Beforehand

"For we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10

I was reading Francis Chan's book Crazy Love today and at one point he refers to this verse and talks about how God knew us before we were born and how He had created theses things for us to do. I know that some people get uncomfortable talking about the idea of predestination that they feel that you cannot have free will and predestination at the same time but I am wondering if you can. Tonight our church had an all church gathering which meant that the people from all three locations got together. It was amazing to see a bit of the "bigger picture" of Evergreen. Part of the service was a baby dedication. This was a time for parents to bring their babies forward and share with the church their hopes and dreams for their child(things like growing to be wise, and generous and loving, to be full of joy, to be an example to those they meet of Christ's love) and then the pastor prayed over the baby, prayed for these hopes and dreams and desires to become true. And as I watched this I began to be overwhelmed with the love of God and I could not help but cry. It hit me that no matter how old we are God IS our Father, and He has these hopes, these desires, these dreams or as it says also in this verse in Ehpesians, these "good works" that He has had for us from beforehand, from before we were even born. And I thought of how much these parents love their children, how much they will rejoice when they do, Lord willing, see these children grow up and become wise, and loving and joyful...and I thought of how much joy it must bring God to see us accomplish these things that He set forth for us to do beforehand. Does this mean we do not have free will? Do these children not have free will? Of course they do and we do as well. We do make our own choices, we can choose to live life based on our wisdom and our desires and God allows this, but I think it breaks His heart. However when we choose the things He has put before us to do, when we are living the life He has designed for us it must bring Him so much joy! Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm missing some part of this...but I don't think I am. I know for me this has brought to me a depth of God's love that I've not known before. There is to me this freedom in this verse. I don't have to work so hard to figure out my own way, to create my own "good works". There is a freedom to live and to live fully. I think of my friends who I love, since I don't have my own kids yet. And I think about how much I love to see them thrive in life how much I love to see them live full and beautiful lives and how much it hurts to see them choose things that harm them and others. And my love for them does not change when they are not living full lives. Nor do I think God's love changes for us when we do not choose to live the full life He has laid before us. But who wants to live a life that is not full, that is harmful, that is meaningless? So let us choose to live, to live a full life, to live a life where we get to discover these things that God has set out for us from beforehand. Let's live this life resting in the hope and joy that small children who know they are loved deeply by their parents live in. Let's walk away from the things that have entangled us, that have discouraged us. There IS hope! There IS a life to be lived and enjoyed. Sure, circumstances shift, really bad things will happen along the way but there is always a deep deep love for us from our Father who delights in us and who knew us long before we even entered this world.

What does this look like more directly in my life? In the adventures set ahead of me? Well I have been working on putting together a team from our church to go to Czech this summer. This is Evergreen's first ever short term mission team. They've sent missionaries out before but it has been more of an individual thing. It blows my mind to think that God may be using me to bring about this change. That He may be using me to launch Evergreen into the world of short term missions. So far nobody had committed to join me in this and I've begun to get a bit discouraged. to feel like this whole thing is far too impossible...BUT I've been remembering last year as I set out to go to Czech and how I wrote the blog here about how God makes impossible things possible and that shortly after I published the blog all the support I needed came it. God showed me the truth of what I had written. So I know and I trust that God knows what is going to happen this year as well. He knows my heart and the hearts of those at Evergreen. He alone knows the "good works he has prepared beforehand" and so I trust that if this indeed part of what He HAS set apart from long long ago, that it will happen. And if not, I know that He has something even better. I am supposed to know in a week if we have a team or not so that I can tell Josiah Venture. So we will see how God works and leads.

So here is to living life full of joy and hope trusting and resting in the truth that God knew us before we were born and loves us with a love so deep that He considered the death of His one son worth it so that we could be made clean and whole and we could enter into a relationship with Him. May the gospel become more and more real to each of us on a daily basis.

Emily

Ways to join the adventure:
-Please pray for God to speak to some people from Evergreen to join in the Czech trip. Pray for a guy leader and a few others to join.
-Pray for God to provide more summer interns for Josiah Venture. There is a big need for guys especially. This is what I did this past summer.
-Pray for God to reveal to you an ever increasing knowledge of the depths of His love