New Beginnings January 2, 2010
Posted by hopetuttle in God thoughts, mumbo jumbo.2 comments
I love the turning of the new year. It always brings with it the determination to change. Most of the time, that determination fades before MLKJ Day arrives. But still, it’s a good feeling having the chance to start over in a sense.
I am here at Jarrod’s house in Gainesville. I just got done with the first half of my vacation from my vacation. It is still winter break, but I have the bowl game trip and Passion 2010 back to back! LSU went to the Capital One Bowl in Orlando. Thus, Tigerband goes to Disneyworld and Universal Studios! The worst part of the trip was the game itself. We lost and it was cold and wet. Not good times. But the rest of the trip was fantastic. Lots of laughs. I got to make new friends and reconnect with old ones. There isn’t much better than that.
Jarrod picked me up and tomorrow we will head to Atlanta for the Passion 2010 conference. In a nutshell, it is all about stirring up a passion in college students’ hearts to see their campus and their world come to know how beautiful it is to know Jesus. I’m all about that too. It will be 4 days of prayer and worship and teaching and fellowship and I’M SO EXCITED. I hope my expectations aren’t too high. But I really am expecting God to do some unbelievable things. I’m talking God-sized things. There is nothing that will change you more drastically than being a part of God-sized things. I expect to come home changed.
You can be a part of what God is doing though Passion too! You can pray. It’s a very simple concept that doesn’t require a huge sacrifice of time of money. You can pray for every single soul there, that God would speak at least one thing into their lives. That every single person will come home with a clear and specific mandate given to them. You can pray for safe travels. People are coming from ALL OVER the world. You can pray that God would use this to spark a spiritual movement that spreads like wildfire across the campuses all around the world.
I’m so excited with what God has been stirring in my heart as the spring semester arrives! I’ll share with you all soon. I want it to be in conjunction with what He did at Passion. Hold on to your stockings, it’s gonna be friggin crazy.
What I’m looking for. December 23, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in God thoughts.add a comment
I don’t really have much to say. It just felt like it was time to write.
This winter break has been unbelievable. Refreshing. I was getting burned out at the end of the semester. It almost felt like I was holding my breath. And then Jesus heroically breathed into me and everything was different. Colorful. Beautiful. Glorious.
I know that’s really ambiguous.
I’ve been listening to music and reading books and talking to people and all of it opens my heart a little more to the glory of the King. I understand a bit more what Bono is talking about when he says he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. He’s been everywhere and seen so much and even met Jesus who stole his shame and put a heartbeat in his chest, but still something wasn’t there. It’s not that Jesus isn’t enough. Oh God because he IS.
The problem is that creation is still eagerly waiting, groaning for the revelation of the Jesus Christ. He is coming back. And until then, we are still wound up in skin and bound to time. There is still an enemy roaming the earth whose sole purpose is to destroy us, make us forget the goodness of God, and keep secret our true identity as sons and daughters of Glory. We are walking in a world where we don’t belong and carrying the message of redemption to the world, all the while keeping our eyes fixed on the Great Reward.
Everything that we are looking for only comes momentarily for now. Those warm fuzzy moments where your heart is in the purest state of worship. Where everything is perfect. Like the earth before the breaking of the human heart.
You should go listen to Phil Wickham’s new album Heaven and Earth. It has crafted a new reality in me. I hope it will do the same for you.
Oh the glorious day when we arrive
And heaven’s gates are opened wide
All our fear and pain will fade away
When we see you face to face
Jesus has brought us here.
Home for the Holidays December 21, 2009
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Even though it was only a week ago that I left Baton Rouge for the great journey home, it feels like forever ago. I love Louisiana. But I missed home.
What I love about being home:
- bathing
- smell-good laundry detergent
- a pantry of food
- mom trying every Pioneer Woman recipe in the book
- candles (they are banned from the dorms. lame.)
- laying in my bed ALL day
- books books books
- dinner with my funny family
I don’t have to do anything. For a full 5 weeks, I have no tests. No homework. No projects. No essays. I am going to lay in my bed ALL day. Every day. I’m wringing this break for what it’s worth. I might get really chubby, but I will not being doing school. So all will be well. Except for maybe my cholesterol.
In other news, I have been diagnosed with a disease. It’s not life-threatening but no one knows if it’s treatable or not. It’s called I-can’t-finish-a-book-if-my-life-depends-on-it. I have been home ten days. I have legitimately started six books. I have thus far been unable to keep a single one in my hands. I don’t know how I got skipped on the ADD tests growing up. I have the attention span of a small goat.
Do any of you interwebs have a cure?
Radical Times December 8, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in God thoughts, story time.2 comments
Over the course of two hours, God peeled another layer off my onion of a heart. The story might be a little long, but stick with me. I pray that it will encourage you and challenge you.
A friend gave me a gift card to Macaroni Grill, so I decided to treat Kelsey, one of my best friends, to dinner. It was raining like nobody’s business and I thought traffic might be bad so I decided to take the back roads. After winding for a while through the drenched streets of Baton Rouge, we reached a corner stoplight. I began to think that maybe we should’ve just gone the normal way cause this seemed to be taking a lot longer than I had anticipated.
“Do you think she needs a ride? We should give her a ride.” I had no clue what Kelsey was talking about. I turned and looked out the window and a short black woman was walking by, arms wrapped tight around herself in hopes of keeping dry in the downpour. Before I even had a chance to respond, Kelsey rolled down the window.
“Hey! Do you need a ride?”
“Yeah.” She hopped in the backseat and then began to tell us where we were going and why. Her truck was just around the corner and it had caught on fire earlier that day. She didn’t exactly know what to do, so Kelsey offered her phone. The woman had four kids that were waiting for her in Wendy’s. Turns out, she is from Texas and had just gotten into Baton Rouge this morning. Her aunt had died and so she was here for all of that. Then she received word that her grandmother (who lived to be a solid 103 years old!) had passed away. She had piled the kids into her aunt’s car to drive to Mississippi to deal with her grandmother. When she was sitting at a stop light, some college kids started screaming at her that her car was on fire.
So now she was stranded in Baton Rouge. No phone. No car. Walking in the rain to find some help.
She asked if we could drive her and her kids to Mississippi. Kelsey and I would have gladly done such a thing, but we have exams in the morning and couldn’t afford that much time. Kelsey offered to pay for a taxi to take her to Mississippi. The woman was so relieved her eyes started welling up with tears. Kelsey went in to the gas station and came back with a piece of paper that had the number to the taxi service and some money to get her where she needed to go.
The woman thanked Kelsey. She simply responded “it’s not me, it’s Jesus. He told me to pick you up.”
The woman said “I know. I was praying to God in the rain that He would send someone to help.”
Goosebumps shot down my spine.
We wished her luck on her journey and a Merry Christmas. The woman smiled and thanked us again. And Kelsey just went on like it was nothing. She gave like it was nothing. And loved like the stranger was her best friend. Seeing a
I tell you this story, not to brag about how awesome Kelsey is or whatever (even though she is). But this night sparked a monumental change in my heart. To see what it means to live for Jesus and with Jesus in everyday life.
I long to wake up every morning with the desperation in my chest that I may die to live and live to die. To wake up to the call to give generously, to love selflessly, to live radically, to worship fully. To count everything as loss compared to knowing Jesus and being known by him. To give my life away.
Quote of the Day December 6, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in Quotebook.1 comment so far
I am sitting in my dorm lobby watching the Saints game. After an unexpected undefeated season thus far, we are in overtime against the Redskins. There girls are watching. Weird girls. They said weird things.
Girl 2: They got an interjection!
Girl 1: I think it’s called an interception.
Girl 2: Why do their pants have to be so tight?
Girl 3: I just want those refs to raise their hands.
(Referring to a completed field goal.)
Girl 1: My heart is pounding.
Girl 2: My thyroid is pounding.
Girl 3: My dad has thyroid.
Christmas every day? December 3, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Greetings Earthlings!
I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve blogged. I promise I sat down. I promise I looked at the screen and rooted around in my brain to find something to say. And then I couldn’t think of anything. So I gave up. Please don’t be disappointed in me. At least I try.
This morning, I was shaving my legs and thinking about the meaning of life when a Donald Miller quote came to my mind. We don’t really remember our lives. In fact, we remember a very small fraction of it. I didn’t put quotation marks around those because I don’t actually know the quote verbatim, but you get the gist. This caused me to think even more upon my life and shave faster. I only nicked my knees once. I often to go bed at night wondering what I actually did with my day. I don’t like that feeling. That time just kind of melted away.
So I decided to pick up the blog again, so to speak, and get crackin. Everyone has a desire to feel important, accomplished. To know that you DID something. And made a difference. I don’t know if I’m making much of a difference, but at the end of the day, I want to at least remember what I had for lunch.
That said, I have a story for you.
Next week is final exam week. And some of my professors were nice enough to give us tests the week beforehand (this week). On Tuesday morning, I sat down and was about to start studying for my upcoming math test on Wednesday morning. All the tests are taken online in a computer lab, so you have to go online and schedule them to reserve a computer. I went to double-check what time I had scheduled my test for Wednesday and to my utter surprise, I had actually scheduled it for an hour ago. I missed my test. I checked to see if there were any spots open on Wednesday I could snatch up. Nothing. Everything was full.
My stomach flipped out and my mind went crazy.
I have so much to do. Why didn’t I realize earlier how much I had to do? Why didn’t I start sooner?! Oh no! I’m not going to be able to finish! I’m going to fail my tests. And then fail my classes. And lose my scholarship. And I’ll have to go home and be a waitress. Maybe Harbor Docks is hiring. My friends are going to make fun of me. Strangers will call me a bum. My parents will be so disappointed.
I broke down. Cried. For a while. I hadn’t talked to God for a while and I put this stress upon myself. I couldn’t ask him for help. I didn’t deserve it. I continued to go through my day, angry and sad and worried.
Later that night, I was studying with some friends and Claire suggested that I check the schedule again. I didn’t want to. What was the use? There was no room at the inn. That might not be an appropriate use of that popular bible quote, but whatever. Despite my hopelessness, I checked the schedule again.
There was one spot open on Wednesday morning. No freaking way.
I had a second chance! I immediately got crackin on the studying. I hadn’t even studied for it because I thought I wasn’t going to be able to take it. I was up til 430 in the morning, but I got it done. Approximately half-way through the night, it hit me. God got me that slot. I didn’t even ask Him. He just did it.
Oh my God.
I cried again. I couldn’t believe He would do something like that. I hadn’t spent time with Him in three weeks. I was mad that I hadn’t heard from Him in so long. I didn’t deserve something nice. I deserved a kick in the pants and a letter from the university telling me to get the heck out of Louisiana.
But God didn’t care what I actually deserved. It didn’t matter what I deserved. Jesus took that hit for me.
He gave me a gift. A really good one. He is ALWAYS giving good gifts. 24/7. And I mean the kind of gifts that tell you that He knows you like the back of His hand and He sees you in your suffering and He loves you exactly for who you are. And that no matter how often Satan tries to rob you of your joy and sweet talk you into thinking that you can’t ask God for anything because you don’t deserve it, that you are the apple of His eye.
He is always giving good, life-changing gifts. We just need to keep our eyes peeled and prepare to get our socks blown off.
This is what we hope for. September 16, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later is yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have ben trained by it. Therefore lift your dropping arms and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. – Hebrews 12:12-13
Bing bing bing! Discipline hurts like a mother. God is growing me up. Great is the sin if I make feeling a cause for faith.
When I don’t feel close to God, I have a meltdown. I had a meltdown. The biggest one I think I’ve ever had. I wasn’t very nice to God last week haha, but for some reason He refused to give up on me. Oh precious is the flow that makes me white as snow! Oh the mercy!
There are not always going to be those warm fuzzy moments with God. They are momentary. God gives them whenever He so chooses. But one day, we will be with Him. No restrictions. No limitations. No conditions. Face to face with the Holy One. Forever. Woop woop! And THAT is what we cling to when God feels far away. When our eyes are closed to where He is moving.
According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a LIVING Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In THIS you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
- 1 Peter 1:3-7
Prone to wander. September 8, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in God thoughts.add a comment
It’s amazing the things we do in effort to medicate the soul.
I didn’t spend time with Jesus all weekend. And loneliness hovered over me all weekend. It was Labor Day weekend, so buttloads of people went home. The dorm felt deserted. I called anyone I could think of in hopes of hiding from loneliness. My Bible laid dormant on my desk.
I find that to be a consistent struggle in my life. BELIEVING that when I to come to the feet of Jesus Christ, that He fills my empty spirit with His. That He soothes the aching heart with His grace. That He revives the dead heart. It seems like every day I have to start over on receiving the gift of His Spirit. On approaching the throne of grace with confidence so that I might find mercy and receive grace.
I just started going through Romans with some friends. One of the first things Paul addresses in the letter to the Christians in Rome is the refusal to acknowledge God as GOD. And as a result, their lives were thick with unrighteousness that would call the wrath of God upon them. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man.” (Romans 1:22-23) That’s what we do EVERY time we sin against our Holy God. Exchanging the glory of God for a mound of crap. It’s despicable and worthy of wrath and deserving of death.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, EVEN WHEN WE WERE DEAD in our sins and trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. (Eph. 2:4-8)
I feel so stupid. All weekend I felt God gently calling me to His heart but I refused to move. I always think that Israel was so stupid for always leaving the God that rescued them. How can I so easily forget that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure? Oh how He loves us so…
I’m not trying to send myself on a guilt trip. It’s moments like these where the truth breaks down my pride. That righteousness comes by faith APART from the WORKS of the LAW.
But we need to know that we need the Gospel of Grace EVERY DAY. If I can’t understand my own depravity and that I truly DESERVE death, then salvation means NOTHING to me. And if salvation means nothing to me, then how can I have any desire to live a life that screams of the glory of God?
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the Man upon that cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath hath brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
Jesus Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Life. He is the High Priest that intercedes on our behalf. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
Jesus Christ: Superstar August 26, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in Uncategorized.2 comments
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while! Life has been quite the hurricane these past couple weeks.
I’m off to an early start today. I don’t have class, but I have so much to do! Already! Between school and Tiger Band and worship band practice and church and actually tending to relationships, new and old, it gets a little hectic. And exhausting. It’s day 3 of school.
I don’t really know what God is doing, but I feel like I’m watching Him piece things together and set everything up for a huge explosion of His glory. And THAT in and of itself is humbling and fills me with love and faith. I love the days where I feel completely incapable of doing ANYTHING correctly, because it seems that those are the days where He takes me by surprise and sweeps me off my feet.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in John 14 and 15. Mmmmm. Abiding. “The Father in me does His works.” “Because I live, you will live also.” “He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me he can do nothing.”
Webster’s definitions of abide:
- to wait for
- to remain stable of in a fixed state
- to conform
That’s all I got…
Be free!
What are you snacking on? July 30, 2009
Posted by hopetuttle in God thoughts.1 comment so far
It’s always dangerous to post something after 11:30pm. Sometimes my mind isn’t exactly sound, if you know what I mean.
I’ve been wanting to learn more about Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is very important, if you didn’t know. It is easy to love God. It is easy to worship God and to talk with God. But Jesus. Now that’s a different story. If you love God but you don’t know Jesus, then really your relationship with God is pretty much useless. This is hard to dissect because Jesus IS God and Hebrews clearly states that Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” So I guess when I say God I really mean “the Father.” That might not clear anything up either…
Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life and NO ONE comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). If you read Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry in Philippi (Acts 16), you see that Lydia (the first convert in Philippi) was a worshipper of God. Oh yes, she knew and loved the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But she didn’t know Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. Paul preached the gospel and the Lord opened her heart to respond. She was baptized and all was well.
So all this to say that loving God without knowing Jesus is boo boo.
So this morning I was reading in John 4. It says:
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
Jesus’ food is to do the will of God. The thing that fueled him, the thing that drove him was to seek the will of God and to accomplish God’s work. But what’s interesting is what he said right after that. The fields are ripe for harvest.
I think we often think of God’s will for our lives as something far off. Something that is yet to come. And it is. We seem to think of it as a career. But it is also here and now. The climax of Jesus’ ministry was his crucifixion. That was his ultimate accomplishment of God’s will, saving mankind and all. And he did everything with his eyes set on that, enduring the cross for the joy that was set before him. But God’s will for Jesus was also the woman at the well and the blind man he healed.
I can get so caught up in what God has in store for me in the coming months that I forget that He has things for me NOW to accomplish. If we are constantly looking forward to the next season of our life, we might miss out on what God has for us RIGHT NOW.
In Colossians, Paul writes that he prays that the Church would be filled with the knowledge of the will of God. He prays that God would reveal His will for them. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Wouldn’t you love to know what God’s will for your life is? But what happens if you pray only to discover that His will is next week you pack up and move to Iraq as a missionary? Or what if it is to give up your house and car to live in the crappiest trailer park in town so you can host Bible studies and barbecues with the neighbors? It is a very dangerous thing to pray.
I went to Rocky to visit the youth group that I miss so dearly. We watched an old John Piper sermon. It was about not wasting your life. I can honestly say that that is one of my deepest fears. That I will waste this life that God has given me. And when I stand before the Holy and Beautiful King, I will give an account of what I did here. I don’t want to have to say that I was always looking to what might be in store and missed everything He put right in front of my face…
