More and more I’m aware of how our constant inner narratives influence our ability to be in the world. The messages we tell ourselves are the ones we both benefit and suffer from most. So how do we ensure that those messages are true? And how can we respond if we realize they aren't?

I’ve been traveling for much of the past month; mostly for work, but also a bit for myself. In the middle of August, I spent a weekend in Lausanne, a small French-speaking city on the rim of Lake Geneva. I’d picked the location on a bit of a whim. What’s not to like about water and wine and the French part of Switzerland late in the summer? But from the moment I boarded the train Friday morning to the hour it arrived back in Zurich on Sunday, I found myself fighting one prominent message: You are continually messing things up.

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I navigated up the three floors of the expansive building drawing in my breath at each new beautiful work of art and new piece of information about the man behind the brush. From the beginning, I knew I would be changed as the gallery of his self-portraiture threatened to move me to tears. As I read the start of his story, I met a friend in Vincent Van Gogh.

What I didn’t know about my newfound friend is that after his start as a pastor, he decided to become an artist. However, this career change made him late to the game by artist standards.

So he grabbed a pencil.

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For the month of September we are sharing a recipe from a friend serving the kingdom of God in different parts over the world. The idea is while you are making the recipe you are also covering the individual or team in prayer. We are practicing BEING the Church and eating some amazing food.

Week Five is featuring the Michele in Lesotho in Southern Africa.

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Stepping off the plane and into the Tokyo Haneda airport was a reality check I wasn't quite prepared for. I walked right into a world of consumerism I thought I'd left behind in the States when I moved to Kathmandu. Starbucks and H&M were right across from each other. Women walking to and from terminals were doing so dressed so stylishly, I looked down at my Chaco’s and ketchup-stained pants shamefully. I rarely think twice about such things in Kathmandu. In a way, living in such a place has done wonders for my comparison-prone heart. In the Southern California though, the land of tanned legs and sundresses, I was in a constant state of comparison. Billboards and movies constantly told me which ways I wasn't measuring up. Every person was a measuring stick: I look better than her, she looks better than me. I needed to look the best to feel worthy. Which, by the way ... I never did. Someone, in your own mind, will always look better than you if looking the best is your goal. And it was mine. 

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For the month of September we are sharing a recipe from a friend serving the kingdom of God in different parts over the world. The idea is while you are making the recipe you are also covering the individual or team in prayer. We are practicing BEING the Church and eating some amazing food.

Week Four is featuring the Mays in a SouthEast Asian Country that is a closed country.

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Relationships. Thoughts about them come at all times of the day and night. They know no boundaries. They have no qualms. They come uninvited, unannounced. But instead of being in the category of the company I could honestly live without, they are the company I want in my home on a consistent basis. They bring warmth and love, they bring good conversation starters and opportunities to explore. 

I spend a lot of my time thinking and pondering and examining my relationships, especially the kind purposed for discipling me. Thoughts of them and the relationships themselves abound in my life. 

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For the month of September we are sharing a recipe from a friend serving the kingdom of God in different parts over the world. The idea is while you are making the recipe you are also covering the individual or team in prayer. We are practicing BEING the Church and eating some amazing food.

Week Three is USA featuring Alaska from Hope.

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Grandpa ordered hundreds — possibly thousands — of these coins. There are a couple different styles, but most have John 3:16 printed on them known also as the sinner’s prayer. He even ordered coins in different languages, sending them to missionary friends across the globe. And just like his cold-turkey conversations about Jesus, Grandpa made sure to pass these coins out to whoever would take them. He left them with the tip at restaurants, he dropped them into purses, and I’m pretty sure he gave me a new one every time I saw him.

Grandpa’s faith was relentless. He spearheaded a project at his small Nazarene church to put a cross on the top of the church building. They raised that cross a year after his death. He didn’t see it, but he believed it would happen.

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For the month of September we are sharing a recipe from a friend serving the kingdom of God in different parts over the world. The idea is while you are making the recipe you are also covering the individual or team in prayer. We are practicing BEING the Church and eating some amazing food.

Week Two is El Salvador from Anjolenna.

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I have found myself in the waiting place before. It’s uncomfortable. It’s excruciating. But this particular waiting place has reminded me that no other identity is more important than my identity in Christ. My focus lately has been so much on what I do and how that validates my worth. I believe that God has me in the waiting place to remind me that setting my eyes on Him is primary, all else is secondary. I am brought back to Colossians 3:2-3: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (NIV).

I don’t know exactly what God has planned for my life. When I entered college determined and unstoppable, I was expecting to graduate as a miniature Leslie Knope with a 30-year plan for my life and career. My waiting place has humbled me to remember that what I do with my life are simply manifestations of my focus on things above.

“So what do you do?”

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