audrey caroline

Okay as of late in my life, I’ve used the term “literally” in not so literal ways. Which it is totes cray that words get morphed to mean things they don’t actually mean over time. For instance I say things like, “I’ve literally never been this hungry in my whole life…” “I have literally 8,000 hours of homework to do.” No, no not literally… So yes, I’m guilty of using this term to just exaggerate and convey things really emphatically.

With that in mind, I think that how I have used the word “literally” might give me some good insight on how I and many of us treat Jesus. (Right now I really don’t know where exactly I’m going with this…but it here it goes…)

If we took Jesus literally, for who is and is meant to be, our lives would LITERALLY be reconstructed entirely. I, for example, HAVE been someone who hasn’t taken Jesus too literally…therefore most of my life there hasn’t really ever been distinction between who I USED TO BE and who Jesus has reconstructed me to be. And I had always seen people with whom you could clearly see a distinction between the old and the new, and I KNEW Jesus had had some serious implications and meaning in their lives… I mean it’s obvious… they completely turned their life upside down for Him.

I’m not trying to downplay the “growing process.” But I think… just thinking… that there should be a moment or a period where we are on the brink of being a completely NEW person. We realize despite our upbringing (churched or unchurched), that even though maybe I’ve grown up in the church and all of this seems stale to me, I desperately NEED Jesus to overcome the stale, stagnant numbness and create me into someone completely new. So much that someone would not even be able to tell that I grew up in the church even though that is a vital part of my testimony. My conversion would be just as drastic and life-altering as everyone’s should be. I think it is good to ask, have I taken Jesus literally? Who did I used to be? How has Jesus changed me? Or have I changed at all?

It is easy in the “church culture” for our need for Jesus to slowly morph into some watered-down version of His intended meaning in our lives… We slip into that rather than truly taking Jesus literally as the ONE and ONLY source from which every aspect of my life should flow…. Why is he THAT important??? He can’t become that important to us unless we know why. The facts are… we are hopeless without him. Without Jesus, life doesn’t exist. Debatable statement for some, not for us who call ourselves Christians. In short, it was intended ever since God breathed life into Adam for us to be in an intimate relationship with our Maker. (And it’s more wonderful than most of us have imagined..so pursue it!) We had the choice whether to leave the reigns in God’s hands or take them for ourselves. We began to take control of our lives….and thus separated ourselves from God. 

After we realize the divide, the sin, our failed attempt to control and orchestrate our own lives without God which results in death… we are then ready to accept the wonderful arrangement that was made for us. We aren’t without hope. We are MEANT to be with God. So Jesus came. Jesus lived with us, experienced life and loved. And he experienced the death that was the result of all of us denying our purpose to glorify God. He made the way. He did it. And he was resurrected… He was literally dead and became literally alive… signifying His power over death for ALL people. We are invited to this resurrection life…

Jesus is literal. He is important. And people who realize their desperate need for Him and take His invitation literally… their lives never look the same again.

So the other day I took a gander back through my journal from 2011 and came across my New Year’s “aspirations” as I like to call them. Looking back, it was weird and neat that I wrote this. I had no idea I would travel abroad to the opposite side of the planet…which FOR ME was an incredibly stretching and growing experience. When I wrote this in my journal, I actually had in mind the half-marathon I was going to train for, but about 4 miles into training, I quit. Hahah. Lame-o. Maybe so. But God had something else in mind and I’m so grateful for it. I’m pretty sure when I wrote this down, I had no real concept of India—its geographical location, culture, or anything. But at the beginning of 2011 I knew…I really knew I was going to have to step up my game. Do something. Grow up. Learn. And not settle for mediocrity any longer. I forgot about that aspiration, and seeing it after its fulfillment was kinda cool.

But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Luke 18:16

Something to think about… What is it about children that makes Jesus say “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these”? Why does Jesus say we have to become like children to even enter the kingdom? What does that mean?

Ever since I spent about 3 1/2 weeks with the children in the pictures above and 29 others, I’m beginning to believe Jesus words were meant to go a little bit farther than a fleeting reminder to be more child-like. It’s a mind-set, a lifestyle.

Swimming in peanut butter is hard. Maybe with your Sherlock Holmes-esque deduction skills you could imagine it’s an extremely slow process. And really most of all, it raises the chances for getting leg cramps by 4,000%. Okay. This is ridiculous, I know. The real truth is I’ve never swam in peanut butter, nor do I have the desire to unless there is 1 MEELYON dollars at stake. It’s only an analogy. 

Being back in Nashville has been weird. I honestly feel as if Jiminy Cricket took me on some psychedelic dream adventure and I just woke up and am trying to figure out the knowledge he was trying to impart to me. Jiminy Cricket? Psychedelic adventures?!! What!? Well, I said that because India is seriously like a different realm. It is strange to me when I think about how we all live on the same ball of dirt. My context, my mindset, my day to day life I had there doesn’t fit very well here. It was more different than I can describe. (Come to India with me. I’d love to show you.) One of the most confusing aspects is the difference between how I related to God there and here. But really, it isn’t that confusing. I simply had nothing to lean on except God. I had nothing to turn to except prayer and the Bible. The whole time I was focused on and cared about the things that seem to be on the forefront of God’s heart like the widows, orphans, and oppressed. It was kinda perfect. Maybe felt like how it was intended to be from the beginning.

So now I’m back. Really instead of acting like some hippy-dippy weirdo who just got back from India and “found herself,” I’ve kind of purposely eased back into the same ole same ole life and routine, just praying and hoping I will slowly figure out what God has in store for these life-changing experiences He gave me. It’s been strange being back here. Life with God has been different. I will finally explain the peanut butter analogy. It’s odd, but this pretty much accurately describes how I feel. If the act of swimming was a respresentation of Life with God, then in my Indian context, I was freely and easily swimming in water. Now in my normal context, I feel like I’m swimming in peanut butter. And it’s hard.

BAAHH I love every element of this song. “Love Lust” King Charles. Enjoy.

“Woes of Jet-lag” Part One

Because my house feels as if polar bears and penguins could live comfortably here, my adaptive instincts led me to make a small, temporary cocoon in my bed to prevent hypothermia from kicking in. Of course, that proceeded to become a four hour hibernation lasting from 5:20 to 9:20PM which means I am successfully making strides in my effort to actually become a literal zombie, and no longer be what you would consider human.

 
The End.

Welp. My post-India blog is coming sooner than I thought due to the paper I have to write for my school credit. This is the shorter, way more relaxed, blog version of my paper for my internship in India.

Words could never describe what I learned and how I grew over the last three months. I am honestly not even to a point where my thoughts are clear enough to write about the experience as a whole, but nevertheless I have to for this credit. As I sat in the New Delhi airport about to board the plane to New Jersey, my heart was literally overflowing with joyful thankfulness for how I had been so thrust into the grasp of God. What beautiful people I encountered and was privileged to share life with! How sweet it was to be so simply in the presence of God without my normal surroundings! What a needed venue to be able to slow down, be still, and drink in Scripture as it sharpened my mind and heart! That is all I could think as I sat there pondering the grace I was given to have such an experience. I felt so unworthy, yet so very thankful. I knew God hadn’t given me these experiences to hold them captive inside my mind and heart refusing to share. He has given me a voice. He has given me a confidence—not in myself but in Him. I have something to say. I definitely have something to tell.

I’ve quickly realized after being back, I have to gage how much people really want to know about my experience. I’m not going to word vomit on everyone if I can honestly tell they aren’t that interested. I mean everyone never fails to ask, “How was India?” You gotta be really determined to not know if you don’t even ask that. I usually respond with either of the true statements, “It was the greatest experience of my life” or “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done”…something along those lines. If they in response ask another question or seem overly interested to know more, I’ll go on. If not, I’ll change subjects. Only my mother probably has (had) the patience to sit there and listen for a good two hours as I ramble on, changing topics rapidly, attempting to relay the things I learned and experienced.

This is the point where I hit a writer’s block, because I should start trying to describe my experiences and growth. It is almost impossible to know where to begin. Okay, here it goes… I didn’t really go to India to become some humanitarian. That honestly wasn’t my purpose, nor would I describe myself that way now. Life before India was normal. I don’t think anyone would disagree with the life I lived. It was about as normal as you can get. I was getting ready for my last semester of college wondering what the heck I was going to do next. My spiritual life consisted of the standard ups and downs. Sometimes, I felt God so clearly. Sometimes, I literally had no concept of Him. I knew one thing though. I had this weird, increasing desire for more of God in my life than I currently had. It just wouldn’t go away. I had no idea what having more God would look like, but I knew something was going to have to tangibly change in my life. I was going to have to act. I decided I needed to do something challenging that would force me to grow and test this thing I have called “faith.” So, this intro is very quickly becoming too long and descriptive… It culminated to this: I decided to go to India. It took several months for me to decide to even pursue such a notion. But the moment I started pursuing it, God flung open the doors and said, “Here you go!” or maybe “Here. You go.” So then scared out of my ever-living mind, I decided I was going to walk through them.

In retrospect, “WOW” is all I can say. How with conviction I’ve learned that the choice is always the hardest part! You wanna know what the absolute hardest part of the three months was? The drive with my parents to the airport. Boom. That is it. Disappointing eh? No… God is seriously just that good.  Totally overestimated how hard it would be to live in such a different place. Not that India isn’t different. Hear me when I say, there is nothing in India similar to here. No, I overestimated because I underestimated something else. I underestimated God and how perfectly sweet it is to trust in Him in everything, in all the bewilderment of India. So all of that being said, one of the main things I learned is this: God is incredible. God is bigger than me. God is and will always be more than I can know in this life until the day comes that I see Him face to face and then can’t help but to fall on my face in worship. God needs to be feared. God needs to be trusted. I am human. God is God. Where do we meet? Jesus. I have seriously no other choice, but to put my faith in Jesus and experience the relationship with our Creator that was intended from the very beginning. Jesus is literally the only hope for having life now and the eternal future that God so desperately wants us to be in. Faith in Jesus. Sounds so simple. So cliché. So not profound. But that is what I learned in India… how  greatly I am in need of Jesus’ mediation, atonement (betcha didn’t think you’d hear that word), appeasement (that one too), transformation, righteousness, holiness, and the grace to have His eyes, hands, heart, and feet for the injustices of this world. Boy, do I need Him. And the “good news“is, (that I am so freshly finding) it is available. It is here. Jesus is here. (MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!) Our sad, unfulfilled brokenness puts us in the PERFECT position to be so radically swept up by Jesus into a relationship with the Father. How quickly this paper/blog has turned into me preaching the Gospel, haha! I’m not sorry for it though. It is the central thing I was so intensely convicted of in my time in India.

Don’t get me wrong… I have learned more than I can say about the country of India, people in desperate situations, poverty, oppression, beautiful children, the need for more harvesters to be sent into the fields, about the lives of people who are dedicated through persecutions, lack of money, and everything to bringing God’s justice to this world. I have experienced that too. And that seriously is a whole other paper. But I think before we become humanitarians, we must become so convinced that the Gospel is our story, our story to be shared.

To share with you my own brokenness, I’ve already felt the change in my mindset since returning. I don’t understand it. I don’t know how to stop it. I honestly don’t know what to do. Yes, I think I have been changed in ways that there is no turning back, but I’ve realized it is going to be a continuous battle. Hence… a continuing desperate need for the power of Christ. That is where I am. That is part of what I’ve learned. There’s much more where all this came from, so if you want to know more…just ask. 

(via thingssheloves)

For a long time I struggled to understand this passage, and I always wanted to know its significance. Some people give it a socio-economical slant. At times, I have resonated with that. But today while reading it, I heard a new, simple understanding. It is nothing profound, but just a simplistic, face-value view of the temptation of Jesus.

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Satan is a deceiver. All of his temptations are twisted words that are made to sound appealing but do not attest to the sovereignty of God. Satan uses a conditional statement here: “If you are the Son of God…” I realized this temptation honestly wouldn’t make sense to Jesus. Because Jesus IS the Son of God, he KNOWS he has no need for bread, but only for God. Satan’s conditional statement is scewed from the beginning. There are no if’s. Jesus IS the Son of God and therefore he knows that all man truly needs is God. And even in the midst of an intense hunger for physical food, Jesus knows He can still trust in God above all. So because of his knowledge of God, he resists the temptation to satisfy his hunger with by turning stones to bread.

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

 5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Satan offers Jesus back reign over all the kingdoms of the world. Why wouldn’t Jesus want to have the reign back over the kingdoms of the world? Once again, Satan’s if-then statement is completely wrong. Because Jesus is God, He knows He can ONLY worship the Lord who is the giver and taker of all authority. This is interesting, because, yes, God might have given Satan temporary reign over the kingdoms of the world as even other Scriptures affirm, but God has the final authority. Jesus knows this, and worships God alone. Why? Because He completely trusts God’s perfect plan and sovereignty in giving and taking away authority. Therefore because of his knowledge of God, he resists the temptation to have the authority Satan offers and has faith in the plan of God which will turn out to give all authority in Heaven and Earth to Christ.

 8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

 9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:

  “‘He will command his angels concerning you 

   to guard you carefully; 

11 they will lift you up in their hands, 

   so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

These passages must make us aware of Satan as the Father of lies. Everything he offers us is manipulated and essentially wrong. Satan gives Jesus another conditional statement that does not attest to God’s sovereignty. Satan’s statement offers to Christ to prove his sonship through only one means: to jump. In light of Jesus’ trust, faith, and knowledge of God, this temptation would not make sense. Because Jesus is God in human flesh, He knows he doesn’t have to prove himself. Jesus has complete knowledge of who He is in God. He completely trusts God’s plan to reveal his glory at the perfect time. Only because of Jesus’ perfect knowledge of the nature of God, can he resist Satan’s temptation to prove his sonship.

 12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

 13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

My question is: Why does Satan tempt Christ in the first place??? I don’t understand this. Does Satan not know the sovereignty and authority of Christ to understand the perfect knowledge of God and therefore have the strength to resist ALL temptation?? I guess not. I think that is what makes him Satan. He doesn’t acknowledge the final authority of God and humble himself to it. He shows this by attempting to tempt Christ, the Son of the all-powerful, all-knowing God. There are no if’s about it. His deceit has no power over Jesus. Jesus’ knowledge of God keeps him safe from temptation. Knowing God inevitably produces trust and faith in Him. Having faith in God alone makes nothing Satan offers appealing. I think that is where our brokeness comes in. If we aren’t filling ourselves with the knowledge of God’s goodness and power, we have no trust and faith. Therefore we have nothing to keep us from falling to the appealing offers of Satan. We attempt to feed our hunger with things that don’t truly feed us. In times of trouble or darkness that will come, we don’t trust in God’s perfect plan and reign. And we are led to attempt to prove ourselves in countless ways when we can in actuality do nothing apart from God.

Jesus is the perfect example of resistance to temptation. His perfect knowledge of God gives him the power to understand the lies and deceit which takes away their appeal. In our waiting for everything to be made new, we too must fill ourselves with the knowledge of God.

December, I welcome you. I love you.

(Source: liveyourlifeoflove)