Remember Who You Are

Earlier tonight, I was watching The Lion King with one of my roommates. Dana and I were pretty excited because we turned it on right before the "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" scene, which is one of the best love scenes in any movie ever. (Sidenote: Only Disney could make an excellent love scene with talking lions.) I was casually watching after that was over, mindlessly quoting every line with Dana, not expecting any lessons to be learned, until it came to the scene posted above.


"That's not my father, that's just my reflection."
"No, look harder... You see, he lives in you."

I quoted these lines and then realized exactly what I said. Yes, I understand that whoever wrote this movie may not have intentionally put these lines in so that Christians would connect it to the Gospel, but there's so much Gospel verbiage packed into this one scene that it's hard not to draw a parallel. 

Simba was the rightful king, but had not been living as such. He was the king's son, but had disregarded his responsibilities--in fact, he literally ran away from them. When he looked in the water, he only saw himself and was quite disappointed with the reflection. 

Rafiki knows who he is, though, and sees the potential Simba has if he would live as the person (or lion) he really is. He urges Simba to look harder. To see past the failing reflection of himself. To see that the king lives inside him. To see who he really is because the king lives in him.

"Simba, you have forgotten who you are."

"No, how could I?"

"You have forgotten who you are and so forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. ...Remember who you are. You are my son. The one true king. Remember who you are."

Do you see the correlation here? We are Simba. Oftentimes, we look in the pond and just see a reflection of ourselves. We see the shame and guilt of our sin. We see our failures. We may even see our vain successes. We see the hidden dark places that no one else knows about. We see ourselves as though we are not sons and daughters of the king.

But we are the sons and daughters of the king! Too often, we don't live as though we are co-heirs with Christ. We live like we're convicted fellons in the dungeon, wallowing in our sin. This was true of our lives at one point, but not once we were adopted by The King. Paul says, "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19).

Don't forget who you are, and therefore forget who God is. You are the Lord's. Because of Christ's love and sacrifice for us, you have been forgiven and washed clean from all of your sins. Look in the pond, past the failing reflection of yourself and see the reflection of Christ and His shed blood in your place. Living in you. That's how the Father sees you!

You are THE King's son or daughter. Words can't even begin to describe how truly amazing that is, but as Uncle Ben says, "With great power comes great responsibility." Because we are heirs, we have a responsibility to strive to live as Christ did (emphasis on the word "strive"). The more we try to live as He did, the more grace we will experience from Him, the more grace we will be able to give out, and the more like Him we will become. We will fail and He will forgive us (but to clarify: that does not give us free reign to intentionally sin just so that grace may abound). It is the great circle of life.

You were bought with a price. You are redeemed. You are forgiven. You have been washed clean. You are a co-heir with Christ. You are a citizen with the saints in the household of God. You are loved by the Creator of love. Remember who you are. Live according to who you are, not who you were.

Let the Mountains Move

Some of my current favorite lyrics are from a song called Waiting Here for You by Christy Nockles. She sings, "If faith can move the mountains, let the mountains move. We come with expectations, waiting here for You." I just think that's so powerful. Jesus says in Matthew 17:20 that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell a mountain to move and it will move. These lyrics, to me, are proclaiming, "Lord, I have faith in You. I'm trusting that You will do big things. I'm expecting big things from You, so let the mountains move." That's a bold request, but we serve the God that created the universe and breathed life into us. Why shouldn't we expect big things?

I say all of that to kind of give a little background for what happened on campus yesterday. I partnered up with Chris for the day and we decided to split up and have some time with the Lord to start the day off on the right foot. To begin my time, I listened to Waiting Here for You and then went on to read in Psalms. After that, I was just praying for campus and was inspired by the song and Jesus' words in Matthew, so I prayed a bold prayer that we would see someone come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Chris and I go through the rest of the day and have a few good conversations with students at the Fashion Institute of Technology, but we don't see anyone start a relationship with the Lord. I just trusted that our conversations planted or helped water seeds.

We go back to the office for team debriefing, where we talk about how our day went, things the Lord is teaching us, etc. Two people talk about how they had met this girl last week and got a chance to catch up with her again this week. They were able to share the Gospel with her and she accepted Christ! I was so excited. We have a new sister in Christ that we may never meet on earth, but we'll spend an eternity with her in Heaven. That's SUCH a cool thought!

A few other people share about their day when it finally hits me. I prayed for that girl! The mountains moved! I can't describe how incredible that experience was, but it really showed me the power of prayer. So! Here's my challenge to you: pray for the Lord to move mountains. Pray for this City. Pray for your friends, your coworkers, your own self. Just pray and see what God does.

Jehovah Jireh

I made it back to NYC! This time, I'm here as student staff, so my role is partially the same, but also different. I'll be leading a Bible study this year and I'm discipling two girls. I'm really looking forward to seeing how God is going to move in the City, in my team, and in myself as well!

The road to New York City hasn't been a nicely paved one. There have been many obstacles, but God has taught me a lot about His provision through the whole process. I had been looking for a job for over a year, but there wasn't really anything that fit in my schedule. I decided to move off campus for the upcoming school year and really needed to start working to save up for bills in the future, so being jobless was no longer be an option. Miraculously, God provided the perfect job. It gives me money to pay future bills, gets me experience in my field of study, provides a place to co-op, and also gets me more in contact with non-believers. Also, getting the job really solidified my plans of going to New York. I would have had to have worked during the summer, but OfficeMax let me take off for 4 weeks. Praise God!

Raising support for the trip was another issue for me for a long time. I had to raise around $4,000 and it just wasn't really coming in. So, here I am, one week before I leave, still needing about half, and not knowing what I'm going to do. That day, I realize that I hadn't really been using the best resource I can get my hands on: prayer. I prayed with full assurance that God knew what He was doing and that He would provide for me what I needed. Within the next couple days I received almost the full amount of what I needed and by the time I left for Project, I had the whole amount. It was insane.

Last year during one of our meetings here in New York, we did a study on different names of God--one being Jehovah Jireh, which means the Lord will provide. It really caught my attention for whatever reason and has just stuck with me since then. Over the past year, I've really seen His sovereign hand at work providing for me and others around me. It's truly amazing.

So, I say all that to say this: I canNOT wait to see how God provides for us while we're here in the City. I know He's up to something and I'm looking forward to finding out what that is.