What I learned from Lady Gaga....

Mah weeeek. This week our guest speaker was Philipa Laird from Kiwi-land. One of the most fantastic aspects about Philipa was that she was an awesome speaker and woman of God and most importantly she is small and fiery. The topic that she shared on was Dominions and Domains. The domains are government, family, education, arts, communication, economy, church, science, and technology. Although that was the topic for the week was about these themes, I'm not going to tell you about it. Because the great thing about this school is you always learn something unexpected and perhaps even seemingly irrelevant to the weekly topic. Here's what I learned this week. After God (of course), I have the most power and influence in my life. Crazy right? And by this I don't mean anything New Agey by that. What that means is that although outside sources may influence me, I am ultimately the one that makes all my decisions. The temptation and desire to conform is so strong in our culture. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Think about it for a minute. Think about any teenage girl. There. See what I mean? There is a deep part of all of us that is desperate to feel acceptance, and our fear of rejection is what feeds our desire to change who we really are. Who God made us to be. So what did I learn from all this? That you have no right to tell me who to be. To tell me what to do. I answer to God. And He gives me options and open doors. People don't. People tell me how to be, how to act, and where to go when it's none of their business. Isn't that freeing? Now, I'm not encouraging anarchy or rebellion. I'm just saying that I am going to be me and if I have God's approval I'm going to be ok. Just as long as I do have God's approval. Philipa said that I have the most power in my life because I am the only one who can give myself permission to meet my own expectations. Booyah. Want to know something else cool? God gives me choices. He doesn't have an agenda for my life. There is no planned itinerary for my life. It's not like if I mess up my life is over. God has not scheduled out my life so that if I miss this one opportunity I can never "get back on track." Do you get what I mean? God gives us options so that we go back and ask Him questions. So that we seek Him. That's how we form a relationship with Him. By seeking Him and processing with Him through our plans. We build our lives with Him. We come before Him and ask, "But God, who am I and what do YOU want me to be?" I think often times we are looking for a formula (I've done this) to follow. Do this, and this, and this, and you'll be fine. You'll be successful. You'll please God. But that's not how it works. We have to be conversing with Him. If we had an exact formula to follow, we would probably never talk to Him. Am I right? We have this thing called split thinking. We draw a line in our minds. We put things that are "good" on one side and things that are "bad" on the other. People tell me all the time that I should go to college. That I should go to a Christian one. That I should go to a secular one. That I should join YWAM. That I should be staff at this base. People tell me to stay in missions because living a "normal" life is secular. That I wouldn't be serving God there. That life outside of YWAM isn't as pleasing to God. People tell me to go to college because they think it's too dangerous here and I'm wasting my time. See what I mean? That line that splits our thinking shouldn't exist. It shouldn't say that one thing is better than the other. God will use me where ever I am. I can learn in every situation. This is challenging. Let's take another example of split thinking. How about music? Oh. Well of course Christian radio is good. And secular radio is bad. No brainer. But can we learn from the secular radio? Can we learn from Lady Gaga? Are you challenged by that? You should be. But what can we learn from her. She is gifted and she is USING her gifts! How many of us use our giftings to their full potential? God gave Lady Gaga many talents. She writes and performs her own songs, she designs her own clothes and helps create her music videos. If only she used them for God. She is herself. She is confident in who she is. So the point that I'm getting to is that we need to change our thinking. Take another look at that verse Romans 12:2. What does it say? We need to renew our minds. Split thinking is comfortable, but we're not called to be comfortable. It's not that we need to repeat scriptures senselessly over and over again -- it's letting God renew us. Asking Him to come and change the way we see the world, ourselves, the church, God and others. So would you like to know what I'm doing next? I'm planning on going to Costa Rica. And if you have an opinion about it, that's ok. I think I'll ask God about it. :)


Quote of the week: “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” -Dr. Suess