Category Archives: Live Like Jesus

I’ve been thinking

Live Like Jesus, Love

I’ve been thinking lately about life and service and love and funerals. How we let days, weeks, and years go by without telling people how much they have influenced us, how much they have taught us, how much they have changed us. How we really wait until it’s too late to tell them.

I’ve been thinking lately about funerals and how we hope the people who love us come and celebrate our lives and give each other comfort in their mourning. How we hope we will be remembered. And yet, the way I have chosen to live my life, I hope that my funeral is not about me – I hope it points to a God who made every breath possible.

I’ve been thinking lately about love and how much of it I have been blessed with. From friends, family, my children, my husband, my Savior – I have no lack of people whom I love and people who love me. They show up even when I don’t call. They invite me in to life with them – in the good and the bad times. They let me help them when I can and celebrate with them in the times of rejoicing. My community is vast and needed and built on the foundation of Christ’s love for us.

I’ve been thinking lately about service and how that’s the kind of life I want to live. The one that puts others first and actively seeks out the good in others. The one that gives generously of time and resources and always stops to talk with a student who is in need of an honest conversation. The one that puts down the devices and plays with my kids, and enjoys getting to see them learn to serve alongside me.

I’ve been thinking lately about life and how fragile it is. How short it really is. How it can change in an instant. How life isn’t predictable or fair, how the hardest things can be the things that make us who we are. How I don’t want to wait to say, “Thank you,” or tell people what they have meant to me.

Why do we wait until it’s too late to say the things we need to say? Why do we wait until we are beside a coffin to say, “Thank you,” or “I love you?” I don’t want to leave things unsaid or undone. I don’t want to miss opportunities to love my neighbor and encourage my students and colleagues. I want to live a life of humble service, pointing people to Jesus Christ through my words and actions, and I want to tell people how much they mean to me, how much they have challenged me, changed me, and influenced me. I want them to know. Love like Jesus, serve and love in humility, and always, always say it, even if you think they know it.

Two Doors Down

Faithful, God's love, Live Like Jesus, Prayer

By Kristen Mudrack

Perhaps the hardest thing about moving is making new friends.

And I don’t mean friends you can hang out with and have a good time with.  I mean friends that you can share everything with – the exciting things, but also the hard things – in your marriage, your kids, your eating habits, your exercise (or lack thereof) habits, your fears, and your dreams, your quiet times and your prayers.  Those friends don’t come overnight, and they take time.

When I lived in Michigan, I had that group of friends.  I didn’t have it immediately – it took a couple of years.  But I had a group of women who I could share anything with, and they could too.

Then I moved.  Twice.

I still have those friends, but they aren’t a quick car ride away anymore.  I still can tell them anything.  I still talk to them regularly.  I still count them among the people who know me best. But it’s not the same.

When I moved to TN, God knew that I’d need a friend or two, and he provided.  The day I moved into my new apartment, leaving my fiance back in IN, the other new professor in the department and his family moved in too.  Two doors down from me in the same apartment complex.

In talking to each other that day and in the days to come, we discovered that we had all grown up in the same area, attended similar churches, and so much more.  Their four year old daughter came over to my apartment and “helped” me unpack the day I moved in.  Their two year old now knows me as ‘Tisten’ and runs to hug me every time he sees me.  We started having dinner together once a week.

When Cody would come to visit me, we’d go over and play with the kids and play games with the whole family.  The kids loved Cody because he could do magic tricks with cards.  Now this family is our closest friends here in TN.  We share much together, and they even made the trip out to our wedding.

God provided more than I ever could have imagined in this family – friends who we hope to be near for many years to come.  I love this family, and am privileged to get to live life alongside them.  Two doors down, in fact.

Behind The Falls

Live Like Jesus, Prayer

Last summer, I spent a few days at  Niagara Falls with my parents and my then-fiance.  We’re a camping family, so we hooked up our very old pop-top camper to my dad’s new-to-him car (which, by the way, had no air conditioning) and drove our way to the Falls.

I’d been to the Falls once before, on a family trip many years ago.  I don’t remember much about that trip – I’m pretty sure we stopped on the way to visit a college for me to look at.  And it was just a quick, get out of the car, look at the water, and then get back in the car kind of trip.  This time, I fully intended on seeing every aspect of the Falls that I could (from both Canada and the US) and enjoying the time with my family.

When you walk up to the Falls, you can feel the mist on your face.  You can see the mist rising from far away.  But not until you reach the edge do you really get to see the majesty and beauty of this water.  Four of the five great lakes flow into the Falls, but that’s not what makes it impressive.

To me, it’s the roar of the water, the sheer power that falling water has.  It’s loud, and wet, of course.  Water has been revered by many religious groups for centuries.  It’s necessary to keep you alive, and makes up much of your body mass.  But the water from the faucet or the shower pales in comparison the power that water has falling over the rocks at Niagara.

There’s a place on both sides of the Falls that you can go behind the falls, or straight under it.  If you thought it was loud before, think again.  Standing just feet from the curtain of rushing water, you can barely hear yourself think.  There’s a reason most people who go over the Falls don’t survive.  They are powerful.

But what makes them so powerful isn’t the distance that the water falls, or the volume of the water that flows over the side.  It’s what happens before the fall, and underneath the water, that matters. The majesty and beauty of the falls only comes because of what is underneath all of the water rushing down the river before hand.

If you walk back along the water coming to the Falls on the American side, you see rocks causing the water to flow faster and in a different direction.  You see uprooted trees and trees growing sideways to direct the flow of the water.  Years of erosion have made the silt, sand, and mud on the bottom of the lakes jagged in some places and smooth in others – but you can’t see that.  It’s hidden by the water.

The rocks and trees and sand and silt are what make the water flow the way it does, and what makes the Falls so powerful.  It’s all the stuff you can’t see that makes what you can see so beautiful and majestic.

We’re that way too, aren’t we?  God has to work on the stuff that people can’t see on the inside before we can be the glorious and beautiful image of Himself.  Before the waterfall can be powerful and majestic, what’s underneath the surface must be shaped and molded in just the right way.

How is God working on your rocks and trees and sand and silt to make you the waterfall that everyone wants to see and wants to talk about?  His image can only be made perfect in you when you let Him work on the inside, the hard stuff.  The rocks and the trees.

I pray that in this new year, you allow God to work on those things that the world can’t see, so that what the world does see is Him.

Here We Go Again

Do Something, dreams, Faithful, Live Like Jesus, Testimony

Two weeks ago, I packed up my life in boxes, loaded a truck, and drove south.

If this sounds like deja vu, you’re not wrong.  I did this almost exactly one year ago, too.  And it was just as hard.

Last time I moved to the cornfields, this time I moved to the mountains.  Last time I only crossed one state line, this time I crossed four.  Last time I left behind a group of trusted friends and “adopted” nieces and nephews, this time I left behind all of that and a fiance.  Last time I knew it was a temporary move, this time I hope it’s permanent.

Funny how God calls you outside of your comfort zone, lets you get comfortable and then moves you outside of it again.

In my case, it has literally been moving me across the country.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I can be a little bit like Moses, stuttering that I don’t have what it takes, that I’m not worthy, that God has to have the wrong person.  But God still manages to use me, to change me, to grow me into a woman after His own heart.  All because I choose to follow even though I don’t really know what He’s got in mind.

If I hadn’t gone to Michigan, I wouldn’t have the incredible friends and adopted nieces and nephews that I do.  If I hadn’t gone to Indiana, I never would have met my fiance.  If I hadn’t gone to Tennessee…well, we’ll see what God has in store.

For now, I’ll start by opening my home to people, teaching my students, opening my office door, and getting involved in a church.  And I’ll keep my ears and my eyes open for whatever God has in store, knowing that He has prepared me for anything He calls me to do.

The Greatest Commandment

Crazy Love, Faithful, God's love, Live Like Jesus, Truth

By Kristen Entwistle

“How would my life change if I actually thought of each person I came into contact with as Christ – the person driving painfully slow in front of me, the checker at the grocery store who seems more interested in chatting than ringing up my items, the member of my own family with whom I can’t seem to have a conversation and not get annoyed?  If we believe that, as Jesus said, the two greatest commands are to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind’ and to ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ then this passage has a lot to teach us.  Basically, Christ is connecting the command to ‘love God’ with the command to ‘love your neighbor.’  By loving ‘the least of these,’ we are loving God himself.”  (Francis Chan, Crazy Love)

Throughout the Gospels, the writers record conversations that Jesus had with teachers of the law.  These teachers thought they had it all figured out.  They had their laws and their ceremonies and their rituals and customs.  They thought that if you followed everything to a T, that you’d be fine.  You’d be delivered from your sin and in right standing with God.

Then Jesus came and turned their world upside down.

Jesus came to fulfill the law, not abolish it.  But He had a different way of doing things than the teachers of the law.  He ate with tax collectors and sinners rather than the kings and priests.  He wasn’t afraid to heal a sick man on the Sabbath.  He walked with sinful people rather than try to prove He was better than them.

I love Jesus’ answer to the teachers of the law in Matthew 22.  The expert in the law is trying to trap Jesus, as they so often did, and asks, “Teacher, what is the greatest Commandment in the law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

The teacher of the law knew that there were hundreds of laws in the Old Testament that Jesus could have chosen.  And to the teachers of the law, all commands were important.  You couldn’t be right with God unless you upheld not just one, but all of the commands.  The teacher of the law was probably a little stunned by this answer from Jesus.  It probably didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him because it wasn’t about sacrifices for sins or not working on the Sabbath.

Unless you just love to study Leviticus and Deuteronomy and all of the hundreds of laws that the Israelites were given by God, you’ve probably not cared about the command to not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19) or to not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material (Leviticus 19:19).  So why do we care about these two commands that Jesus mentions in Matthew 22?

All of the laws that the Israelites had to follow back in the day hang on these two commands.  All of the laws and customs and seemingly insignificant verses in the first few books of the Bible were to turn the people’s attention to God alone.  To give them parameters to live by so that they would love the Lord with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength.  It wasn’t possible for them to do so on their own.  All of those other commands of not stealing, not lying, not coveting what your neighbor has – those fall under the second greatest command – to love your neighbor as yourself.

The laws that the Israelites were given weren’t to make them annoyed by all the little details.  They were to create a framework in which the Israelites could live together as a people and could worship the One true God with everything they had.  Now, I’d be a horrible teacher if I didn’t point out that they failed miserably on many occasions.  But that doesn’t mean that God didn’t still continue to pursue them, his chosen people, and continue to give them chance after chance after chance to turn back to him.

All of the laws and the things that the Prophets said were to fulfill the two commands that Jesus mentions in Matthew 22.  So it makes sense that Jesus would remind the teachers of the law that this was what they were really after.  Not making sure that no one did any work on the Sabbath.  Or inspecting the clothes their people wore to make sure it wasn’t some polyester blend.  But loving the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving their neighbor as themselves.

But what does that mean for us?  We don’t live in the age when we have to make sacrifices at the temple or worry about what we eat or wear.  Those rules don’t apply to us anymore because Christ came and was the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.  But that doesn’t mean that we can ignore the greatest commands.

To many people, these two commands seem disconnected and disjointed.  What does one have to do with the other?

“By loving the least of these, we are loving God himself.”  (Francis Chan)

How would your view of these commandments change if you thought of each person you came into contact with as Jesus?  Each annoying student in your class, each person you pass on the street, each child who cries in the middle of the Sunday service.

My challenge to you (and to me) is to keep the two greatest commandments connected, not separate.  To love God, and to love people as if they were God himself.  To keep these commandments in everything we do.

I never said it was easy.  But it is what we have been commanded to do.

Headlights

Live Like Jesus, Patience, Prayer, Waiting

By Kristen Entwistle

I was driving home late last night, down one of those two lane country roads in Indiana.  Turns out, there’s a lot of those roads, and I’m pretty unfamiliar with them right now.  You see, I just moved here, and I’m still learning my way around.  I don’t know which roads twist and turn or which ones are likely to have horses and buggies on them.  I don’t know which ones have stop signs every half mile, and which ones go on forever.

Most of these roads have a ditch on either side of them and people who drive like maniacs.  Oh, and people who blind you with their high beams.

As I was driving down that two lane road last night, it was a little scary – not being able to see more than a hundred feet in front of you and not knowing what’s up ahead.

It’s kind of like life, isn’t it?  God gives us these glimpses of what He is calling us to do, these rare moments of certainty where we can see a hundred feet in front of us.  But we can’t see what’s coming.  We can’t see that there’s a sharp turn or a stop sign up ahead.  That cancer is going to hit us seemingly out of nowhere or that a close friend is going to die unexpectedly.  But we can’t see the good things too – the new baby, the extra money that just showed up in the budget – all we can see is what God illuminates before us.

photo-1455772376404-2a908684e054

Occasionally we get a glimpse of what’s coming when there’s a house light on, or a gas station.  But not very often.  Most of the time we’re still in the dark, with only our headlights.

Walking in faith isn’t easy, and it’s certainly not without its difficulties.  But we’ve got a God who can see all the twists and turns and stop signs because He built the road.  He knows what lies ahead for us and He guides us through it.

We may end up in the ditch sometimes, or make a wrong turn, but still He shows us the way, one step at a time.

Challenges, Speedbumps, and Mountains

Faithful, God's love, Live Like Jesus, Waiting, , , ,

I started off 2016/ended 2015 with this facebook status:

Honestly, I’m glad that 2015 is going to be in the rearview mirror. Praying that 2016’s challenges and speedbumps and mountains will be weathered with God’s grace and strength, not my own.

And boy, what a 2016 it’s been so far.

Challenges, speedbumps, and mountains?  Check, check, and check.

I can’t give you all the details (because I don’t know all of them myself) but suffice it to say that every area of my life has been … well, for lack of any other words, jumbled up … this year.

I am facing a year of giant changes.  I don’t know yet where these changes will take me – or when.  But I do know that God is unchanging.  Unyielding.  Immovable.

I am facing a year of the unknown.  I don’t know what is going to happen in this year, but I do know that God is all-knowing.  All-loving.  All-powerful.

2016 not my own

I am facing more than a year of challenges – I am facing a lifetime.  A lifetime of things that I don’t expect, don’t understand, and won’t soon forget.  But it’s a lifetime of challenges weathered with the God of the Universe on my side.

I am facing more than a year of speedbumps – I am facing a lifetime.  Some speedbumps may throw me for a loop, while others may slow me down.  But it’s a lifetime of speedbumps faced with my God in the driver’s seat.

I am facing more than a year of mountains – I am facing a lifetime.  I will climb, and I will fall.  And when I get to the top, there will be more mountains to climb. But it’s a lifetime of climbing mountains with the Lord of Creation by my side.

I can’t do this, but God can.  And He will.  Every step of the way, He is with me.  No matter what challenges, speedbumps and mountains come my way, I will not be shaken.  I will not be moved.  Because my God is with me, and He will never leave or forsake me.  Amen and amen.

 

Waiting On The World To Change: Down Bourbon Street

Do Something, God's love, Live Like Jesus, Love

By Kristen Entwistle

A few months ago, I took a trip to New Orleans for a scientific conference.  The famous Bourbon Street was a ten minute walk from our hotel, and we ate dinner in the French Quarter nearly every night.

My first trip down Bourbon Street was crowded and I was mostly just trying to keep track of my group so that I didn’t get lost in the throng of people.

My second trip down Bourbon Street, I got to take a better look around. 

And I didn’t like what I saw. 

Every other brightly lit sign enticed people to come into strip clubs and sleezy bars and questionable establishments.  (To be fair, there are some reputable and higher class bars/restaurants on Bourbon Street).  But it’s not just the signs that these establishments use to try to get people to come through their doors.  At every strip club, there is at least one bouncer telling people to come in and that it’s free and what they’re going to get when they go in.  And in the doorway, there’s always at least one scantily clad (sometimes not at all clad) woman moving her body to get the boys on the street to come in.  And then there are the college students, clearly on spring break, on the balconies above the street, throwing beads down to the people walking through the street, whooping and cat-calling for anyone they (in their drunken state) found attractive.

My third trip down Bourbon Street, I was tired and not really paying attention to what was around me.  It was raining, and I was mostly trying not to get our group lost.

My fourth trip down Bourbon Street, I was overwhelmed.  The line from a song that came to mind: Waitin’, waitin’, I’m waitin’ on the world to change.

I was filled with sadness at the things that I was walking past.  My heart broke for the people for whom this was their only reality, for whom this may be their only option for a job.  I wanted so much to yell up at the college students on the balconies, “There’s so much more to life than this.  Don’t waste your life chasing things that won’t satisfy.  Come to the well, where Jesus will freely give you Living Water, and salvation.”

But when the bright lights and pretty beads and glittering storefronts beckon, it’s a hard sell for anything else.  The Church doesn’t dazzle in the moonlight or have a glowing sign.  In fact, our lights are usually off and our doors locked at the hours that Bourbon Street is open.

bourbon 1

We’ve got to do more than just wait on the world to change – because on its own, it won’t.  But I’m not suggesting we go hand out tracts on Bourbon Street, either.  Let’s start by living life so that people can see whom we serve.  Let’s love like Jesus loved, no matter what people have done or how different they are from us.

bourbon 2

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be doing more than just waiting on the world to change.