Monday Music

It's been a while since I have had a music post, and lately I have been on youtube everyday discovering some awesome music. Here is what I've found or been obsessed with lately.
-taye

Been OBSESSED with this one

With a lot of searching, I have a found a few not-so-heard-of songs by my favorite band Mumford and Sons, this one was my favorite.

During my boredom this weekend, I started playing around with some choreography to The Frames' song "Falling Slowly" and so I looked up some other stuff by the band, this one is great!



That Girl

I don't know if it's just the fact that it's summer and I haven't had much to do this week, or if it's just getting ready for college, but lately I have been doing a lot of "reflecting" on my life so to speak, which leads to a lot of random blog posts from me. But anyway, here's something I've been thinking about today and pretty much all week I guess.
-taye

The Only Thing That's Good In Me Is JESUS

I am an encourager; that is one of my spiritual gifts. There is nothing like that joy I get from sending a Bible verse to a friend who needs it, or asking people how I can be praying for them. Ever since the end of my freshman year in high school, I decided that I was going to stop trying to fit in with the world and start living for Christ.

At our senior dinner at dance this year, the company girls all signed a picture frame for each of the seniors, as well as wrote a note to each of us, simply wishing us well as we move on to the college phase of our lives, and just what we have meant to them as dancers and as people in the years we have danced together. I nearly teared up when reading all of mine, and a couple of days ago, I went back and was reading some of the things people wrote to me. A couple of things that popped up included "Christians girl", "great role model" and "wonderful example". Now those are great things to be, and I feel honored that those girls said those things about me, but looking at myself from my point of view, I am not so sure that I would use those terms quite so passionately to describe myself.

I have had the privilege over this past year to be sort of a mentor to a 7th grade girl who dances at my studio, as well as goes to my church. At the end of the school year she wrote me a note. The note made me cry, because as well as me being an encouragement to her, she has been such an encouragement to me as well. But, there was one line in the note that said "every morning I wake up and ask myself how I can be more like you." More like ME?! I wanted to look her in the eyes and ask her if she was looking at the same girl that I was.

I am not a bad person compared to the world's standards. But being a Christian is not about not being a bad person. God calls us to be holy and perfect, just as He is holy and perfect. I am so F A R from perfect it is not even funny. To be quite honest, I struggle so much every single day just to keep at the front of my mind that I am supposed to be living for Christ and not giving in to my selfishness. As much as I hate to admit, most of the time I give in to my selfishness. I struggle every single day to fully know with all of my being that God is the only thing I need. Everything else comes second. Yet, I still struggle and fight with the thoughts that maybe if I had the perfect ballerina body or maybe if I was dating that guy I have liked for months now that just maybe then I could be happier. But I have to keep telling myself "no". One thing I really hate to admit is that so many times when I have asked friends every week how I can pray for them, I never get around to actually praying for them. Sometimes I have even lied and said I have been praying for them when I haven't.

All these things are just a few things I struggle and fight with every single day, and things I fail at every single day, and yet there are SO MANY MORE things just like them that I struggle with as well. It seems that no matter how many times I ask God's forgiveness and no matter how many times I tell Him that it will be different, I simply cannot be holy due to my sinful nature.

The thing that gives me hope though, is the knowledge that my God is making me new everyday, and that He does still forgive me after all my failures and mistakes. That He still loves me unconditionally, in spite of the fact that I cannot be perfect, though I will continue to try because He calls me to.

"You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

{Matthew 5:48}

The Best Part Of Waking Up

This morning, as I was pouring my coffee, that cheesy little jingle came into my head:

"The best part of  waking up is Folgers in a cup"

You know how it goes. It got me thinking what, to me, is the best part of waking up? Why is it that I get out of bed every morning to face the day before me? So I just starting thinking of some things in my head, and I promise you, I don't think I've ever written a legit poem in my life until now, but here it is.
-taye

The best part of waking up isn’t Folgers in a cup,

It’s knowing my God reigns and that He will never change,

That He has the power to conquer my foes,

And that He has the knowledge of days no one knows.

I know that He holds all my times in His hand,

And in the other He holds the whole world as it spins.

Day after day I am certain to fail,

Yet He holds forgiveness for all of my sins.

When I seek Him, His face I will surely find,

When I seek with all my heart, all my strength, and my mind.

On the cross He did bear all my sin and God’s wrath,

And then darkness came and covered the earth,

Yet darkness cannot keep Him and death has no hold,

For salvation and life shall follow Him home.

Though struggles I face and may be hated by all,

He gives me a promise, an eternal reward.

The earth on which I stand is not my home,

To the end I will endure, until I worship at the throne.



Wait

I let frustration and emotions build up over time, and sometimes I just need to let them out. This is one of those times.
-taye

As You Wait

I have found myself telling the kids I babysit that you cannot always get what you want, that sometimes there has to be a compromise for the good of everyone. Also, something that I see God trying to teach me lately is patience. Throughout the Bible, patience is an important attribute, after all, it is one of nine fruits of the Spirit.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
{Galatians 5:22-23}

So what is patience? For me, I am realizing that patience is not just simply waiting around doing nothing. Patience is actively, eagerly preparing and awaiting something. In some situations, I seem to possess an unending band of patience, and yet in others, I so consistently find myself itching with impatience. All I can really do in those times is pray. Pray for strength, understanding, and patience.

Lord, please give me patience in the times that are hard

In ways only You comprehend, grant me understanding

There are times again and again that I cannot perceive

In all these times, Lord, help me to see

We love...

This week has been kind of hard so far. I haven't gotten much sleep due to staying up late and getting up early to babysit, babysitting has really tried my patience the past two days, and I have found myself snapping at my family and feeling so dissatisfied. Here are some recent things I've been thinking about this week.
-taye

. . .Because He first loved us

Loving God is something I really, really struggle with, though that seems like an absurdity when I think about how much He loves me. Many of my favorite passages of scripture talk about God's love:

"See what kind of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. . ."
{1 John 3:1}

". . . God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort  and good hope through grace."
{2 Thessalonians 2:16}

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
{Romans 8:38-39}

Those verses (as well as many more) along with songs such as "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" and "How He Loves" remind me SO intensely of God's immeasurable, unchangeable love for me, and yet, day after day after day after day I find that one of the most difficult things for me in my Christian walk is loving the Lord. I do love Him always, just not completely. It sometimes seems nearly impossible to give over my WHOLE heart to HIM, although He already holds it, along with the entire world and the entire universe in His hands. It's like I cannot let go. . .there's a verse in the gospel of Mark that I love so much:

". . .I believe; help my unbelief!"
{Mark 9:24}

Sometimes I feel the need to alter the wording in a prayer to the Lord, crying out, "I do love You; help me to love You!"

And yet in spite of my commitment issues to God, I find eternal comfort in the knowledge that no matter how much I struggle to love Him fully, He will always love me completely and perfectly, and that nothing in the whole wide world could ever change that love.

Love People, Love God

So I just got home from my 6 1/2 hour road trip to Jackson, Mississippi for my college orientation. There is a large pile of clothes on my bedroom floor waiting to be put away and it's nearly 10pm...and yet I'm sitting here, about to write a blog post. But I figure that I need to get my procrastinating out of my system before I go to college, because I really need to stop procrastinating once I get there, because I'll be SUPER busy.
-taye

Love One Another

"Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people he has made?"
{Francis Chan, Crazy Love}

As I said previously, I have just been to my college orientation. The school I am going to this fall is a small, private, Christian University, and there are people from all over the country who go there; the incoming freshman class is no exception. My roommate is from Pennsylvania, and over the weekend I met people from Arizona, Arkansas, Texas, and many other states. It is very interesting to see how different all of these people are from me- the small-town, homeschooled, southern girl from Georgia.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."
{John 13:34}

Love people. At first, this sounds like it would be a pretty simple task to accomplish. But then Jesus threw in a twist: to love others like HE loves them. Now I was with you when you first thought Hey, this will be fine. I'll just love the people who love me: easy enough. But people don't always love you; they may love you for a short time, but human love is subject to alteration. God doesn't just love the people who love Him, if He did, John 3:16 would be way off track. If God only loved those who consistently love Him, those who receive God's love would be very, very few. But thankfully, that isn't the way He works. God loves everyone. Everyone? Yes, I said everyone. That means the homeless man you pass on the highway. It means the Starbucks worker you see every week. It means your biology teacher who gets on your nerves. It means your parents, even when you can't understand them. It means your best friend, your aunts and uncles, your brothers and sisters, the lady who messed up your lunch order, the guy picking up trash on the side of the road, the mailman, the strange quiet girl in your math class, the clingy girl with the obnoxious laugh, the annoying guy who constantly texts you, the old woman driving 20 miles under the speed limit in front of you . . . Every single person that is living and breathing on the planet earth. God loves them and Jesus died on the cross to become sin for them, and now He comes along in John 13:34 and tells us that just as He loves every single one of them we are to love every single one of them as well.

That is a hard thing for me to grasp, and it's one of God's commands that part of me just wants to walk away from and forget about. But the more diverse the people I meet, the more this command pops up in my head, and it's something I know I cannot refuse. So I challenge you to strive with me to love every person you come into contact with: the guy whose cussing keeps offending me, the girl who acts a little differently than me, the cashier at the grocery store, the biker sitting near me at Starbucks, and especially my friends and family.



A dream is a wish your heart makes

My mind has been constantly swirling with these thoughts for the past week. I've got to get them out.
-taye

I dream things that never were, and say "why not?"

Have you ever had a dream? Perhaps you have always longed to travel the world, or maybe you want to become a doctor. Or could it be that there is that one school you always wanted to attend, or is it that person you have always wanted to be with. For me, it is dance.

I began ballet when I was three years old, following in my big sister's footsteps, I suppose. Over the years I have added and dropped different styles- tap, Irish, modern, contemporary, jazz, pointe... the list continues. However, ballet has always had something so magical and captivating about it that constantly draws me in, causing me to love it the most out of all the styles I have tried. I have always loved ballet.

In eighth grade, I made the Senior Company at my dance studio, which came with a more demanding schedule, and a higher level of commitment. I suppose it was then that I decided that I wanted to continue to pursue dance after high school. I continued to grow closer to the Lord during high school, and I began praying about my future. . .was dance what He was calling me to do?

Turns out, it was. He has blessed me with the ability and desire to dance, and I yearn to praise His name, not my own, with that gift. But there are a number of options to consider when one chooses to pursue dance as a career choice. Was I going to audition for companies or trainee programs straight out of high school, or should I major in dance in college? After months of discussing with my parents and praying for direction and guidance, I chose to major in dance at Belhaven University where I will head off to this August.

This past week, we had a guest teacher come to our studio and teach ballet and partnering classes everyday for three hours. He was a difficult, but enjoyable and knowledgeable teacher, and I got so much out of every minute of every class. I am not sure whether it was the fact that I had been off of dance for about three weeks before that, or whether it was just having a different teaching style to learn from, but whatever it was, I fell in love with ballet.

I fell completely, head-over-heels in love with ballet. It was not that I never loved it for the past fifteen years I have been taking it, putting countless hours and classes and rehearsals and performing, spending a large amount of my parents' money on tuition and summer intensives and pointe shoes; I loved it then, but I guess I was only in a mere infatuation with it for the past fifteen years. It was only this past week that I fell in love with it, realizing the extent of the desire of my dream.

Have you ever questioned whether or not you made the right decision? Every single day this week, I have been tossing the idea around in my head of whether or not I should be going to college in August. I have been struggling and crying and praying and questioning, debating myself in my own confused thoughts. But it is not a question of what I want. It is a question of what GOD wants for my life; what HE has had planned out for me since before I was even born. What does HE want me to do? According to HIM, have I made the right decision?

I am still in a bit of a confused, questioning, debating state of mind, but I have comfort and confidence in the fact that, for at least this coming school year, I am supposed to be a dance major at Belhaven University. In the fall of 2012, it is completely up to Him how my dream will grow.

Where your treasure is...

I have two very full pages of notes from church this morning. This week was part two on a sermon series my church is doing about money. When I first heard about this series, I thought to myself that it couldn't possibly relate to me much, after all, I am about to become a poor college student. But today I realized that it doesn't matter where you are financially, God loves a cheerful giver. That also doesn't necessarily mean a giver of money, it could be a giver of encouragement, a giver of your time, a giver of anything really; in this particular matter, however, it does mean you money. Here's what I got.
-taye

...Your heart will be also

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
{Matthew 6:19-21}

Especially in America today, we tend to idolize money and the things that we can buy with it. No wonder Jesus spoke more about money than He did on heaven and hell combined during His time on earth.

"And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, 'You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.' "
{Mark 10:21}

"So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple."
{Luke 14:33}

"And He said to them, 'Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' "
{Luke 12:15}

There is the story of the widow who gave two fractions of a penny, what would be considered by most to be worth nothing, and yet, Jesus blessed her for her giving. Therefore, it is not that you do things, but how you do them; it is not the amount you give, but the heart with which you give.

In light of that, there are some things in my life that need to change:

     I need to change the destination of my money.
Where is my money going? Are the things I'm spending my money on benefiting me or benefiting God and the gospel proclaimed? If I took a look at my bank statement from my debit card, what would pop up the most? Easy answer, Starbucks Coffee. I spend a lot of money on Starbucks. But where else is popping up? I give my tithe every month, but is there more frequent spending that is benefiting God and the gospel proclaimed? Is it as frequent, or more frequent than, my Starbucks purchases? What is it for you: clothing stores, hardware stores, grocery stores, or online stores? Whatever it is, even if you do not decrease your spending there, increase your spending that will benefit God's kingdom. Be intentional about where you are storing up your treasures-- this earth or in heaven? Money in itself is not bad, but it is what we do with it that either glorifies God or it doesn't.

Think about it. That skinny vanilla latte I bought will be gone in about ten minutes. That sweater you bought the other day will get a hole in it, or you will outgrow it, someday. That expensive car you bought last week could be wrecked at any moment that it's being driven. Robbers could come and steal your plasma TV while you are gone to the beach this summer. Everything on this earth is temporary. Even we are temporary. Most people only live to be an average of 80 years old; I am 18. That means I have an average of about 62 more years on this earth, and then my time is done, my possessions will be passed down or sold, and everything I called my own on this earth will no longer be mine. Therefore, we should be thinking eternal when it comes to our money. Think of the long-term effects your money and what you spend it on can have, and use it wisely and for the best for others, not just how it can benefit you.

Radical

So after four months of reading on and off, I finally finished David Platt's book Radical today. Whoa. Talk about a holy slap in the face! Apart from the Word, this is possibly the most convicting book I have ever read. God has seriously blessed David Platt with the ability to get His message across. I have so much to say about this book and all that I learned from it, but first I want to start by reminding you of the passage that this whole book, and our whole lives, revolve around:

"And Jesus came and said to them,  'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

{Matthew 28:18-20}

In reading Radical, I have felt a need to step back and take a look at the way I have been living my life this year, and the seventeen before that. Also it has made me want to reshape the way I live my life as I take the next step of my life, which is college. I will be moving six and a half hours away from home, to Jackson, Mississippi, going to a school where I know no one. One of the things most incoming college freshman are excited about is going to a place where no one knows them, where they can be anyone they want to be and start over fresh. I, also, am looking forward to that, but I am looking forward to having a fresh start at living the radical life that Christ has called me as a Christian to be living, one which I should have been living for the past eighteen years. There is so much more that I could say regarding my life and this book, but I will leave the rest to David Platt to say in these quotes from the book.

"My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus' words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience."

"Somewhere along the way we [have] missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable. We [are] settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves."

"In a world that prizes promoting oneself, [the disciples] were following a teacher who told them to crucify themselves."

"We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist Him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with."

"Wake up and realize there are real battles to be fought, so different from the superficial, meaningless 'battles' you focus on."

"The cost of non-discipleship is profoundly greater for us that the cost of discipleship."

"We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American and how much is Biblical."

"Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator...until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say 'No.' "

"The modern-day gospel says, 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Therefore, follow these steps, and you can be saved.' Meanwhile the Biblical gospel says, 'You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, and in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life.' "

"What happened at the cross was not primarily about nails being thrust into Jesus' hands and feet but about the wrath due your sin and my sin being thrust upon His soul."

"We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God and who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and we have reduced Him to a poor, puny Savior who is just begging for us to accept Him. Accept Him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don't we need Him?"

"The challenge for us is to live in such a way that we are radically dependent on and desperate for the power that only God can provide."

"While the goal of the American Dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God."

"[A] church could have all the man-made resources one could imagine, but apart from the touch of the Holy Spirit, such a church will do nothing of significance for the glory of God."

"[God] created human beings, not only to enjoy His grace in a relationship with Him, but also to extend His glory to the ends of the earth."

"While the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God."

"The message of Biblical Christianity is not 'God loves me, period,' as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of Biblical Christianity is 'God loves me so that I might make Him known among all nations.' "

"We owe Christ to the world--to the least person and to the greatest person, to the richest person and to the poorest person, to the best person and to the worst person. We are in debt to the nations."

"The Bible teaches that all the church--not just selected individuals, but all the church--is created to reflect all the glory of God to all the world."

"God saves me so that the nations will know Him. He blessed me so that all the earth will see His glory!"

"Disciple making is not a call for others to come to us to hear the gospel, but a command for us to go to others to share the gospel. A command for us to be gospel-living, gospel-speaking people at every moment and in every context we find ourselves."

"We will multiply the gospel only when we allow others to get close enough to us to see the life of Christ in action."

{That one for sure was a wake up call, especially for me!}

"When we take responsibility for helping others grow in Christ, it automatically takes our own relationship with Christ to a new level."

"Jesus doesn't give options for people to consider; He gives commands for people to obey."

"So when we worship these 'gods' instead of Him, we don't get credit for trying our best. Our idolatry is just not good enough."

"There are no innocent people in the world just waiting to hear the gospel. Instead there are people all over the world standing guilty before a holy God, and that is the very reason they need the gospel."

"We are the plan of God, and there is no plan B."

"God clearly has decided to use the church--and only the church--as the means by which His gospel will go to the ends of the earth."

"If more than a billion people today are headed to a Christ-less eternity and have not even heard the gospel, then we don't have time to waste our lives on an American Dream. Not if we have all been commanded to take this gospel to them."

"It makes little sense for us to sit over here asking, 'What do You want me to do, God?' The answer is clear. The will of God is for you and me to give our live urgently and recklessly to making the gospel and the glory of God known among all peoples, particularly those who have never even heard of Jesus."

"We have nothing to fear, because God is sovereign."

"Your life is free to be radical when you see death as a reward."

{Philippians 1:21}

"We express enthusiasm, emotion, and affection for football and other sports, and it begs the question, what would happen in our culture if the church prayed with such passion?"

"If you and I are going to penetrate our culture and the cultures of the world with the gospel, we desperately need minds saturated with God's Word."

"When you or I open the Bible, we are holding the very words of Gods--words that have supernatural power to redeem, renew, refresh, and restore our lives to what He created them to be."

"Sacrifice is giving away what it hurts to give. Sacrifice is not giving according to you ability, it;s giving beyond your ability." 

"When God chose to bring salvation to you and me, He did not send gold or silver, cash or check. He sent Himself--the Son."

http://www.radicalthebook.com/

 



Don't Worry, Be Happy!

My mom listens to Rush Limbaugh all the time. I personally really hate talk radio shows, whether they are morning shows, Rush, and in fact I even hate commercials, that's why I usually listen to CD's in my car. But anyway, my mom was just listening to Rush, well actually the random guy filling in for Rush, and I heard something pretty atsonishing, which leads me to writing this post.
-taye


Happiness

America is the least happy country in the entire world.

Think about that statement for a moment, and think about all the countries that are out there. America is the most unhappy out of ALL of them. China is the happiest country in the world. Now think about the church in all the countries in the world. Now, think about the church in China and the church in America. The Chinese church is one of the most persecuted churches in the world, and yet it is also one of the fastest growing. The church in America seems to have lost its way. We put so much emphasis on the "show" of a worship service and on who is speaking, rather than the words being sung and what is being spoken. The Chinese are happily suffering for the gospel, while Americans are emptily praising something we have created for ourselves. What does God say about happiness?

"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy." {Jude 1:24}

God is the only thing that can bring true happiness

". . .though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory." {1 Peter 1:8}

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds." {James 1:2}

Joy in trials?? That sounds familiar. Perhaps the Chinese have been reading a lot of James lately.

"For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love. . ." {Philemon 1:7}

Love in America is so messed up in society today. 50% of all marriages in America end in divorce.

"As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy." {2 Timothy 1:4}

Encouragement through fellowship. That is a rare thing to be seen in America today, where our schools are filled with cliques and bullies, and everyone acts friendly toward their coworkers and boss in order to get ahead and get a promotion. How many people actually genuinely care about one another and put others' needs above their own?

"For you are our glory and joy." {1 Thessalonians 2:20}

God is our joy and our happiness.