Still On The Journey...

"Your trip may be over, but a new journey has begun.

In fact, the second journey may be one of the primary reasons

why God called you to go on the first one."

~ Tim Dearborn ~

I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written

in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand

—when I awake, I am still with you. ~Psalm 139:14-18 ~

When I contemplate the quote above along with these truths from God's Word, I am reminded of God's sovereign guidance in my life and His awesome love for me, and those two things are the most important to remember in all the choices, struggles and decisions of life.

I believe that I have struggled with this because I tend to focus on achieving the goal, and I don't always recognize what's taking place on the way to get there. During my 9 months of intensive language study, this was one of the biggest realizations - and it's one of those lessons that I will continue to learn because it applies to ALL areas of life. When I started studying Russian, I often wanted to be able to understand now and my teacher continually reminded me that the comprehension would come as I progressed step by step. I had to learn to rejoice in the process - no matter how slow it seemed - and to recognize what I was learning in the moment instead of looking ahead to what I though was most important.

Since coming back to Canada, I have realized that being able to adequately answer the "why" questions is not the most important thing; rather, it is to be able to identify what God has been and is still teaching me on this journey of following Him.

I started this blog sometime in the summer of 2014, a few months after returning home to Canada, and I did not finish it at that time. In the many months since, God has continually been showing me truths about Him and about myself and has been changing me from the inside out in various ways.

I want to share with you the life-transforming lessons I have been learning on my journey of knowing, loving and following my Lord, but they are too many for just one blog post.

So... I will be writing several entries over the next little while, and I hope that what I share from my heart will be an encouragement and maybe even a challenge for you as well.

ADVENT MEDITATIONS - Part 7

DEC. 14 - (Преображение)
Today the devotional meditation highlighted the result of our new reality...Jesus's work is to change and transform us so that we become more like Him.

I chose this verse to memorize for today - 2 Corinthians 3:18 -- But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

We can be assured that this transformation is indeed taking place, and this should cause us to rejoice!



DEC. 15 - (Жизнь и смерть)
Today's devotional was focused on the reality of death and life and how that relates to what we celebrate at Christmas. Jesus Christ came in order to die - but His death was what made it possible for us to have eternal life.

I chose these verses to memorize - John 11:25-26 -- Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, even though he dies, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die."

Death is a part of the reality of our life on earth, and it sometimes comes when we least desire it. But the hope of Christmas is that those who believe on Jesus Christ - who we are celebrating - will live again. Death has been defeated by life!

LIFE-LONG LEARNING

Life-long learning ... I thought of several phrases I could make with these words:
Learning about life is a long process. Life involves learning. A long life is full of learning.

I haven't blogged much lately -- mostly because February has been an uneventful month and I have been a little less enthusiastic about my studies. Could partly be because the spring semester seems longer, but I have also not been the most diligent with my time management.

However, a couple of recent experiences have caused me to look at my situation in a different light, and I want to share with you what I believe God has spoken to my heart.

I have not been diligent in setting aside time daily to just be in the presence of the Lord. My Bible reading and prayer time have been inconsistent. Since He is really my Lord, my life needs to display that, even in the areas known only to God and to me. If I am going to be really honest, this lack of devotional time and communion with God has affected my productivity and my attitude. But when I honestly confessed to Him that I had been allowing other things to take precedence over what I knew was most important, He began to work a change in me, and I noticed a marked improvement in my attitude the following day.

This is not the first time I have had to learn this lesson, and it certainly won't be the last, but each time it changes me a little more and my roots grow a little deeper.

Last Sunday was an exciting day. My landlady wasn't feeling well in the morning, so I thought she would stay home, but she was at church also. Later, at home, when I was waiting for my pizza in the oven to cook, she was sharing with me how the pastor's message had impacted her and it was a really special sharing time for both of us. I realized then that I need to take hold of these moments every time they come because you cannot always plan for them.

This week, I went swimming for the first time, and the following day I had a horribly runny nose. My teacher was adamant that it was because I went outside too quickly after the swimming and although she expressed it in a very kind way, I am not proud of my initial reaction. I didn't want to be told how to do something, and I struggled with it all day, but there was this thought in my mind that perhaps she was right. After talking to my mom, I realized that perhaps the issue was my unwillingness to set aside my own ideas and adjust to a different way of doing things, and not the advice that I was given.

I don't like being told how to do things, how to say things (this happens a lot in class) and although I know I should try and adapt to the culture here, there are still times when I want to do things my way. This is not only detrimental to the process of learning how to live in community and harmony in a different country and culture, but also in my Christian walk. The New Testament makes it very clear that we are no longer in charge of our own lives, but that we now belong to God and we must be willing to die - to lay down our wills, our desires, our pride and self-importance - and allow Him to direct us.

The process of language learning often doesn't go quite the way I want it to, but I have to remember that it is a process, and just like God is patient in the process of changing me to become more like Christ, I have to patiently trust Him to help me accomplish the goal.

Someone once said, "When you stop learning, you stop growing."
May I always remember that God has promised to complete the good work He started in me, and that all He asks of me is to press on every day in faithfulness and obedience to Him.

CELEBRATING LIFE

"Behold that which I have seen:

it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion." ~ Ecclesiastes 5:18

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." ~ James 1:17

I've been reading in Ecclesiastes lately ... a book of the Bible which I have always struggled with because of the pessimism it seems to portray. My spiritual eyes have been opened to the light of who God is and I have a growing relationship with Him, so I read it through that viewpoint, which makes the statements about everything being "meaningless" somewhat confusing. However, the author does make some very profound and true statements about God.

Jesus said in John 10:10 that He came in order that whoever came to Him "might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

So when I read Ecclesiastes 5:18 and meditated on it, I realized it was a jewel indeed. Every day that we have IS a gift from God, and as followers of Christ we can live joyfully in the time that God has given us, with what He has given us to do because we know that God is sovereign, even though we can't understand all the "whys" of this life.

That is a great motivation for celebrating and living "joy"-fully today: knowing that this is a day given to me by God and that by living every moment of it in an attitude of thankfulness and praise I am giving Him honor and acknowledging that He is God over my life.

The Perfect Act

Interesting title, yes? I just finished reading a book yesterday, which is called "The Garden at the Edge of Beyond" by Michael Phillips. It's very thought-provoking, a fictional story of a man's supernatural near-death experience and what he learns about life on earth and eternal life with God. Although the story itself is fictional, the teachings in the book are inspired and enlightening because they align with the truths of God's eternal Word.

Phillips drew from the writings of C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald in the writing of this book, and he devotes two chapters to expounding on the meaning of Matthew 5:48 -- "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (NASB)

I don't know about you, but I have always thought that although this is a command Jesus gave, that is was unattainable -- because I was thinking about my behavior and circumstances. How am I supposed to be perfect in this life, living in this sinful world? The insights I read in this little book were enlightening...

I'm going to try and summarize what he said in the book, but I will include a few quotes too, because I just can't say it as well as he did.

The character in the story is trying to understand what Jesus meant when He said, "Be perfect," and his guide in the garden tells him this:

"The Lord spoke neither naive nor idealistic injunctions. He gave only possible commands.

He expects us to become creatures that can and will obey Him in everything..

"Our Lord spoke not of sinlessness, but of the perfect act...not of perfection in the face of sin,

but of yielded abandonment of rule..

it was the yielded abandonment of self-rule that the Master modeled for us on the cross."

Jesus is our example -- we know this from Scripture -- and what He did in yielding His own will to the Father is something any man or woman can do as well. When we do this, give up our right to rule our own lives and live the way we want to, we allow our Heavenly Father's perfection to begin living in us. We begin to allow Him to shape us into what He wants us to be.

"God gave each of us a will, and that will becomes fully our own only when we offer it in loving sacrifice back to Him."

We will not be perfect in the endeavor to live selflessly, to surrender our will to God, and although this abandonment or yielding of our free will is what Phillips calls 'the perfect act,' on this earth it will never be a one-time event. We must continually, daily, moment by moment, surrender ourselves and our wills to God. And every time we do, we enter the realm of obedience to Jesus' seemingly impossible command.

Jesus Christ modeled this self-abandonment perfectly in Himself in order that we might be able to follow His example. And He has sent us the Holy Spirit, to live within us and help us beyond what our finite humanity is capable of doing. I like this quote from the book:

"The labor of the Son of God within the heart of every man and woman is for one purpose, to enable them to die as He died...to the rule of self."

God gave us the gift of being able to choose and think for ourselves, with a will that no one else can control unless we surrender it. But the most amazing thing about this gift is that we have the opportunity to yield this freedom, without force or manipulation, back into the hands of God and when we do, we find that He accomplishes greater things in and through us than we could ever have done if we fought to maintain control and power over our own lives!

Heavenly Father, once again I give You all that I am.

I surrender this day into Your hands, with all my desires, my plans, my hopes, my thoughts and my fears. I give You my will and choose to let You control my steps and guide me in the way that is pleasing to You.

Holy Spirit, please remind me that I am not my own when I am tempted to do things my way.

Lord Jesus, thank You for showing me the way and for making it possible - through Your death and resurrection - for me to be made perfect like You.

I long for the day when that perfection is realized, but in the meantime, please help me to remember that I have the choice and responsibility every day to yield myself to You and allow You to do the work You desire to complete in me.

In Your name, to the glory and praise of God, amen.

ALL FOR A PURPOSE

Romans 8:28 says this:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

Once this truth is firmly fixed in our hearts and we trust God to guide us in His wisdom, we will begin to see how the details of our lives are fitting into a specific plan that only a sovereign God could have designed. Even though we may not yet understand exactly what that plan is.

Yet along the way some circumstances don't make sense and we wonder, "Just how exactly does this fit into the big picture?" We don't always have the privilege of discovering the purpose of these events and we simply have to walk by faith, knowing that God will use them in some way. But sometimes a long while afterwards we can look back and see in reflection at least part of the reason why certain things happened in our lives.

Today I had two of those moments. The first came when I was reading email responses to my latest ministry update, and a special friend wrote these words to me:

"Remember once when you and I were talking,

and you said that you wished you had met the right man so that you could be married and have children because you love children so much? God always has a better plan,

better because He finds a way for Himself to be glorified and as a result we receive blessings too. 

Now you will have MANY children to love and care for, not just the one or two

that you could have naturally."

I still pray and believe that God has someone special for me someday, but what my friend shared is true. Had I been involved in a relationship, or perhaps married with a family, I probably would not be where I am today, preparing for full-time ministry to needy children in a country halfway around the world from where I was born. God knew that and He lovingly and carefully kept me for a special purpose that I could never have dreamed of and that now fills me with an inexplicable joy and hope!

The other moment came as I was doing my supper dishes. I have discovered that in Ukraine, things are done a little differently than what I'm used to -- here we use a sponge with a little bit of dish soap and some running water to wash the dishes. We don't fill up a sink with water, and there's no second sink to rinse in. And I have to wash up the dishes after each meal, because of the size of the kitchen and the relatively few dishes we have. Once the dishes are washed, they are put away in the cupboard - still wet - and left to air-dry. (I dry them sometimes anyway, because I prefer to do that.) Well, it occurred to me that God had prepared me for even this interesting change...

Back in 2005 when I moved to Cambridge, Ontario, I shared a 3-bedroom apartment with 2 other young women. I'm once again sharing an apartment with 2 other women, but that's not where the comparison stops. In that apartment in Cambridge, I quickly found out that my room-mates expected me to wash up my dishes and put them away after each time I used them, rather than letting them pile up on the counter or in the sink. At first that was a bone of contention with me because I was used to doing dishes only once a day. But it was her home, and I realized that I needed to accommodate her wishes.

I did not carry on that tradition over the past 5 years, but learning to do dishes in this way again has been a relatively easy adjustment -- in part because I had already developed the skill years ago. I used to think that was just for that time, but I realized today that even that living experience was preparation for what I would need to do 7 years down the road in another country! (Interestingly, back in 2005 I lived with a young woman named Tanya, and again, one of my apartment-mates is named Tanya!)

Psalm 139:16 says this:

"All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

None of these circumstances are a surprise to God, and let me tell you...it is a pure delight to be able to look back and realize how God has lovingly and carefully arranged the details of my life that most of the time I would deem inconsequential. Not only is nothing hidden from His sight, but He has planned it all before I was even born -- now that's amazing!

I hope this encourages you today that ALL that happens in your life is FOR A PURPOSE. Embrace it with faith and hope, looking to the Lord God, and you will be able to rejoice and give thanks "in everything."

WITH EVERYTHING...

With every day I see... new aspects of life here and new things to enjoy -- like beautiful purple morning-glory flowers on the way to language school, and places to try exciting new foods!

With every class I realize...how little I know and how to gracefully accept my mistakes -- and I trust that I will remember what I am taught.

With every word I learn...how to communicate what I need for living here -- and yet it is just a drop in the bucket, since there is so much more I want to know!

With every step I feel...a little more adjusted to the way of life here -- and I don't even mind the calluses on my feet so much. I'm getting a lot of exercise and it feels good!

With every hour I find...that time works differently here and I need to adjust my expectations -- the things I need to do will get done, just maybe in different timing that I wanted, and that's okay.

With every prayer I praise... God for His blessings and for the endurance, patience and grace He provides -- He truly is my sufficiency!

~ In everything give thanks for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~

STEP BY STEP

Wow, God has brought circumstances together so quickly in the past few months! It hardly feels possible but, Lord willing, I will be leaving for Ukraine on August 27th!!

God has already laid out the path, and step by step He is revealing that to me. I continue to be amazed at how He is at work in my life, and I hope that never changes, because He is an awesome God!!

My visa application is filled out and pretty much ready to go; I'm just waiting to receive the LOI (Letter Of Invitation) that is on its way to me, and then I can send it off to be processed. The plane tickets have been purchased and paid for - hooray!! And I am slowly but surely making progress with the packing.

My financial support is still lacking a little bit -- I continue to pray daily that God will raise up the people He wants to partner with me in this ministry so that my support will be at 100% by the time I leave.

I have a wonderful team of prayer supporters all across Canada -- and words are inadequate to express just how thankful I am!!

This past week I just finished my Pre-Field Orientation at EFCCM Home Office - it was very challenging, but also very encouraging as we shared our journeys and learned and gained insights from a couple who have been missionaries for many years. I am looking forward to the next steps of the journey!!

"Oh God, You are my God, and I will ever praise You! Oh God, You are my God, and I will ever praise You! I will seek You in the morning, and I will learn to walk in Your ways, and step by step You'll lead me and I will follow You all of my days."

LORD, I NEED REVIVAL

July 22, 2011 - Sunset on East Loon Lake, ON

This beautiful sunset was a reminder to me of the way that God revives His world as he brings each day to a close and brings a new beginning in the morning.

This weekend I had the privilege of spending some time with friends at their camp on the lake, and it was refreshing to body, mind and spirit in a number of ways. Work has been trying at times this week, and I was exhausted from the heat and the busyness of life, so the time at the lake was a welcome reprieve.

Yet I am reminded, especially as I think on the words of Ephesians 5, that we as believers in Jesus Christ are called to live not by the ways of this world or solely influenced by our circumstances, but in a way that brings glory to God.

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma...Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord."

Pastor Kevin spoke on Sunday about how change in our lives and in our relationships begins in our own hearts, not with others. I know this to be true, but we need the transforming power of the Holy Spirit and His grace in order to change this. And I was reminded this week how much I need His revival in my heart so that I live daily setting my "mind on things above, not on earthly things," doing all things "in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father" (Colossians 3) and not living "for myself, but for Him who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2)

I wrote the following poem on May 2, 2005 after a Sunday morning sermon, and I think it is a very important and appropriate reminder of the perspective I need to have as I seek to grow in my Christian walk. I hope this is an encouragement to you as well.

"REVIVAL" (By Darlene Joy Koop

The tears begin to flow as I survey my world,

A place of forgotten beauty and hope.

People are searching for fulfilment and purpose,

While their lives fall apart and they cannot cope.

Disaster, death and fear prevail,

There seems to be no escape from the pain.

"Why can't they see?" my heart cries out,

"There is life and peace if they'll call on Your Name."

We need a revival right across this land;

Freedom from corruption and sin.

How long will it take for the truth to break through?

Then I realize it starts from within.

My own life, I know, often seems darkened

And from struggles I long to be freed.

But when I listen, God speaks to my heart;

For revival to come, it must start with me.

I need to choose daily to serve my God

And allow His work in my life.

I must seek, above all, His ways and His will

And let Him take away the sorrow and strife.

I cannot change the world in which I live,

But I have an opportunity each day

To let Christ's love shine through me -

"Lord, send a revival," I pray.

MEDITATIONS ON THE PSALMS - Psalm 20

The psalmist David is reminding the readers that Yahweh is the One in whom they trust for salvation.

Three times in this chapter, it references "the name of the Lord." This is significant, because we know that there is power in the name of God.

Psalm 124:8 says that "our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."
Proverbs 18:10 says that "the name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe."

John 3:18 says that "whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
John 20:31 says: "But these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name."

In Acts 4:10, after the lame man was healed, Peter declared that "it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed."

In Philippians 2:10-11 it says that "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

God's name is so precious to us as believers because we know the strength and faithfulness of our God. The psalmist says 3 things about the name of the Lord in this chapter:

"May the name of the God of Jacob defend you" ~ God's name is a defense for us against evil and wickedness and trouble.

"In the name of our God we will set up our banners" ~ We should rejoice in the name of God and proclaim it to those around us.

"Remember the name of the Lord our God" ~ Our trust is in God and we need to remember this - AND remember who He is and what He has done for us, how He has proved Himself - especially when we are tempted to believe otherwise.

I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh praise the greatness of our God! ~ Deuteronomy 32:3