Quick Update =)

Hi Guys! Sorry for the delay in posting my next response. Work has been crazy! Well, that and every time I sit down to write this post I seem to get distracted and become unable to focus. I am going to try and have it posted by tomorrow evening.  However I want to give a quick update on my application to Africa Inland Mission.

I emailed my short term coordinator (Ryan) a couple of days ago asking if he could give me any sort of time frame for when I would find out if I had been accepted etc. He answered me back very graciously and said that the acceptance committee only meet once a month and I had just missed September's meeting so I would be presented mid Oct and find out at the latest at the end of Oct. Please pray for patience! I am very much an instant gratification girl! I know two/three weeks isn't very long...but it feels like forever!!! I anticipate the Lord will use this time of waiting to teach me invaluable lessons about trusting in Him and waiting on His timing. I appreciate your prayers!

Also I have been really convicted about my tithing (or lack thereof) and feel the Lords strong prompting to begin doing so. It is amazing how hard it is to loosen my grasp on the purse strings! Especially when I have so many different bills/fines ect i want to pay off. My paycheck is spent before I get it.

 Oh man! This is so cool I just realized something...I received AIM's monthly prayer newsletter and at the top was part of a verse Malachi 3:6 "For I am the Lord, I do not change". I read and thought oh that is really neat! Then I looked it up, and it goes on to say

 "therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your father you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, "How shall we return?" Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, "How have we robbed you?" In your tithes and contributions."

It's funny even though God has been convicting me about tithing this week, when I read that I didn't connect the dots. Sad I know. I think it is because I was really focusing on the I  am the Lord I do not change part. I thought that was really sweet! But that last part didn't hit me till just now as I was writing about tithing! Wow! I think that is pretty cool! God just continues to amaze me! And my lack of perception is pretty amazing too! 

Well that's all for now! 

Psalm 150:6 says "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!" 

                                 That's you and me! So lets praise Him!!

30 Day Challenge

We interrupt this blog with this important news bulletin...

"Hi, my name is Lauren McIntosh. I am 22 years old, and I am addicted to entertainment..."

As far back as I can remember (those of you who know me well...know that isn't very far) but regardless, as far as I can remember entertainment has been I believe the single biggest stumbling block to my spiritual health. 

I can remember having family nights and if ever the topic was how much television we were watching, or what we were watching, the defenses would go up and the the excuse manufacturing plant in my brain would go into overdrive. I remember times when my dad would ask us if there was anything we felt was drawing us away from God. Immediately entertainment would come to my mind. For it was by far the biggest distraction in my life, yet I would sit there desperately trying to think of something that sounded plausible to protect my 'idol'. 

Sadly as I have gotten older that love has not diminished. In fact it has grown. I love movies and television shows, I love watching clips and whatnots on You Tube. I read reviews and blogs on shows, I check twitter updates from actors, I read comments on fan forums etc etc. And the more I fill my self with the world the more I lesson my capacity for knowing and enjoying God. 

Ever since the Lord turned my life around on Aug 14th I have made a conscience effort to reduce the amount of media I take in. But entertainment has not lost its hold on my life. I kept telling myself I should fast from entertainment for a week. But then I would come up with some reason why I didn't need to follow through. This happened again and again. 

And really it is not surprising. If something is easy to give up or has no hold or sway on your life it probably isn't an idol. But when you have given yourself to an idol and cared for it and worshiped it. Letting it go is no small task. 

This weekend I felt the Lords prompting to fast from media for one month. I prayed and prayed and resisted and prayed, and decided to do it. God is worth it! In fact He is worth infinitely more...but its a start. 

I started my ban on entertainment Sept 23 and will see it to completion on Oct 23rd. I do not anticipate it to be easy. In fact before I began writing this post I sat at my computer and felt compelled to watch or read something! I felt unsettled! It was as if I was going through withdraw. You may think I am being theatrical or exaggerating to make an interesting point. But rest assured I am not. This is a real sin of idolatry that I have allowed to fester and grow in my heart for years! To be honest in my flesh I do not want to give it up! It has a real hold on my life! But my God is stronger! 

During these 30 days I am also going through Louis Giglio's 30 day journal/devotional. A study of God's attributes from the psalms. How fitting that during a time when I am taking my eyes off worldly pleasures and temptations that I fix my eyes on the almighty Lord of the universe. 

If you think of me please pray that God would give me the courage and strength to lay this idol down and look to Him to satisfy my soul! 

"Whatever you worship, you become obsessed with. Whatever you become obsessed with you imitate. And whatever you imitate, you become. In other words whatever you value most will ultimately determine who you are"

- Louis Giglio

Indescribable

Wow! God just continues pouring out His mercies on me! I feel like I am standing in the ocean of God's grace and love and every few seconds I am hit with another wave of His grace! 


Let me tell you what prompted this post! Ahhh! I am just so excited at how awesome God is! So I drove into work and as I was pulling into the parking lot I noticed a patch of really pretty clouds just glowing with the sun at their back. I didn't meditate on it long and went inside. I quickly found out that we were over staffed and I volunteered to go home and come back and work the overnight shift...since they were short on that shift. As I was walking down to my car I was happy I didn't have to work right at that moment but bummed that I had driven a half an hour just to turn around and go back. But as I seem to say quite a bit on this blog, God is so graciously sovereign! I believe (know) God planned this little seemingly pointless trip to put His glory on display and to bless my soul! 


So...I got back into my car turned on KTIS and began to drive home. Suddenly or at least it seemed to be suddenly because I definitely did not notice it on my way in. Suddenly the sky was filled and I mean FILLED with thousands of clouds! Huge clouds, small clouds, fluffy clouds, dark clouds, light clouds clouds in hundreds of shapes! It was glorious! It was a masterpiece! And then on the radio came this song

When I look into the painted sky

I see so many colors

They're all a part if Your design

It's such a brilliant display

I love the way the stars shine for You

And every single mountain bows down

I love the way the universe is singing Your song

So I'll try to sing along

Is God awesome or what?? And then as I was worshiping I came to a stop light and a beautiful butterfly flew in front of my windshield and seemed to hover for like a nano second before flying out of sight and then out of the corner of my eye I saw a hawk soaring towards the heavens and in front of me some other type of bird flapping its wings as it flew along and I thought the universe is praising God! 

As I continued driving, meditating, and praising the Lord. The clouds seemed to get more and more majestic! It was like mountains and valleys in the sky! I literally gasped at the beauty! Tears filled my eyes! I have NEVER seen clouds like this! Ever! Oh! What must heaven be like! The songs on the radio had (as can sadly be typical of KTIS) became more and more man centered so I turned it off and sang acapella "Indescribable"! What a glorious drive home! After a while I turned the radio back on and found they were still singing about us so I put in my Chris Tomlin cd and sang indescribable with him and the rest of creation! I put my windows down and turned the volume up and worshipped our Creator!

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God

Let's Sing With The Whales!

My heart is so full of all I want to convey and share here! It is literally brimming over! Friends...we serve an incomprehensibly AWESOME God! I have been thinking of how best to share what God has so graciously taught me this weekend...and it seemed like an impossible task to try recap all that had happened. I am picturing in my mind a post that drags on and on forever and my readers (all three of you...) :] when they finally came to the end having long grey beards, or if you are a woman long grey chin whiskers as a dear friend calls those unfortunately placed hairs on us ladies.  And I felt like the best way would be to break it down into three sections encompassing the wonders God has performed in my heart and I am sure thousands of others attending and streaming this conference.

So...the three sections are;

 1) How my view/understanding of God has changed.

 2) How my view/understanding of man has changed.

 3) and lastly as a result of this knowledge what is my response? 

It is only fitting we start with God so as Inigo Montoya said....."begin...."


The first session of the 2011 Desiring God National conference 'Finish the Mission' was taught by Louis Giglio. I had never heard him speak before and really knew nothing about him. So I had no real expectations one way or the other. And to be honest going into the session I had been up for 33 hours or so and I was exhausted. As we began the session with worship I felt a deep sense of disappointment in my hearts response. There was no passion, there was no excitement or anticipation for what God was going to do. So what did I do?... I said God just must not want me to learn anything tonight, I am clearly not in the right frame of mind, so I sat down, closed my eyes and dozed off for the next hour.....well that's what my flesh would have loved to do...but God had other plans! Plans to show me His unfathomable glory! 


So despite my weariness God gave me the grace to call out to Him! I cried out to Him...."Lord!" Please give me grace to hear from you! Send your spirit! I pleaded with Him! And when we pursue the thing the Lord loves (and make no mistake the Lord LOVES to reveal His glory to us) He delights in providing what we seek! I received an energy and an excitement from Him and was ready to hear and delight in Him!


As I was writing this I started recapping this sermon..and I just felt like that wasn't the best way to go. You can all and I would strongly encourage you to listen/watch these sessions on desiringgod.com on Monday and will benefit much more from that than my meager attempts to recap it. So my desire is simply to share what God did in my heart and hopefully it will be an encouragement to you...if nothing else it will encourage me as I get to relive it and meditate on our glorious God. 


The message God spoke into my heart during this session was "I am so much greater than you can ever imagine, so much more glorious than you can fathom, you will never come to an end of Me and you my child will spend eternity discovering more and more of My glory! And it is sweet indeed!" 

"Taste and See that the LORD is good." Psalm 34:8

One of Louis's points was that God does not require or need our worship. We are not doing God a favor by singing praise to Him. Does the Lord delight in our worship...of course. Does He need it......no. Then Louis demonstrated this to us in such a way that I will never forget. 

He read to us from Psalm 148 

1  Praise the Lord!Praise the Lord from the heavens;praise him in the heights!2  Praise him, all his angels;praise him, all his hosts!3  Praise him, sun and moon,praise him, all you shining stars!4  Praise him, you highest heavens,and you waters above the heavens!

Then he demonstrated how the stars are doing just that....praising the Lord. He showed us three different stars and played the song they are singing. One sound like rotatory belt...(is that a thing?) one was like a bass drum and my personal favorite whose name I cannot remember made the most beautiful harmonic 'humming' for lack of a better word! Mind boggling! The stars are SINGING! I hope that grabs you! But if it didn't...there's more.. he read on...

7 Praise the Lord from the earth you great sea creatures and all deeps, 8 fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word. 

And then he got the whales in on it!  He played a recording of a whale song and it was so beautiful! Moment by moment the image of God grows larger and larger in my mind and my self image grows smaller and smaller! Let me tell you...there is nothing more satisfying that glorying in God! NOTHING! That's what God created us for!  Now at this point my mind has already been blown away...but God isn't done yet..not by a long shot. 


Louis then played for us a mash-up of the the stars and the whales worshiping the creator...and I wept! I wept in awe of the majesty of God, i wept at the depravity of my own heart and how easily I am mesmerized by this world, and I wept at the stupefying mystery of God's undeserved love for us! And then Louis added Chris Tomlin's song "How great is our God" on top of the mash-up and it became a glorious symphony of voices and stars and whales praising our Lord. As I stood there singing with Gods creation I was able to take my eyes off my self and fix them wholly on God and I trembled at His feet! It is a moment I will never ever forget! 


There is so....so.....so much more I could say...but let me just conclude by saying this; the Lord of the universe, the God who created singing stars and whales, galaxies our eyes will never see, the one who is infinitely loving, infinitely just, infinitely glorious, and infinitely holy is graciously inviting us to "taste and see that he is good"! What a privilege...what an honor!  And friends make no mistake He is good! He does not disappoint! Worship will and is happening with or without you!


So come! Join in creation in worshiping our creator! Nothing else will satisfy you soul!

Finish the Mission Conference update

Wow...I don't have words and not due to writers block..simply due to being awestruck by the sheer awesomeness of God! Louis Giglio preached a message that blew my mind! I am way to tired to write any more tonight but just wanted to whet your appetite, we serve an AMAZING AMAZING God! Wow I am so fired up for Him!

I will try to recap tomorrow night after I get back from the conference!

Be Still...

"Be still and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10. This is one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible. I am so easily distracted by the cares of this world and by the fleeting pleasures it offers. So quickly sucked into the busyness of work etc. In the past I have allowed this preoccupation to pull me away from God. And to diminish my capacity for enjoying Him. 


Even now with this refreshed love and zeal for God, I feel myself ever being tempted to allow the din of the world to drown out God's voice.But now armed with His word whenever I feel myself being sucked back into that pattern I love to meditate on this verse. "Be still and know that I am God." Be still...I love that. Be still, quiet your mind, meditate on Jesus, pause for a moment, read His word. And when we do that we will be rewarded by an overwhelming sense of peace. "Be still and know that I am God". 


 Isn't God's word amazing?! I love the song by Casting Crown The Word is Alive.

"The word is alive;

and is cuts like a sword through the darkness"

I love that line!It is so true! When sin clouds our vision and creates doubts or fears if we turn to the Word of God it will enlighten us to the truth! The reason I decided to blog on this is that I was feeling discouraged last night. Feeling impatient at the length of time before I could serve in Africa, worried about my application, anxious about money, weary from work and so on and so on. But God brought that verse to mind and I stopped and meditated on Him. It is amazing what speaking truth to yourself and meditating on it will do! It brings such peace and joy!


I still am struggling a little with the post checklist blues...basically a list of things I had to complete for them to evaluate my application for acceptance to AIM. "Now that it's over I don't know  what to do with the rest of my life..." Princess Bride. Now there is nothing for me to do but wait to hear their decision. But God is so gracious and is teaching me a lot about patience and relying on Him! 


I have more I would love to say about this but I am struggling with major major writers block...have been for the past few days actually. So I apologize for the choppiness of this post. 


This weekend I am attending Desiring God's 2011 national conference on missions! I anticipate it will be a time of great learning and encouragement. And hopefully if I can get my thought and my fingers to work together to create cohesive thought I will blog about what the Lord teaches me. 


In the meantime...be still and enjoy meditating on our awesome God. For in the end He is ALL that matters.

Well done good and faithful servant...

Tonight at work I was witness to a beautiful testimony of a life lived to the glory of God. It was such an encouragement to my soul I wanted to share it with you and hopefully it will encourage you as well. During the dinner hour as I was assisting one of my residents with their meal I overheard one of our other residents a Sister of the Good Shepherd telling one of the other residents about her ministry to "her girls" as she called them and the faithfulness of God. As she talked about how much she loved people and about her faith my eyes brimmed with tears as I listened to her from across the room. It is a precious thing to give your life to serving others and bringing glory to God!

 After dinner I walked her back to her room and she told me she had been doing ministry for 70 years (she is 90). Wow! How awesome! She is almost completely deaf and her vision is all but gone. She told me "It is difficult now...but God will make it right later"! As I sat her down in the chair she said "God Bless you honey" and then she asked me to offer a prayer to God for her tonight and informed me she would say a prayer for me as well. As I walked out of her room I prayed a silent prayer to God praising Him for her life and asking His blessing on her remaining days! Once again sweet tears filled my eyes and spilled over.

I believe that God had her speak to that resident specifically for me. The resident she was speaking to no longer has the ability to understand or follow a conversation and was responding with sentences that made no sense...but Sister is so hard of hearing she did not know what the other resident was saying so she continued to share. And by doing so ministered to my soul. 70 years from now I hope to be able to look back on my life and see a life dedicated to sharing Christ love with people and glorifying His almighty name!

Thank you Sister for your testimony of faithfulness! Soon the day will come when the Lord will call you home and He will say "well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord"

"Direct my footsteps according to your word"

Okay...get ready for a long post! I just realized I say that a lot (okay). I also have a propensity to use (...) quite a bit as well. I make no apology for this as I find it an effective way to communicate the dramatic...and not so dramatic pause! And that concludes this brief sidebar. Now, "fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy (long) night (post)!" 


So starting up where I left off! I was ready for missions! I just needed to figure out where, when, with what organization and for how long...no biggie! "Oh no! This my friends is what we call a 'biggie'!" There are so many options out there! Which makes finding a really good one difficult. I went to short term missions.com which is like a giant search engine for missions! However as I read through many of them there seemed to be an emphasis on the adventure aspect of it as opposed to the mission itself! Which if you know me at all you know that I am not apposed in the slightest to an adventure, however I didnt want to turn God's call to ministry overseas to some sort of travel adventure thing to satisfy my cravings! Then by chance (and by chance I mean the Lord sovereignly guided me [without my knowledge] to type in Africa missions) which popped up the sight AIMINT.org. I went to the sight and was flabbergasted! Wow! What a fun word...flabbergasted....I mean..ok quick sidebar. Flabber........gasted...what does that even mean? I know the definition is to be astonished or amazed but broken down...does it literally mean your flabber is gasted? Or that you gasted your flabber? Something for you to ponder this afternoon. Annnnnd were back.


So I found the AIM sight and it was just really really neat! It is very Christ-centered and you really feel their heart for the unreached people of Africa! I spent hours pouring over the website, watching the videos, reading the missionary blogs, and reading all about their mission opportunities. I found a spot to fill one of those generic interest forms so I submitted that and then went to sleep. The next morning I had two emails from AIM (yay!)The first was just a generic "thank you for filling out and interest form etc" the second email was quite a bit different! I began reading it expecting yet another generic response informing me of the next steps to take. What I found was a very kind and extremely personal email to me from one of AIM's regional directors Warren Day. He thanked for for contacting AIM and provided me with more information regarding possible assignments and then he told me he actually lives in the Twin Cities! And that he regularly meets with students at Panara which is like 5 minutes from my house! What are the odds?? God was definitely in this! He said he would love to meet with me and learn more about me and vice versa for me to learn more about AIM. So I emailed him back told him about myself briefly and said I would love to meet with him! He called me that night and set up a meeting the next morning! God doesn't waste time!  



We met the next morning at Panara and it was wonderful! He was so  warm and encouraging! We talked for about and hour and ended it with him encouraging me to fill out an application and send it in. Once that was completed he would set up an "official" interview. So while I was working on the application, which was pretty involved, God continued to confirm this was the path He had for me! I am just so amazed at how gracious He is! 


Here are a few of the ways the Lord continued to confirm missions and specifically AIM in my heart! I had been downloading several of John Piper's sermons onto my ipad and I when I began listening to one I realized it was the message that had affected me so much and started me on this path. And I then noticed something I hadn't before. Piper's opening illustration was about non other than the founder of Africa Inland Missions! How cool is that? Or maybe it is just cool to me! Then one of my references told me their neighbors were going to Africa with AIM and another reference had actually been to Africa with AIM several years ago!  This was just neat to have more confirmation that this was a good choice! And as far as missions in general it seems like every sermon lately has been on missions. Even when I went out to visit my parents in CA and visited their church the sermon was on missions! It was like God was saying...yes this is what I want you to do and I want to make it very clear! 


I am just so excited! I don't think I can adequately convey how exciting it is to have this passion for God in my heart and to see so clearly His direction in my life! He has given me such a desire to show His love and compassion to the people of Africa and more importantly to share the glorious news of His gospel!


So, I sent in my application and met with Warren again for our interview. It could not have gone better! He is so excited to have me join AIM and had so much wisdom and encouragement to offer me! If I can get all of my references etc in, in the next week or so I could be receiving my assignment in Oct!! 


I will talk a little more about where and when once I know more, but my desire would be to work in Chad with vulnerable women and teenage girls with a departure date of June 2012 for 4-6 months! 


I appreciate your prayers as I continue this journey! 


- Flabbergasted at the awesomeness of God! -

Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Then I said, "Here I am! Send Me"!

Good morning!....okay before I get into the meat of this post I really need to get something off my chest! This morning when I got off work at 6 am after working a double I walked outside, ecstatic to be heading home after a loooong shift, with a song in my heart...sadly I was not prepared for what would happen next! As I opened the door to the outside I was met with blast of frigid air...and then as I walked out to my car I realized I could see my breath! It is September 15th...I have no buisness seeing my breath! As terrible and unbelievable as that is there is more...when I got to my car I found it was covered in a very thick frost/ice which I then had to scrape a small hole to see out of with a CD case! Folks I am sad to say that winter has come to this frozen tundra and I for one am none too pleased! 


Now that that is out of the way I want to share the truly amazing things God is doing in my life! Wow...where to start? "Let's start at the very beginning....a very good place to start." A little over a month ago...actually maybe two months ago now. Wow time flies! My dad called me and told me that God had laid it on his heart for me to think about pursuing and old dream of mine to do missions. As a young girl I had an extremely strong desire to pursue missions and really felt the Lords call but sadly through my teen years due to many different reasons the dream went on the back burner. So, I must admit to having very mixed feelings about this. On one hand there definitely was a spark of desire to do missions, but on the other hand I had been struggling with apathy in my faith and I had a plan mapped out for myself that did not include going overseas on missions. I was going to pursue a degree in criminal justice and become a crime fighting something or other. Mercifully in His infinite wisdom and kindness God had other plans for me. I prayed about it off an on but did not sense any real strong inclination to pursue it beyond mere thought. And then Aug 14th 2011 God turned my life upside down. I had worked an overnight into Sunday morning and was planning on sleeping all afternoon and then attend the evening service at Bethlehem Baptist Church. As 5 pm rolled around I found myself lacking a desire to go due to tiredness and the fact that I would be by myself. But I decided more out of duty than desire to drag myself out of bed and go to church.


As soon as I stepped into the auditorium I felt a strong sense from the Lord saying get ready this service is going to change your life. I was really excited and surprised, this kind of thing doesn't happen very often to me. I sat down and offered a short prayer to God asking that He would give me the grace to receive from the message. All through worship I felt His hand on me, every song seemed to be specifically for me and then there was a time of silent repentance before the Lord which was amazing. So now I was prepped... I was ready to be ministered to by the Lord. John Piper came up and preached a message I will never forget! It was as if God had crafted this sermon specifically for me...and who knows perhaps He did. There were two halves to this sermon out of John 10:16 (which incidentally is my blog verse at the top) the first half was on assurance of salvation and the second was on missions. It could not have been more perfect! As Piper spoke on assurance and read the verse..."My sheep hear my voice and they know me." I felt so strongly the Lord saying you are my sheep...now live for me!! It was such an amazing confirmation for me, as I have struggled with assurance of salvation my whole life. "And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day!" =) I felt such a passion for God ignite in my heart that all I wanted to do was give my life to serve Him. And then Piper preached the second half on missions and that clinched it. I knew in some capacity I would serve Him overseas! 


I think I will stop there (I need sleep..and you need a break from my ramblings) later today I will try to post how the Lord has brought me to Africa Inland Missions and His amazing sovereignty through it all! 


"A true faith in Jesus Christ will not suffer us to be idle. No, it is an active, lively, restless principle; it fills the heart, so that is cannot be easy till it is doing something for Jesus Christ" - George Whitfield

first blog post...ever

Okay guys...and by guys I'm not really sure who I am referring too... as most likely I am writing this post to only myself! So perhaps I should start again.Okay......Lauren, =) the reason I decided to start this blog is that I am in the process of joining AIM (Africa Inland Mission International) with the hopes of going to Africa in June 2012 to work with vulnerable women there and share the gospel with unreached people groups, and I felt this would be a great way to document this journey! That is all I can write for now as I must head off to work (as you can see my posts promise to be very in-depth and engaging...) tomorrow I hope to post about what God has done in my life the past month or so and why I feel this desire to be a missionary! See you tomorrow.....Lauren


"Sympathy is no substitute for action" - David Livingstone