Putting down the net.

So I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day (Y-Chomosome Bearing Version of Myself in case you were wondering). Y-Chromosome me has this unique ability to speak utter amounts of peace into my life (and for some reason I tend to listen to dude voices better than I listen to girl voices. No offense to the females in my life, but I feel like it's because I think God's voice is manly). So I was sharing with him that I have a desire to do a certain thing. Being the patient, kind friend that he is, he listened to my dilemma, my concerns, and my confusion without saying much. Then, of course, I said, 'What do you think?'

"Matthew 4."

"Que?" (i turn Hispanic when I'm confused sometimes)

'Go read Matthew 4'

'Oh. Okay.'

*Whitney goes and reads the portion of Matthew 4 that YCM was talking about, verses 18-22*

¹⁸ While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.¹⁹And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ²¹And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. ²²Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

See, Jesus called the disciples when they were working. When they were taking care of their lives, their families, etc. But when Jesus called, they left it all aside. I'm kind of sad we don't get the backstory here, because I'd like to know how Zebedee reacted when James and John left. I'd kind of like to know how Peter's wife (they mention him having a mother-in-law in other accounts of Jesus's miracles, so I'm assuming there was a Mrs. Peter somewhere along the line) took him running off with a crazy person. But the fact of the matter is this: they left their boats and followed him. They put down their nets and followed him.

Why DON'T we do that? I'm just as guilty of it as well. 'Well, Jesus, I know that you called me to do this...but see there's this boy that I kinda want to marry, and yeah...sorry. it' ain't happening right now.' or 'So Jesus, know you've asked this of me, but I can't leave my job!' or 'Jesus, school is kinda important right now, I know you've asked me to do this, but don't you want me to finish my education?' What kind of crap do we give Jesus?

Here's the thing. When Jesus calls you, he doesn't want to hear your excuses. What we'll call our 'NETS'. He wants us to surrender all of it to Him. We're to SURRENDER. Just say YES. We spend so much time saying no to things that we forget how to say YES to Jesus. He doesn't want our crap reasons. Don't get me wrong, he cares about them. He really does. But HE CAN HANDLE IT. Surrender means we have to surrender it all to Him. Our fears, our futures, our families, our cares, our relationships, everything. We have to surrender it to Him. And He's completely sovereign and can handle our issues. We just screw it up when we try to take control.

So, if there's any encouragement I have to anyone...put down the net. Let Jesus handle it. Unashamedly and unabashedly follow your Savior with all your heart.

While you're at it, pray that I can do the same.

God Just Loves You! :-)

SO, one day, probably 2 weeks ago now, I was walking back to the BCM, wrapped up in my own little world and my own little problems. Until I passed a most curious man.

'HI' the man said with a little dance.
'Oh...um, hi!' said an unexpected me. Not unexpected because he popped out of nowhere, but slightly unexpected because he said hello, and people on sidewalks don't typically speak.
'God...He just loves you!' he said with a smile.

So, let's talk about all the things right with this completely random exchange. I've learned that while it's VERY easy to say 'GOD LOVES ME' that it's sometimes hard to live life like we believe it. I mean, honestly, sickness, heartache, confusion, depression, all of these things strike. It's very easy to feel unloved by God when you think about it. Natural human intuition says that someone who loves you does not, or does there best not to allow bad things to happen to you.

But that's the cool thing about God. He allows things to happen to us so we'll lean closer to Him. He allows things to happen.
But often times, we forget that. And then we get wrapped up in our own personal feelings. Feelings of worthlessness, feelings of being unlovable, feelings of not being worthy of anything.

So God, since He is totally crazy about us, sends us reminders.

For me, it was a bald man who reminded me that God just loves me.

I ran into him 3 days in a row. The 2nd and 3rd time, we shared a smile and a nod, like we both knew what he was saying.

So thank you, random man, for reminding me of something I needed to remember.

and if you've happened to stumble upon this silly little blog, let me remind you of something.

God...He just loves you!