Week 42

continued from Week 41

Does anyone else joke with Jesus?

Do you ever remind Him, “You made me this way!”?

By this, I’m referring to acknowledging our individual and personal gifts which then can also, and often, be places of potential personal pitfalls. Anyone? Anyone?

I have been labeled stubborn for as long as I can remember. Here’s the definition for you in case you’ve ever been labeled as such.

Stubborn 1: unreasonable or perversely unyielding, justifiably unyielding 2: performed or carried on in an unyielding, obstinate, or persistent manner 3: difficult to handle, manage, or treat.

In addition to these lovely words there is a list of 31 synonyms which followed, and those words are no kinder in how they would hit one’s heart.

So…did Jesus make me, to live stubbornly? No. What then has He done if the label of stubborn doesn’t suit?

Well…He has given me my senses, eyes which see efficiency, ears which hear crystal clear (not physically, but ears able to hear words clearly), a mouth and hands which are to bring about goodness (often through significant effort), an intuition which is keenly aware, and thankfully, His Spirit (which I pray surpasses all other aspects of my being). Guess what? You too have senses and I dare you to believe that even if you’d deem some of your sense’s in the physical a bit ‘deadened’ through your journey with Jesus you can come to know the power of your full senses in the Spiritual.

As a younger Kara these gifts were not stewarded or shepherded well causing my presence to be felt and often resisted. I hope if you know me personally you’d agree with how I now choose to describe myself.

I am His grateful, humbly-confident, encouraging one living with a unique zest and vigor because I am rooted in The Vine of Jesus (Him as my Vine of is more like a sequoia tree trunk)!

I exist to live intentionally through, and for Jesus, I DO NOT do this well all the time, duh. In those not-so-hot times Jesus makes it very clear that I have brought some good ol’ #notstubborn Kara intensity into an exchange and frankly, I wasn’t healthful or helpful and an exchange like this does not serve others, the situation or myself. So… I then return to be made whole again by Jesus and then, as led and needed, I seek to let the one(s) I may have offended know I am sorry. Most importantly, in these scenarios, I desire for those hurt by me to understand I misrepresented Jesus and his Spirit in me.

I write about all this “stubborn stuff” to say when Jesus started to light the path of what seemed could be our new brick and mortar church, I resisted.

Are you surprised?!? lol

I love that I can laugh at my zesty vigorous self now!!! If Jesus is calling us away from LCBC which is known as being a “mega-church” (offering programs galore and marketing to boot) why on earth (lol Karah, My ways are above the earth, remember!) would He send us to another church hoping to become a mega-church?

I was completely judging this new church which was ‘launching’ soon and set to open only two miles away from our house. Thinking of attending that church had me all hot and bothered because we had received many postcards in the mail from this new, to be church, which I thought was ridiculous.

We don’t need to market Jesus, do we?