Saturday, March 12, 2011

On watering grass

Hello dear dear friends, it has been a while since we have talked! It is amazing how life kind of just happens and before you know it you are asking yourself, where did those last few weeks go?? I hope all is well at home. Texas is often on my mind and even though I have decided to stay here and do another year of college, my heart is still in the Lone Star State.(Picture is me eating a weird popsicle at Burwood Extension a couple weeks back)
I know I shared a bit of what I am doing these days at Hillsong College but a lot of it has changed. I am now the student overseeing College Promotions at the City Campus. I meet with my specialist once a week and we come up with ways to promote college and do advertising and all that fun stuff. It is something I have never done before but hey, why not? I am still co-overseeing the music for Voltage, which is the 5-6th grade ministry here. I am on a pastoral care team for all Worship Stream students, head student meetings, regular classes, weekend serving... Lots and lots to do :)
One of the coolest things I have recently started doing is driving out to an extension service in an area called Burwood. Some of us go out there to volunteer on Friday nights to help run their youth programs and I think it is probably one of my absolute favorite things to do since I have been here. It is smaller and feels more like youth group back home, and I love every second of it. By Friday at 4:30 when we leave we are dead tired from a crazy week, but it's amazing how God gives you what you need to do what He wants you to do.
We are gearing up for Colour Conference, which is a massive women's conference that Hillsong puts on every year. Literally thousands of women come from all over the world,
it is amazing. And all of the college students are basically the manual labor that runs it haha. I have been allocated to Guest Seating (sounds cool I know) which is accomodating all the guest speakers and their families that fly in to preach...how awesome is that?! Speaking of Colour Conference...I sent some of you an email about it, but some college students were asked to write original songs with Colour Conference in mind, so that they could be turned in and performed at either college or church or wherever needed. And I wrote one that was chosen and rehearsed and was actually performed along with a music video and college chapel this week. Pretty exciting stuff!! 3 of my roommates sang it, I directed choir, it was so fun. How could I not stay another year??
(The picture is me cooking some pork and potato tacos with homemade salsa a couple weeks ago with my flatmate Bianca and friend Alan in our flat.)
So that's a little bit of what's going on over in these parts. I know I generally tend to pretend like I have all this amazing insight and write to you about the wonderful revelations that God has given me...and I have a few of those. But here are just some simple thoughts that are on my heart for you this blazing hot evening :)
One of the pastors said this a couple weeks back in a message:

"The grass isn't greener on the other side, it's greener where you water it."

That hit me like a ton of bricks. So simple, and makes sense. But I am huge "always wanting to be on the other side" person. Nothing is ever good enough, I constantly compare myself to everyone else, and I always wonder what things would be like if I had made different choices. But I need to just start watering MY grass and not looking at everyone elses. Because grass gets greener where you water it. So that's what I am trying to do...water my grass. Make investments into my own life that may hurt a little and cost me some comfort now, but will save me a lifetime of learning hard lessons and paying prices I can't afford.

The other day in my Old Testament Introduction, the lecturer was talking about this scripture:

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4

She was saying how tend to read that and think..."Oh, if I just read my Bible, and pray alot, and love worship, and build the church and have a joyful attitude while doing it...God will give me what I really want." I think I'm guilty of that at times. Of treating that like being happy with the Lord is the magic trick to getting what you want. But she challenged us to read it differently. To think of it as, if we find true delight in the Lord and in knowing Him and walking with Him. He will be the one "putting" or "giving" us desires. He will instill in us desires and longings that align with his plan for humanity and plan for salvation, so that the things we pray for and ask for will be His will. And then of course He will give us that. So not that He will give you WHAT you desire...but that when we delight in Him, he will give us THE desire so that our hearts beat with His.

So water your grass. I think there will always be people or things or places you wish you were. But feeding into that is saying that God made a mistake when He put you where He put you, or made you like you are. And He is perfect. SO perfect. I know sometimes it's challenging to get perspective and remember that every season has a prupose...even the ones that feel insignificant. God had to bring His people into a desert for 40 years before they were ready for the Promise Land. And he had to put Moses in the desert for 40 years before He could even lead them out of Egypt. I am praying you do find delight in the Lord, so that He will begin putting His own desires in your heart and that you would be a man or woman after God's own heart. You are loved and dearly missed. Don't underestimate the plan God has to use you :)

Click here for the link to the song I wrote being performed. Again it's not me singing, but you will see me on the screen in a green shirt dress thing and then at the end they push me to the front, as good friends do :)


This picture to the right is during a core tutorial, where we had to do some sort of role play for how being different parts of the body of Christ works...Can you guess who totally took the exercise seriously and was adrenal glands... ;)

Be brave,

Linds


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