July 21, 2010

Please pray for Nate and Eric and our high school and junior high kids at Hume Lake Camp this week.  From the pictures that have been posted on Hume’s website, it looks like they are having an incredible time!  Pray for continued safety and good health for all, and lots of rest and energy for the counselors.  Also, please pray for God to speak into each of their lives and transform them from the inside out!  Blessings…

July 7, 2010

Free for…

Our 4^th of July service was awesome on Sunday.  As I was sitting there clapping for those that have actively fought for my freedom and being challenged from God’s Word with regards to living into that freedom I thought about a topic I’d like to teach on some day, mostly because I’d like to do some more thinking and learning in this area.  What hit me this 4^th of July morning is that when I think of freedom I generally think of what I’m free from.  Free from slavery, tyranny, religious oppression.  What I rarely think about, but moved me greatly on Sunday was thinking about what I’m saved ‘for’.  I firmly believe that the freedom I enjoy was won by the lives of those that fought for it, sacrificed for it.  I also believe that God willed it…for a purpose.  My freedom is not an accident.  It didn’t catch God by surprise and cause him to think, “OK, now what?” 

Something said on Sunday has found its way into my heart and it was this, ‘in many ways we haven’t done too well with our freedom’.  That is so very true.  Maybe it’s because I have allowed myself to view my freedom as an excuse to be free for all the wrong things; consuming, wasting, pleasure, hoarding…

The question remains…’what on earth am I free for’?

June 30, 2010

Becky and Nate are both enjoying some well-deserved time off this week.  Please pray that they (and their families) will have a wonderfully relaxing, refreshing time away.  Thank you!

June 23, 2010

Sometimes, I think I land on the wrong side of things.  Maybe not the wrong side, but at least leaning that way.  I remember with all kinds of unbelievable clarity a time when I was in college when someone said to me, “Nate, you are really negative…”  Ouch – that was true.  I tend to look at life critically, born fixer I think.  Best I can tell, that is one reason I love the cross of Jesus so much; it is the fix.  Not hard to find the problem – especially if you can muster the kind of negativity I can – and the blood of Jesus, as the apostle Paul says time and time again, is putting that which has shattered back together.

On Sunday, I had a the great privilege to teach on marriage with my wife.  In preparation, I was struck with how my marriage is so often stuck in some form of brokenness.  I was vividly aware of the tragedy of many marriages around me.  I was equally impressed with the fix…Jesus, His death for our live.  And I really tried to lean into this unmistakable truth.  What has impressed me since that morning is the resurrection.  I know, I know, you only get the resurrection a couple of days after the cross, but I have been reminded that we don’t live the cross – we live the resurrection.  The awakening.  The hope.  Life ‘with’ Jesus…Heaven NOW.

Nate

June 16, 2010

Thanks…an overwhelming sense of thanks.  I have asked my friends that don’t believe in God what they do when they are overwhelmed with thanks for the circumstances of their life.  “Who do you thank?”  “Your lucky stars?”  “The Chinese calendar?”  As for me and my house…we will thank the Lord!  As I drove home last night from one of many concluding Ensenada missions meetings, the answer to the ‘thankfulness’ question had to be answered.  I was/am so very thankful.  In many ways, it is beyond belief…beyond this world anyway.

That I would be invited to help our dear friends in Mexico.  That I would be privileged to work alongside such beautiful people.  That I would get to see and celebrate the results.  That peace and joy and love would show up in the middle of the conflict.  That situations quite seemingly out of control would be guided from behind the scenes.  The tangible friendship that occurs between those that have laid down their lives together for something far larger than themselves.  For these and many more I say thanks.  Thank you…Lord.

–Nate Levering

June 9, 2010

Nate, Eric and the rest of the crew will be heading home from Mexico today, after several days of working to finish the building for Pastor Carlos.  Please pray for safety in their travels, especially as they cross the border for home.  May the work they accomplished be a blessing to the people there forever.  Thanks for praying!

June 2, 2010

Too busy not to pray…

It is the title of a great book by Bill Hybels and, more than that, a great reminder for days like today.

First of all, I’d like to say thanks for the financial support that our church body has given to our construction project in Ensenada.  We have a group of contractors heading down today (they are passing through LA as I write), and they will be getting things set up and moving in anticipation of the rest of the group showing up Friday night and Saturday.  Please continue to support our team through prayer.

Second, I think FIA Sunday is awesome!  I love that my church (all of you) team up together to pour ourselves out and serve our community.  It was so good to serve with some friends I rarely see.  It was so good to hear stories about the ways God blessed through many of your efforts.  It was so good to teach my kids about the difference between the church steeple and the church people.  It was just good.

Third, have a great day.  Lift someone up in speech, or text or facebook or…today.

Nate

May 26, 2010

Usually, I read first.  I have my routine, but this morning for some reason I broke from it a bit.  Was it the sleepless night and the questions bouncing around in my head?  Was it that the coffee hadn’t done the coffee thing and woken me up just yet?  Either way, I decided to write a few things first.  It was pretty much one of those “God Help” kind of prayers.  The way we pray when we are sorting through life and plans and questions, and it seems overwhelming.  Those prayers one prays when standing at the crossroads of wanting to choose the path of vision and diligence, but the highway of carelessness beckons.  Once a few lines were down, I read…

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.”  Proverbs 19:21

Does that ever happen to you?  I hope so!  It was as if I was gasping for air and finally able to take a long clear breath.  Ahhhh…  So I finished writing.  This time it wasn’t so much about ‘God helping me sort out all my plans,’ but more like ‘God help me know your plans, and live for your purposes.’

It was about this time that my five year old daughter came tearing out of the bedroom, and we sat down at the computer and sent a birthday gift to our Compassion friend Marisol in Bolivia.  …it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand…

Nate

May 19, 2010

Please pray for Pastor Nate and his family as they are on vacation this week.  I know that he is very excited about the upcoming Mexico Missions trip, and would love for you to be praying for him and the team as they prepare to head down on June 4th.  Pray that much will be accomplished, to God’s glory!  Thanks.

May 12, 2010

It occurred to me again this morning that my life is so much the ‘boat tossed in the wind’ kind of life.   There are all kinds of things that ‘toss’ my life up for grabs…or at least the emotional state within which I choose to live it.

I woke up early enough to spend some time reading a couple of chapters of Acts, and to then write out some prayers and thoughts that were on my heart.  “May I respond to life around me as though I was captured in your grace for me.  As the sun warms the cold earth; may your Son lead, warm, and inspire me in this day…” I wrote as I prayed.

All was good until the doors of the house started to open.  Then, just like the old cassette tapes when they got stuck…life begins to unwind.  Kids up before they are supposed to be.  Lists of things to get done before our impending vacation.  I’m sensing something ‘funky’ in the air between Kathy and me.  So much for being warmed and inspired…it is now about survival.  I have to take care of myself.  I have to guard me.  Smaller and smaller and smaller I become until I’m sitting on this little emotional island a long way from my Savior’s warmth.  I’m kindling the fires of my own self pity, trying to keep from freezing to death…

How will I live?  Whose words will I respond to?  Will I live in the Grace and Love of my Father or the voices around and inside me?  How will I live?

Nate

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