Rollin in the Deep

This crazy feeling that overtakes me. I can't really even describe what happens. I just know I have to jump in. The captain said isn't it crazy to think we have 3,000 feet of water underneath us right now. I tear off my dress (there was a bathing suit underneath) asked the captain if I can jump in...didn't even think twice and JUMPED!!!! Everyone was like Lu you know we just saw a shark not far from here. I honestly didn't care.

I can hardly catch my breath. It almost feels like I'm having an anxiety attack. As fast as I jump in I want out. They put the ladder down...I'm in the boat. I have no idea what just happened...I still can't really catch my breath, the only thing I know is that I have had some sort of spiritual experience. I know I will need to ask the Lord about what happened.

As I sit just trying to get my wits about me, the guys get back in the boat. "Lu you have to get back in with the goggles and look under the water."

"There's nothing but water, what is there to see?"

"Just go back out there and look under the water."

I jump back in and put my face under the water...I can't even stay down long enough for the bubbles to subside, I'm again totally out of breath. My friend Daniel says Lu I totally know how you are feeling but try and catch your breath and relax underwater. You have to see this.

I've got my wits about me and I begin to float face down eyes wide open....AWWWWW BEAUTY!!!!

I again get out and know that something spiritual just happened.

It's one thing to stand in the ocean ankle deep as the waves lap over your feet. Then we move a little farther out where we are about waist deep...and we keep tiptoeing out until our shoulders are under. We then move a bit farther and then we can't touch...that always makes me a little scary. What if something comes to nibble on my toes?

3,000 feet of water under me, a vast horizon of an endless ocean. I jumped right in. It scared me but I knew I had to do it. I had a choice but I didn't really, I didn't want to miss this chance. And then to increase the experience I got back in...relaxed and looked under the water.

We get this opportunity everyday when we walk with the Lord. We have the choice to jump right in, to give him all that we are and trust He will keep us afloat. And we even get the chance to relax, take a deep breath and bask in His beauty. When I opened my eyes under the water it was the most beautiful blue I had ever seen and in the blue were these rays of sunlight that broke through the water and went as deep as I could see.

I want to be all in with the Lord, I don't want to hang out knee deep in the water. I want to be consumed by Him...ALL OF ME. I am very much in a season of asking the Lord where am I not all in? Where am I holding back parts of my heart from you? Where am I choosing to do things on my own? I want to give him all things, find him all things, because he's created all things. Search my heart Lord and give me the courage to jump right in, relax and see the light breaking through.

Sometimes we might not understand why we want to jump right in...but trust the Lord and jump on in. He's a really good God.

Death By Burpees

Minute 1..do 1 burpee...wait for minute 2 to start

Minute 2....do 2 burpees...wait for minute 3 to start

Minute 3...wait for mintue 4 to start

and on and on until you can no longer fit burpees into the minute. The first few rounds will be easy...but hold on tight, it gets good around round 6 or 7....

Have Fun, Train Hard.

[life desensitized] fighting to live beyond complacency

The other night I was watching one of the multitude of one hour crime dramas and I drifted to sleep while watching the head M.E. sew up a corpse after an autopsy. After years and years of watching shows like CSI, Law and Order, Bones and others seeing a dead body splayed open on a metal table with a doctor elbow deep in intestines and organs is nothing. It looks so real but it doesn't affect me... doesn't make me sick, in fact it's kind of expected now. Ready to throw up your breakfast??? Or have you been as desensitized as I have been??

I know this is a big jump but just like my mind being desensitized to the gruesome reality of a TV world filled with murder and graphic autopsy... I feel like my heart has been desensitized to the absolute POWER of God's word. I was reading my friend Fiona's blog the other day... (A Little Bit of Honesty) and she was talking about the verse Philippians 4:13 hitting her like she had just read it for the first time...

"For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength."

Read this and soak it in... seriously do you realize what this is saying... WE CAN DO ALL THINGS with faith in Christ. I think so many times I read over verses like this and think hmmm thats cool but really my lack of faith keeps me from thinking this really applies to me.

When we read God's word and don't fully live it... and don't fully believe it actually applies to us, the enemy has us right where he wants us. We come out of church or bible study feeling fluffy and comforted by a God who is generous and can help us when we need it... HELLO?!?!?!?! That's us being desensitized to the absolute POWER of God's word and promise and will for our lives! That's us walking out of our churchy time in complacency and consumed with enough feel good crappy fluff to keep us content to live an ordinary life bound by safety and comfort for one more week. 

For so long I have been frustrated with studies, sermons, retreats and worship songs that make God seem fluffy and turn us into a heard of spiritually selfish consumers... BUT guess what.. It's not the sermons or the studies or the songs that weaken God's word, IT'S ME!!! I have the power to either make God's word a pile of self serving fluff.... OR I can actually believe the words that are written, I can CHOSE to live in them and not just say them or sing them in a pretty song. They are POWERFUL, they are LIFE SHAKING, they are WORLD CHANGING words that  do apply to me and that do apply to you. 

He doesn't just want to fill us up with fluff so we can survive our own lives... he wants to fill us with the power of his GRACE that will flow through us to change ourselves so we can encourage others and actually affect the world we live in. 

Today I have several powerful verses that after reading in new light, with new eyes have knocked me on my butt!!! THEY HAVE SERIOUSLY BLOWN ME AWAY... because I am choosing to live in them today... I am choosing not just to read them and think "how nice"... I am reading them and praying IN FAITH that God will do this in me... TODAY... when we pray and believe MIGHTY things can happen... I will no longer be desensitized to His Spirit!

James 1:5-6  If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.

John 14: 12-14   I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!

Romans 8:15-16   So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.

2 Peter 1:3-4   By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

Ephesians 1:19-20  I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.

These are just a few of my favorites... today I am fearlessly confessing I have made these verses fluff in my life... but I am now shedding the crappy fluffy attitude of spiritual consumerism and complacency... and I am choosing to live powerfully in the faith that what I read is actually true.