Desire

In light of my recent post about dreams, I have been thinking about desires. God gives us desires and dreams, however when those desires become the object of our motivation we begin to follow a false god. How do we live with our desires and dreams, yet submit to God? There seems to be a fine line in experiencing the freedom of our dreams and desires and submitting to the ways of a sovereign God.

Henri Nouwen offers some insights to the dynamics our desires, "Our desire for God is the desire that should guide all other desires. Otherwise our bodies, minds, hearts and souls become one another's enemies and our inner lives become chaotic, leading us to despair and self-destruction" (The Only Necessary Thing, p. 28). After reading a thought like this, we may decide to aim all our energies towards ridding ourselves of desires other than God, however Nouwen offers the thought of spiritual disciplines as a way to order our lives.

"Spiritual disciplines are not ways to eradicate all our desires but ways to order them so that they can serve one another and together serve God." Nouwen's thoughts on desire and spiritual discpline have challenged me to walk through my desires and ask the Lord for them to be aligned with his desires for my life. This is a discipline, not an eradication. Disciplines submits, while eradication controls. Submission softens us to the voice of God, while control hardens us to the leading of the Spirit of Jesus.

My Next Door Neighbors

The Wood's, my next door neighbors from Torrance, CA, came to visit me last week. We had a great time! I loved every moment we spent together. It's fun to think we've known each other since we were two-years old. Jonny and I reminisced about riding big wheels down steep hills, jumping fences to get candy from 7-11, and playing basketball-- shooting HORSE from the top of my roof.
Here we are all grown- up, but kids at heart!

Living the Dream

In the midst of work, friends, errands, bible studies and school it becomes easy to neglect the deepest longings of our heart and soul. They are longings that none of us can pinpoint or describe; they are pangs in our heart; senses of something more, something grand, something we need, but can’t grasp. These feelings arise at unexplainable and unexpected times. During certain seasons of our life we may feel detached from the deep longings, they become seemingly distant memories. But, sometimes the feelings are so real that we choose not to acknowledge them because... what do we do with these indescribable feelings anyway? Out of fear, we neglect our feelings because they can’t be put in a box. If the feelings were to unleash then we may not be able to control them. So, most people will simply greet the feelings for a moment; maybe get a warm fuzzy feeling of inspiration or possibly a deep saddening of reality......But, “Life goes on”. The years go by and there are moments in which we catch glimpses of these longings, but we usually just think of them as a “crazy thought” and continue “life”.

I have come to know these longings as the inner voice of love beckoning us to walk in the something more. The glimpses of something bigger are the dreams that God dreams for us. They are the dreams God has written on our heart. We yearn to walk in them, whether we acknowledge that or not. Are we too fearful to walk in them? What would happen if we were to become familiar with those feelings, the desires, the grand dreams?
What would happen if we did NOT let them pass us by?

Bachelorette Party

My friends, Angela Tricerri and Chris Bouma, are getting married in Santa Barbara next weekend. We celebrated this past weekend! It was SOOOOO fun and memorable. We wore old, tacky, embarassing dresses---

Tuesday Gathering at the Tarman's

On Tuesday nights we host a gathering for the younger people in our community. For six weeks we are discussing Jesus and community. So far, the first two weeks have been amazing!


This is my roommate, Belen, and her fiancee, Jared. They got engaged this last Friday! I love them-- they're awesome!