM
The King of glory and of grace
One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased with His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God
With Christ my Savior and my God

One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased with His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God

Got Some Reading To Do

Even though I will be getting an extensive list of stuff to read from RUF, I got 11 new books this week! Oh and plus I am reading Pilgrim's Progress but I'll have that knocked out in a few days no worries. Welcome to my summer:)


Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World by Carolyn McCulley

Glorious Freedom: The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law by Richard Sibbes

The Mortification of Sin by John Owen

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World by C. J. Mahaney

The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther

The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards

The Pilgrim's Regress by C. S. Lewis

The Christ of the Covenants by O. Palmer Robertson

The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis

A Tale of Two Sons by John MacArthur

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

His glory in all Creation.

I actually have completely forgotten what I wanted to write about. But I am just amazed at God's goodness in all things..... ALL THINGS. I am so excited about each moment he gives me to live life for him. I just finished reading Finally Alive, John Piper's most recent publication. It took me way to long to read it. Needless to say I do read three books at a time, generally, and by read I really mean in the midst of waiting I get to crack something open. Waiting for a meeting or a class. Waiting at the DMV once a week for an hour. Waiting for night to come. Waiting until I come up with something thrilling to do.

Anyways it was an absolutely good read. I know this is a blog to be informative on my future plans and God's work in my life, so a book review might not seem appropriate. However this book, as most good books that contain scripture references every other sentence and are written by someone with awesome theology and writing skills, has helped me understand what "New Birth" and "New Life" really is and what it really looks like in Christ alone. I won't bore you with all my comments written on every other page of the now bent and stained thoroughly read book. But to follow are some awesome passages.

"I am my main problem. Not my deeds, and not my circumstances, and not the people in my life, but MY NATURE is my deepest personal problem."49

"The perfection we do not have, Jesus provided. The judgement we do not want, Jesus bore."74

"This truth, this living and abiding word, this gospel, is not a mantra. And it doesn't work like a mantra. It doesn't work through the repetition of sacred sounds. It works because it is the intelligible truth about what really happened when Jesus died and rose again, and because God means for his Son to be glorified by our knowing and believing who his Son really is and what he really did to save sinners...... the whole worldview supporting mantra is misguided and mistaken. It isn't rooted in history. It isn't rooted in Jesus Christ. it isn't rooted in the intelligibility of historical narrative. I pray that you don't just sign up for your local yoga class and not know what you are doing. Yoga is to the body what mantra is to the mouth."114

"The incarnation lasts forever. The second person of the Trinity will forever be united with human nature. We will always know him as Jesus, one like us, and infinitely above us - the first born among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). God did not, and does not, despise the physical creation that he made."146

"So let us first be a very practical people who love in deeds and not just words (talking of people after their new birth in Christ). Then let's be a sacrificial people who deny ourselves for the sake of others and lay down our lives the way Christ laid down his life. And then let's be a lavishly generous people with everything we have, knowing that it all belongs to God, and we belong to God. We are his children. We have his nature. And he is love."161

"Seeking to bring my vagrant feelings into line with the ultimate reality. My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God's word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes- many times- my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth."165

"Religious fakes were no surprise to Jesus. He prepared his most stinging words for them. They do not contradict the new birth. They confirm it. What could possibly change a "brood of vipers" (Matt. 12:34)? Reformation is not what vipers need. They need regeneration. Religious fraud does not make the new birth nonsense;it makes it necessary."191