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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Let Us Pray

Jesus prayed for his followers, he modeled how we should pray through his word. We’re called to “pray without ceasing” and to “present [our] requests to God”. (1 Thessalonians 5:17 & Philippians 4:6) The house I grew up in had a stain glass window in the dinning room, with a picture of Jesus on his knees praying. This picture is a clear representation of what we, as followers of Christ are called to do...pray continuously.

Prayer is powerful. Things happen when God’s people pray. Yet, we can take prayer for granted sometimes, or at least I know I am guilty of it. Shallowly asking God to forgive my laundry list of wrongs, begging to pass an exam I know I did’t study for, or asking for things like I’m talking to Santa. Not that there’s a right way and no wrong way to pray, we just need to keep our motives in check.

Prayer is about communicating with God himself, not telling Santa what you want for Christmas. If being able to talk to the Creator of the universe is not powerful to you, I don’t what else is!? He hears us when we talk to Him. He longs for us to take time out of our day to talk to Him. As in any relationship, communication is the key.

That's why I LOVED Lighthouse last weekend! Before Lighthouse a group of us met to pray for Lighthouse. Of course, as a Collective we should constantly be praying for Lighthouse, though it seems especially important as we move into a new season. We prayed for anyone coming for the first time, for the future of Lighthouse, for those that attend regularly and that God would move through out the Collective. It was amazing to spend time in prayer before transitioning into worship.

To most of our surprise, we spent a good portion of the night in prayer -- instead of listening to a message. The entire Collective lifted up prayers of thankfulness, humility and simple requests to God. Thankful for those who had gone before us, that had set the platform we now have to reach more young adults for Christ. We humbly praised God for giving us this new chapter in our ministry, asking God to not let us lose sight of Him through these next big steps. Then we asked God to move in the hearts of those who had never been to Lighthouse before and that maybe by passing out postcards, we would be inclined to reach more young adults in our community.

Last night [Wednesday] I sat with my mom at my brother’s baseball game and told her how cool it was that we had prayed so much at Lighthouse. Not only did a group pray before Lighthouse, but that the entire Collective prayed during Lighthouse as well. The next thing I know, she suddenly started asking all these questions, “When were you praying?!” or “What were you praying about specifically!?”, as I answered her hurried questions, I shot back with a “why”, curious to why she was so excited about us praying during Lighthouse.

My mom began explaining to me the story of a woman she works with. This woman, not a believer, but knows my mom is, came to her in hopes she knew of a good local church for her daughter to get involved at this summer. The daughter became a Christian during high school, therefore wanted to go to a Christian college upon graduation. Now that classes are over, she’s home for the summer and has been struggling to find a church to get plugged into. My mom mentioned that Lighthouse was a great place for college students to get involved at, even if they’re only home for the summer. The woman seemed interested and said she would tell her daughter about Lighthouse.

The following morning my mom goes into work as usual, but this time is different, she is met by the woman from the day before. She begins to exclaim how she had told her daughter about Lighthouse and that she also seemed interested. The same night she had told her daughter about Lighthouse, her daughter went into work at Macy’s and was handed a Lighthouse postcard. The daughter is now planning on coming to the launch of the Summer Series.

When we pray God hears us and if we truly want to see God move amongst the Collective and in our community, we cannot stop praying. God really does move in mysterious ways and prayer does in fact work. Some would call this a coincidence, but I would call it the power of prayer. Therefore, let us pray.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Lily of the valley.

modern day miracle.

a mom & dad try to start a family but nothing happens.
doctors say it's not possible & other options don't seem to work.
at the end of the rope they begin to accept that maybe God has other plans for them.
with a simple e-mail & a few phone calls later, they meet the Lily of their valley.
God miraculously placed a baby girl in their loving arms
& they now have the family they had always hoped for.



Lindsay & I got to watch Lily this week while her parents were on a much needed vaycay. so far every morning when I've watched her eating breakfast or playing with her toys or squirming around ... I've easily been reminded that she is truly an answer to so many prayers & simply a...
m i r a c l e.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

listen to this.


M83 : saturdays = youth


broken bells : broken bells

empire of the sun : walking on a dream


mumford & sons : sigh no more

band of horses : infinite arms



Not necessarily new albums or releases,
but definitely note worthy
as they top off my iTunes top 25 played.


Tuesday, May 11, 2010

My Mom's Day.

Mom's day was on Sunday & we got to celebrate the best of the best ... sorry to those of you fooled into thinking your mom is the best, you're mistaken ... for real, because only five humans have the best mom.




To surprise her, I got all five kids together for an updated "kids picture".


Thanks to::
+ my garage sale tripod
+ the heavy Spring rain stopping for 20 minutes
+ all the sibs cooperating.







Thursday, May 6, 2010

A Souls Journey of Surrender

Hit In the Heart

The other night I was driving to Oasis (middle school youth group at church) and Nichole Nordeman’s song, Holy came on Detroit’s sad excuse of a Christian music station … but that’s for another blog. Of course I’ve heard this song hundreds of times, seeing back in the day I was only allowed to listen to CCM. With the windows down and her tune blasting a line, hit me right in the heart:

"all You ever wanted was, me on my knees singing holy"

I found myself reflecting on where my life had taken me up to that point, my souls journey of a once safe, comfortable faith, and struggle of not letting go of control over my life. Twenty years of a life lived selfishly; all my Savior ever wanted, was for me to be brought to my knees. He had patiently been waiting for me to surrender and truly sing “holy” to Him.

The Christian Facade

My name is Courtney Fillmore and I am a poster child for kids that grow up in a Christian home. I know all the church answers and did all the right things. But it was not until I was nineteen that I truly gave God my life.

Being born into a Christian home doesn’t mean you’re automatically born again into His Home it simply means your parents are followers of Jesus, therefore they do their best to “train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Because my parents did a good job of training up this child, my life consisted of the following:

Watching McGee and Me, listening to Adventures in Odyssey on the way home from my Christian elementary school, going to AWANA’s every Wednesday, saying “the prayer” when I was six, being at every youth group event, praying for the other kids making decisions at summer camp, knowing how to take communion, not dressing immodestly, wearing a purity ring, working at a Christian camp, not partying, and choosing not date in high school, etc.

This list of actions might have made me stick out to the world, but they never made me a true-leave it all behind, follower of Jesus. Not that I am complaining or wishing I was raised any other way, this list just makes me realize how much I took knowing the name of Jesus for granted.

Knowing Jesus is not doing a list of things to stick out to the world, it’s about a heart change. It took me a long time to realize that being a follower of Jesus was more than doing what Christians are “supposed to do”. To be a follower of Jesus Christ means you wholly surrender your being to the one who crafted you in your mother’s womb. Letting go of any control you think you have on your own life and letting God take control of it – even if it hurts, isn’t what you wanted or isn’t what you planned. Being a follower of Jesus involves having a heart for God and a desire to live out His purpose. Being open to where the Spirit is leading you and selflessly choosing to, “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God..”

Being raised in a Christian home has truly been a blessing, but for me it made me a stubborn Jesus follower. Stubborn in the sense that I knew I was a follower of Christ but was too comfortable doing the right things and wasn’t open to God fully taking control of my life. There was always a piece of me holding back, a stubborn piece of my heart that wouldn’t give in. It took me till I was out of high school to even realize that I hadn’t totally given God my life.

Surrendering For Good

At the close of my senior year of high school, I hadn’t fully let go of my life and let God take hold of it. My post high school plans were to go to Bible college and marry a pastor, but when that didn’t work out, I got upset that God wasn’t fulfilling what I thought was His will for my life. I had not taken the blinders off of my plans to fully see Gods plan.

The part of my heart that was being stubborn was being suffocated by embedded sin and was in the way of seeing what God wanted for my life. It wasn’t until I confessed this embedded sin that I would be able to surrender to God for good.

In this surrender was when I started to see the most change in my life. Fully surrendering to God and letting go of past sin, regrets and failures brought such freedom that could only come from Christ. The stubborn part of my heart was beginning to soften.

My life began to rearrange from the moment my graduation party was over and college classes were about to start. I was starting to accept the fact that God must have bigger and better things for me at home, than off at Bible College. I had a new mindset and began to grow into my own faith, a faith apart from parents for the first time. It almost felt like I was a Christian for the first time, really living in the will of God and not looking back. After getting involved at Lighthouse, I even began see how shallow and safe my Christian walk had been before I had surrendered my life to God.

Joining a Kairos group seemed like a given to this work-in-progress-then-college-freshman. After all it just seemed natural to be involved with mid-week church activities. Kairos to me seemed like the usual small group setting I was use to, where I could share my story on surface level and most importantly socialize with my friends.

It didn’t take long to learn that I had the wrong idea of Kairos and that it was vastly different than any other small group settings I had been involved with prior. This word, vulnerability was thrown around a lot in our group, which at first scared me because I didn’t want people to see my flaws, but that’s right when God continued to prick at my heart.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.James 5:16

God has continued to soften my heart through getting plugged into Lighthouse and my Kairos group and growing into my faith and trust in Him. I continue to surrender my thoughts, hopes, dreams, and life to Him. With a more “grown up” faith, I’ve begun to see God in every aspect of life, from tiny things to big things. In the freedom of surrender I have truly become content with my life for the first time, and no longer have reason to hide my flaws from my Kairos group. It’s through sharing struggles with my Kairos girls, where I receive true God given encouragement and strength to press on. Not to mention, the more vulnerable followers of Jesus can get with each other, the more we realize we’re not alone in our struggles.

Realization

All this time, I had grown up in a Christian home, I always knew the church answers, and did the Christian things – but the only thing my Savior EVER wanted was to see me surrendering my life to Him, on my knees singing holy.

It doesn’t matter what we do, what we say, what we wear, or who we meet, all the Savior of the world wants is to see His children on their knees fully surrendering to His purpose. It’s not something that happens over night, it might even take going through valleys and rough seasons for us to even realize how much we truly need a Savior. Knowing Jesus and following after him requires us to fall on our knees and sing holy to the one who gave it all for us on the cross. Letting go of the control we think we have over our lives and allow God to control and guide our lives according to his perfect and pleasing will.

God longs to hold your whole heart. Ask Him to reveal the stubborn parts of your heart that may be holding back from fully surrendering to Him.