Author Archives: Rebekah Roper

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09/22/2011

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Live the Journey

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More Beautiful Things

I remember walking the beach as a child, searching for beautiful treasures that washed in with the tide. In my young mind, every seashell was a beauty. Sometimes, if I was really lucky, I would find one that was nearly two inches in diameter! They were the biggest I ever found, and I considered them huge simply because I didn’t know any better.

I laugh at that childish viewpoint now. Having a friend with a house on a gated island has really expanded my vision (and spoiled me for good). Now I find sand dollars and sea urchins, stingrays and their less-intimidating relatives – the skate. I’ve stood on a bridge and watched dolphins dance in the harbor beneath me. I’ve witnessed tiny sea turtles scurrying toward the sea. All these things my childish mind could never conceive.

Those two-inch shells I found with wide eyes don’t even capture my attention anymore. I know there are more beautiful things in the sea.

I imagine God laughing at me now as I laugh at the memory of myself as a child. “Oh Rebekah,” He says, “if you only knew the things I have in store for you, maybe you wouldn’t be so distracted by such frivolous things.”

And just like that, I sense an awakening. There are more beautiful things in the sea. And as I watch the waves of my life rush in and out, in and out, I wait in expectation for the glorious things God has prepared for me.

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09/20/2011

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Live the Journey

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Unwind

You’ve probably noticed the lack of posts lately. I went to the beach last week and took a vacation from everything. Well, that’s only part of the reason. Mainly, the silence has been because I ran out of words (which is perhaps the worst thing a writer can do).

At the start of last week, a friend told me that I needed to unwind. Either her words were prophetic or the chaos swirling in my brain was more evident than I realized. In any case, she was right. So I set my mind to unwind.

Ironically, I think that in telling myself to unwind, I only wound myself up tighter. “Why isn’t this working? Why can’t I think? Breathe? Write? Why can’t I release this chaos?” After a week of such questions, I’m happy to say that I found the answer… I can’t unwind on my own. And here’s the happy part of that news:

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Note that it says, “I will give you rest.” Not, “You will find rest because you sought so hard.” Did you get that? Rest only comes when we stop striving to achieve it and simply let God fulfill His promise. And yes, it is a lot easier said than done.

I wanted to unwind all at once. I wanted to force all this clutter from my mind and start fresh. But God knows that if He lets that happen, I’ll unwind with the intensity of a high-speed tornado. The aftermath would not be pretty.

But I think I’m finally getting it. I’m slowly starting to unwind and things are beginning to look a little more clear. I’m piecing together a few of the lessons I learned at the beach and will be sharing them in the days to come. So join me on this once upon a time journey where even the mundane is an adventure…

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09/09/2011

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Heartfelt Prayers

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A Handful of Moments

You pass me another handful of moments and I watch them fall like petals around my feet.” -Steven James

And I’ve missed them. I’ve missed them again. It would seem that I miss them every time.

How long has it been since I truly embraced the moment? How many times do I forget to inhale the fragrance of Your presence because I’m so caught up in my everyday, ordinary life?

Please don’t give up on me yet. Maybe, just maybe, today will be the day that I finally open my eyes and see.

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09/07/2011

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Embrace Truth

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Breaking Up With God

I’m a bit of a rebel. I like living on the edge. Once I stepped out of the box, there was no forcing me back in. So naturally, my curiosity was piqued by a book entitled Breaking Up With God: A Love Story. Upon picking it up, I quickly realized it wasn’t at all what I thought it was. See, my idea of a love story is when the couple gets back together in the end. In my mind, Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy… and so was Breaking Up With God.

But I guess the story isn’t all bad because, after spending an afternoon at Barnes and Noble, I came to the firm conclusion that Sarah Sentilles didn’t break up with God; she broke up with religion. And for that I commend her. In fact, if the God I serve resembled the cold, hard creature Sarah described in her memoir, I’d have dumped him too. Luckily for me, Jesus isn’t like that.

God doesn’t call us to follow tradition; He calls us to follow Him. He’s not cold, He’s not hard, He’s not far away, and He is not waiting for a reason to smite you. Yes, He’s just, and yes, He’s fair, and yes, He often lets us learn our lessons the hard way. But He is also love, and He is also mercy, and He is also waiting with outstretched arms for the day you come running home to Him.

I broke up with God once. I was young and I was angry because He didn’t answer my prayers the way I wanted Him to. I thought He had failed me. Turns out, He was weaving an even bigger miracle than the one I had asked for. Seven miserable months later, I came crawling back. Because the incredible God I know and love is impossible to stay away from.

I left religion long ago, abandoning forced habits that weren’t done out of love. But God… I’m too in love with Him to ever stray too far. If Sarah Sentilles ever met Him, she would know. Maybe one day she will find Him. Maybe one day her book will become the love story it claims to be.

Today I pray that you’ll be made increasingly aware of the God of the Fairytales and that you’ll dance in the freedom His love breathes into being.

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09/05/2011

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Sing-Along Scriptures

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Don’t Judge Me

“Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High.” –Psalm 7:8b

I don’t know how those words struck you just now, but my mouth went slack-jawed at David’s boldness. I wouldn’t dare to pray such a prayer because I know the darkness of my heart. And while I believe that David was merely trying to convey that he was innocent in the certain situation that plagued him, I still found that his words haunted me.

A friend of mine once told me: “Compared to Jesus, we’re like a bunch of filthy rats in a gutter.” That’s what this verse makes me feel like – a filthy rat. Which is why I marvel at the words David penned. My prayer would look a little more like this: “Judge me, O Lord, according to Your love, according to Your unfathomable mercy, O Most High.”

See, if God were to judge me by my own righteousness, I would be cast out of the Kingdom. And I’m what most people would consider a good person. But God says that our righteous acts are like filthy rags in His sight (Isaiah 64:6).

Our lives would be absolutely hopeless if it weren’t for the remarkable fact that God doesn’t judge us according to our righteousness; He judges us according to His great love. While we were still playing around in the gutter, God sent His Son to pay the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.

I think those of us who’ve been in the family of God for awhile tend to take His love for granted. We forget what a miracle it is that God would choose to love us. Once we clean up our acts and begin to walk an upright life, we tend to judge ourselves by comparing ourselves to other people, rather than our holy God. We think to ourselves, “Well, at least I’m better than so-and-so.” But the truth is that we can’t earn our way to heaven by doing good works because there is no good that is good enough for God. We’re just like a filthy gutter rat, completely undeserving of the King’s love and acceptance. And the miracle of the matter is that He loves us anyway.

So instead of focusing on your own righteousness, reflect on the marvelous wonder of God’s love. Thank Him for His sacrifice that freed you to be judged by love instead of deeds, and remember that it’s only by His mercy that there is anything remotely righteous in you at all.

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09/02/2011

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Fairytale Fallacies, Heartfelt Prayers

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Embracing the Fairytale

I won’t be Rapunzel sitting in a tower,

staring out the window and dreaming of the hour

I’ll be free from my gilded cage.

I’ll rewrite the story. I will turn the page.

I’ll be the Little Mermaid stretching out my hand,

reaching toward the surface and dreaming of dry land.

I’ll be Cinderella going to the ball,

escaping from the everyday and standing there in awe.

Part of that world, more than a dream,

more than a life of espressos and cream.

Somewhere, somehow,

I’ll live the life I’m merely dreaming of now.

Faith, hope and trust, second star to the right,

straight on ’til morning, I’ll fly through the night.

Fairytale endings, dreams coming true,

and I’m lost in wonder – glorious wonder –

experiencing the mundane with You.

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08/31/2011

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Jesus Moments

The reoccurring theme of my life the past few weeks has been “making myself more aware of God’s presence”. Well, I asked that God would make me more aware, so I shouldn’t be all that surprised when He answered.

Sunday night at youth group, we talked about “Jesus moments”. You know, those moments when God steps in and does something amazing and you just can’t help but talk about it. Call me naive, but I really thought this would be a simple subject. I truly believed I would be able to get some answers out of my middle school girls. But none of them seemed too anxious to share. They got off topic (as middle school girls are prone to do) and I let them go for a while before posing the question: “Why is it so easy to talk about this kind of stuff, but so hard to talk about Jesus?”

You know what they told me? They said it’s because they experience all that other stuff every day, and Jesus moments only happen every once in a while. I wanted to cry. To fall on my knees and weep over the sad state of my world. I felt like screaming. Are you kidding me? Jesus moments happen every single day!

Why do we get it in our minds that it has to be the big things? We wait for something monumental to happen before we talk about Jesus. But one of my greatest “Jesus moments” ever was a hug from a friend. Just a hug from a friend. It would have blended in with the many other hugs from that friend, except it came in a moment that I really needed it.

But as I challenged my girls, I also challenged myself to share my Jesus moments more often, to talk about my relationship with God more freely, and to start a few more conversations that start with something like this: “So, the other day, Jesus and I were chillin’ in a parking lot, and I was suddenly struck by how beautiful God is…”

Because those kind of moments happen every day, and they truly are worth talking about.

P.S. I want to hear your Jesus moments. Share them in the comments, please! 🙂

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08/29/2011

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Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So

“Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,”  –Psalm 107:2

I’ve been saying that I didn’t know the meaning of the word “redemption” until I went to India. When I told this to a certain friend, he asked me what the difference was between redemption here and there. After all, isn’t that what God does for all of us?

I saw his point. And yes, I agree that God’s redemption is the same all around the world, but it’s what we do with that redemption that matters.

I saw redemption in India. The stories of how God had saved them from darkness were something that was talked about all the time. It’s something they lived in constant awareness of. In India, I saw people who lived the command given in Psalm 107:2. The redeemed of the Lord talked of being redeemed. And that made all the difference.

I think most of us (myself included) tend to take that redemption for granted. We don’t talk about it. We don’t live every moment of our lives as if we are a changed people. We have so many distractions that keep us from focusing on the one thing that truly matters.

In India, I was void of that distraction. In India, I talked of redemption all the time. In India, I was free to enter into a spontaneous moment of worship with one of the boys and his guitar. Back here, I strive to clear my mind of the chaos. I try to live in that freedom I experienced at Ashagram because I do believe that it’s possible, and I do believe that it’s right.

So today I choose to live the command God has set before me. Today I choose to speak of redemption. Today I pray that my eyes would tell what my heart has experienced.

I know the meaning of the word “redemption”. Do you?

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08/26/2011

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Heartfelt Prayers

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Aware

Lord,

I regret many things,

but I do not regret this moment with you.

For it will have been a lifetime well-spent

to have lived this single moment

aware of your presence.

–Steven James

Lord,

I waste so many moments caught up in the mundane.

So many hours focused on the trivial.

How much time I spend aware – truly aware – of Your presence

seems so small in the scope of my life.

So I revel in this moment that I too often ignore.

Help me become more aware of Your presence today.

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08/24/2011

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Fairytale Fallacies

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Is it a Sin to be Single?

Got your attention, didn’t I? I would know. See, I didn’t make the title up. It was an honest-to-goodness question I read on someone else’s blog – a question that nearly knocked me out of my chair.

Of course not! That’s preposterous! But this was the question that inspired a whole blog post (two posts, if you want to count mine). Is it a sin to be single? Our culture would like to think so. I got on yahoo this morning and saw a headline that read: “Top cities for single women to live”. Even yahoo is playing matchmaker these days.

But there I was, browsing this blog about singleness when I read the question: “Does the single fact that I am not married mean I am not following in the footsteps of God?”

In case that’s something you’re honestly pondering, let me put your mind at ease… No, no, and more no. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

“An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband.  I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.” -1 Corinthians 7:34-35

According to Paul, it’s the single women who seem to have it together. Singleness is not a curse; it’s a calling. Just as marriage is a calling.

No, it’s not a sin to be single. So release your fears, release your frustrations, release your concerns with the affairs of this world and let yourself live in undivided devotion to the Lord.