AHHHH! Behold, inspiration.

"AAAHHH. I FOUND IT!!

        It would be appropriate that days after I got to witness the great Brooke Fraser in concert, I find an article she wrote for a Christian teen magazine where she once worked. An article I had been looking for for MORE THAN A YEAR...#sweet!

        I've drawn a lot of meaning and inspiration from it myself, seeing as it was coming from an all-time favorite, and I just thought it was so amazing I would copy & paste the article for you guys (I love you all).  I think the original website it came from might not have the existing page anymore or something like that...?

          So, go ahead, don't be afraid, be inspired ;)

BROOKE FRASER

"I love Christ, I love people, I love stories and I love words, so you can imagine what a treat it was for me to talk to people across the globe, hear how God had changed and used their lives and then get to write about it for young’uns like you and me. I interviewed everyone from African missionaries, to eating disorder counselors, to ‘big name’ Christian music artists.

Little did I know, that less than a year later, I would be the one fielding questions from the press as the songs I’d written in my bedroom hit #1 in mainstream radio; one after another. Since then, my life has moved at quite a speed. Hamish, the guy at Soul Purpose (who has written much of this issue), jokes about how it was weird saying goodbye to me, see me move to Auckland, then reappear, plastered on the back of stagecoach buses all over Wellington.

If you’ve read any of the articles or interviews about me, you can get a reasonable idea of me, Brooke, the music girl. I’ve been asked most questions any musician gets asked in the media, but to be honest, I got bored pretty quick of enquiries about my ex-All Black dad (he played before I was born… I don’t remember and I don’t understand the first thing about sport), my love life (to which I wanna reply with 1 Cor 7:34: “An unmarried woman is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit.”), and probably the most simplistic and worst question ever, “Paris or Nicole?”

So this is my deal. I grew up opposite the Naenae-Epuni train line in Lower Hutt, Wellington, in the house my family owned in the middle of a block of state housing. Its residents were the typical Kiwi melting pot of Maori, Polynesians, Europeans and most-ofthe- above mixes like myself and my brothers, as well as refugees from various countries throughout the Middle East and Africa. It wasn’t an affluent neighborhood, nor was it a boring one! I still recall with fondness those occasions when the Armed Offenders Squad would knock on our door in the middle of the night asking us to stay away from the windows for the next couple of hours and assuring us there was no need for alarm. My brother and I would peek through the curtains as shadowy, armed figures crept on their bellies across our lawn and crouched in our tree houses preparing to carry out drug raids on the neighbours. Ah, those were the days.

Yes, my dad played for the All Blacks, but it was before I was born and before rugby was a professional sport in NZ – we weren’t rich. If we were, we wouldn’t have been living in Oxford Terrace, Naenae. I had a pretty regular childhood, with a rad mum who taught me to love reading and thinking and laughing, and (as far as I was concerned) a regular dad who drove trucks for a living and did radio interviews on weekends and got stopped in the street a lot when we went out. But my family has the same dysfunctions and brokenness as any other and, consequently, I’ve never had any illusions that fame was something that improved your life or made you whole. I guess it always seemed more of an inconvenience than anything.

I only say this because a lot of people seem to think that if you’re a musician you want to be a celebrity. But most musicians in the world aren’t celebrities, and pretty much everything about the concept of ‘celebrity’ is a complete load of bollocks anyhow. I reckon that’s one of the reasons God placed me in the family He did, so that He wouldn’t need to kick that lie out of me later. (The lie being that once you’re a ‘celebrity’, you’ve made it in life and suddenly you’re more important than other people.) Oh, puh-lease. My friend Mia often says that if being in the public eye isn’t about influence, it’s about insecurity. I agree with her to an extent. If you want to reach a lot of people for their good, great! But if you want to be in front of a lot of people because that will make you feel good about yourself, l-a-m-e!

I always knew that I wanted to write and play music, but kinda sensed that there was something much more significant that my life was for and didn’t know what that meant. I felt unsettled and displaced not just in the world but in my own life; in my own skin. I didn’t know what was wrong or how to fix it. And the more I tried to achieve my way to feeling okay or worthy, the more I tried to fix myself; the more I began to believe I wasn’t worth fixing. I ended up in a pretty bad way and pretty much thought the world would be better off without me.

Then Jesus introduced Himself to me. Though my birth certificate reads 1983, I reckon I was born in 1999, when I met Jesus – not in a church or on a camp or through people, but alone in my bedroom with an open Bible and a tangible revelation that the Son of God was not only real, but alive and awesome and stronger than the chains that bound me. I realised He was acutely familiar with everything about me and inside of me and that, rather than responding to this with repulsion, as I would have expected, His response to me was (and, indeed, had only ever been) love and an invitation to love Him back.

You see, I don’t consider that my life began until I met Christ and I won’t consider it welllived unless I use it to one end: to know Christ and to make Him known. He is the best of me; my purity, my joy, my peace, my strength, my compassion. When I’ve been afraid, He’s been my protector. When I’ve been ashamed, He’s been the lifter of my head. When I’ve felt alone, He’s laid beside me. When all the safe things or safe people in my life have crumbled, He’s been my Rock. When I’ve not known what to do, His word has been my instructor. When I’ve been in the desert places and unable to ‘feel’ Him or understand what the heck He’s doing with me, it’s been His Holy Spirit that has worked in me “to will and act according to His purpose” (Phil 2:13) and choose to praise Him; thank Him, bless Him, obey Him, seek Him, love Him and live for Him.

While He is all these things (Comforter, Teacher, Protector, Friend), I use ‘He’s been’ because they are all things that I know (have personally experienced) of God. As you know Jesus more and more, you cannot help but love Him more and more. He is totally wonderful. I walk around confident because I’m a woman loved wholly, ferociously, passionately and intimately by the living God. My identity is in this relationship. Not in how well I can sing or how many albums I’ve sold, not in whether people are applauding or criticising, and not in my past or my screw-ups.

Derek Prince once said, “The hardest test we are ever likely to face, and the one we are least likely to pass, is success.” God allowed many tests in my life before He saw fit to send that particular test my way, and I hope that, in His eyes, I’ve been faithful. And it’s only the beginning…kinda scary! Jesus said, “Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy…If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.” (Matt 10:34-39). There is much thick and thin to come for us young people. Let’s be a generation who truly abandon ourselves to Christ, who are all about loving Him and making His praise glorious and getting as many people in on this incredible freedom as we can.

I think our lives should be like icebergs. The great things that people might see above the surface should only be the smallest reflection of a relationship and life of devotion that goes much deeper. Jesus talked a lot about not making a show of our obedience; our praying, our giving. He said not to be like the hypocrites who love to pray where everyone can see them, one squinty eye open to see who is watching them and being impressed. “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (6:6)

My most powerful moments of ministry have not been, and will not be, on the stage. They’ve been sitting, knee to knee, in a darkened church side room with a 12 year old girl whose father has abandoned her for his new family. They’ve been on an international flight next to a Brit rocker, who, intrigued by a hymn album I had in my CD wallet, asked if I was religious. I replied, “No, I’m not religious, but I’m really into Jesus,” prompting him to put down what he was doing and asking me to talk to him about that. They’ve been crying with a producer in the dressing room of an Australian television network studio as God overwhelmed us both with His love for her. They’ve been singing “Shout to the Lord” to a group of orphans on the side of the road in Rwanda. They’ve been kneeling in prayer with a single mother out the back of a pub in the Waikato after a show, broken glass digging into our knees.

No, I’m not a musician because I want to be famous. Music is my tool, not my goal. I will not love my art more than I love my Lord. I want to fear God more than I fear man. By the grace of God I desire to live “a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.” (Phillipians 1). The music industry is my job, but primarily it’s my mission field. I write songs because I love to, but I mainly write songs because I can’t not. There is a fire in my belly and a word in my mouth that I didn’t put there, therefore I can’t takeit away, no matter how much it hurts sometimes. God’s Word says that His gifts and call are irrevocable.

One of my heroes is William Booth, a radical soul winner and lover of Jesus; friend to the poor and founder of the Salvation Army. His son Bramwell once asked him how he’d persevered through decades of extreme trials and setbacks, and William answered by describing how he’d knelt in a Nottingham chapel at the age of 15 and vowed “that God should have all there was to have of William Booth”. Later his daughter Eva was to comment, “That wasn’t really his secret — his secret was that he never took it back.”

I too, have invited God to have all there is to have of Brooke Fraser. And I’m not taking it back."

She is. so. cool.
:)

Healer, You have known me as I was.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, He is rescues those whose Spirits are crushed.


Man, what a God.

Do it for the least of these, do it for the least

 I don't believe any one person can single-handedly change the world. I honestly don't. I'm always hearing people say things like "you're gonna change the world," and I wonder what they mean. I mean, everything you do can "change the world" for better or for worse, if we're gonna get technical.  I guess you could say there are people in history that did change things, and their impact was seen to be long-lasting, but they didn't do it alone. I don't know. I've been really struggling with this whole 'change the world' stuff, maybe I just don't understand what it means as a saying, haha. For me, I just picture someone standing on a world platform and pressing some button and tada, you have change.

I read the story of Esther again tonight, and I asked God to give me something out of it that would maybe help someone else. And if you're like me, you'll feel like you're not quite doing enough. But think about Esther.  What was she doing when she got selected to be the queen? Umm... Nothing but being the faithful & obedient Jew to her uncle that God had called her to be. He hadn't called her to save a nation...yet. 


I believe we can all change something about OUR worlds, but not one of us is going to stand up on a world platform and change everything. That's not even what we're called to do, we're called to make disciples of the nations, but the last person I remember that did really change the path of the souls of mankind was Jesus, and even He had disciples. His spirit is the one who moves through all of us, the Holy Spirit changes souls, not us. He can use us, though, but lemme just tell ya, this sixteen-year-old girl is not the answer to humanity's cry for a savior. It's funny just thinking about it- the fate of the world being on the shoulders of someone who can barely remember what to do at a four-way stop and how to parallel park. hahaha. Yepp, mankind would be in deep trouble.

As I was praying tonight, I saw the faces of so many people in my life that needed to experience the love of Christ as I've seen it.

I've been thinking a lot lately that I'm not doing enough, that not enough African children are being touched by my work, or not enough people in jail cells are hearing about a freedom beyond the physical because of me, and I see now that God hasn't called me to do that... yet. God has called us all to our own little mission fields and, until we're done at places like high school, for example, we're not going to places like AFRICA.


I guess to be faithful with the little I am given can just mean praying for that kid in math class that has no friends. Or actually doing something about that kid I see crying in the hallway every other day. They may not be hungry like the African child I want to feed, but they have a pain and a deeper hunger that only Jesus can alleviate. We can pray for opportunities and boldness to seize them. I have a deep passion for places, specifically Africa (I'm not just saying that), but I see now that you can't just jump from your ABCs to writing a full-on essay in life or with God and, honestly, some of the people here are more broken than an African child will ever be, even without the privileges we have. It's because the SOUL is more important than anything, and a lost soul is a lost soul. I'll leave you with two things tonight:

1) You could be changing your world. Maybe not THE world, but your world, certainly...and that would be more than enough.

2) Jesus promised
           the King will say, 'I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!'

If only you could see!!

It's about that time, folks. That time where I get beat-up, bruised and kicked around. Last night, I gave up. And now I'm trying again, haha. We lie to God saying things like, "I'm done!" Well, I've mentioned this before, but it's not like I'm gonna wake up the next morning without His mercy. Yeah, right. And I knew that. I've known that. It's funny how we struggle with the same things until we get it right. But I'm not far gone. Actually, if it were up to me, I'm sure I am, but God is faithful... Even when I cant be. He's a good God & a loving, merciful father. Anyway. I've found that a lot of the things I go through everyone else is going through anyway. Also, God doesn't like whining, so it's about time I used my mouth & my thoughts for praise. Otherwise, I can just hush up. It's hard, I believe it. Yesterday I just sat on the stairs just so... Everything. While I think I'm special enough in my brain to have this happen to me & no one else on the planet, there are tons of people going through the same thing & worse. But, what about Jesus? He carried that cross... I know that was hard. I'm not trying to say my problems aren't worthy of God's attention (he cares), but I shouldn't think he doesn't understand. Tired? I'm sure Jesus was tired in the wilderness. Anxious? Check Jesus out the night before His death. Betrayed? Jesus was hanging in front of the people once screaming "hosanna," now yelling, "crucify him!" anyway. Victory is yours, but will you praise in the process? The trials we face directly correlate to the traits we ask from
God. So, if you want to trust God, you'll probably be put in situations where you'll have the option not to.


I've resolved for the day that ICANDOALLTHINGS.... through HIM who gives me strength.

Have a great day, I know I'm determined to.

You're going to have a big family, Abraham!

       Happy (almost) Easter, everybody! I'm sorry I don't have more to say on the subject but that Jesus' death and resurrection should give us TONS of hope in situations we would otherwise find hopeless.
    
         I know that sometimes, as humans, we get what we expect. (duh, Emnet!) I would try to find a more clever way to phrase what I'm trying to say, but that's kind of the fact of life that I'm seeing here. We get what we expect. We get what we expect, and what we get is what we got. For instance, when I don't eat breakfast, I can expect to daydream my way through third period because I just want to go to lunch. See what I mean? I get what I expect. I get hungry when I don't eat, and I don't expect myself to focus easily. If I don't sleep the entire night, I'm not surprised later that I haven't been able to stay awake throughout the day.
         I know there are varying factors, but you see my point. I'm just trying to say that we oftentimes see what we've done, and we can predict the consequences of our actions. We simply expect what we deserve. I think that's one of the reasons why we feel so let down when we make deals with people and they don't hold up their end: we feel like we deserved it. We feel like we deserve a good grade when we stay up all night studying, and we feel like we deserve allowance when we do our chores. Or whatever. It's a prediction of the consequence we feel as though we're entitled to because of our actions.
       But now I'm gonna play the grace card. The one I've talked about in former posts, and the one that God introduces in my life so unexpectedly that I'm left in awe. The one that flips things upside-down for me and makes things OK to be "unfair." Grace is a confusing thing, and I'll never fully understand it. It's one of those things where you're in science class thinking of anything but science, and your mind has time to wander,  and you wonder what it's all about. It's something you think you have figured out after one sermon, but then are perplexed again after reading your bible the next night. It's something that confuses you in theory and stuns you in practice.
        The grace card is something God pulls on me in life when I'm just so down on myself, so beat-up and tired that I'm just expecting what I deserve and bracing myself for the worst, and God just shows up out of seemingly nowhere and gives me hope that I shouldn't have. Hope I shouldn't even dare to long for.
       God's a God of the imperfect, but He's also a God of the hopeless.
  
        There are times in my life when I've completely eliminated grace, and think I have it coming, then He comes to my rescue. And, for a girl who has a hard time forgiving herself, I'm not good at taking what I believe I don't deserve. It's like, you beat a kid up at recess, and your teacher gives YOU an ice cream cone for saying sorry. It doesn't even make sense, but that's God and Jesus. I beat Him up on the cross (Good Friday), and I got the ice cream cone of abundant life  I don't deserve on Easter. I just had to say sorry. Because of this grace He's given us, we are put in a position where we should hope in times of hopelessness. I don't know if that is good use of English to explain my point, but I'm sayin that, when you're down on your knees with nowhere to look but up, you can expect mercy. I mean - the bible tells me so:
           Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
        
           I can expect grace. It's not even called being unfair anymore, it's called faith. You can believe in God's promises, like that of Hebrews 4:16, and not because we earned it in some fashion or another, but because Jesus earned it for us. It's absolutely just and completely unfair. It's how God balances out His loving aspect with His merciful aspect. (Only a God as cool as ours can make His mercy and justice work in our favor - He loves us so much He chose to hurt Himself and only Himself in the process. Happy Easter to THAT!)
          Anyyhoowww. I was really questioning my ability to handle life itself when God threw this verse at me:
           When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!"
 - Romans 4:18

       
         The entire world, just like Abraham, found itself in a predicament of hopelessness some thousand years ago when Jesus swept in and saved the day. Those who had faith were those who saw not what they could do, but what God could do to save them. I mean, without faith, would you be able to believe a promise as ridiculous as the one God promised Abraham? Like, GOD. I'M OLD. but no. You're not too old because you serve the author of time, He can do anything He wants with you and if you want Him to He can help you (ha! that rhymed!). 

         It's really easy for me to look at the world sometimes and expect what I deserve, but now is the best time to put on some faith goggles and see an eternal side to things...Yes, I'm frustrated, and yes, I have a lot I have to deal with...but I have grace, and I'm not going to get what I deserve because I'm gonna ask in faith for different. I'm gonna boldly go to the throne of grace and ask for what I was promised instead of what I was expecting. If God tells me I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, then I believe I can. Even the things I think I shouldn't be able to without fully earning. 

         I'm not promoting laziness or anything like that, but when I fall short, I'm learning to let God pull me forward as I need it. (can you just imagine yourself falling down as a little kid and then having God come pick you up and sit you down in a little red wagon and pull you along?). And sometimes I really need it. 

       There's a song I love where at the end it's God talking to someone saying: 

 "Now have faith in what you hope for and not in what you see 

Believe in what I say to you and keep your eyes on Me 

Don't doubt what I can do, I love you just like that."

             God is love. He loves me, He loves you, and He's on our side. He's on our team. He's rooting for us cuz we're HIS players. He'll call a timeout if we need one, even when we don't think we deserve it...and you know what He deserves? A whole lotta' love. 

Enjoy this song &  give the King of Hope a great, big "thank you" this Easter. I love you guys, and I hope this somehow in someway reminds you of how much you love God. Have a blessed Easter Sunday! I know I will :) 

                                                                        

Pray.

If my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

Pray.

I had an entire page written on this that accidentally got deleted, so I guess this is all the blog post for today was meant to say.

Pray like your life depends on it. Because it does.

My God? The Earth is His Footstool.

I don't really know what to say. I always have lots to say, but not really in a logical sequence or ordering or, I don't know.
A lot of the answers I've been giving to life and it's various questions and problems have been, "I don't know." And, for the first time in a long time, I'm quite okay with that. I don't know what I'm trying to say right now, nor do I mind very much because I'm just obeying orders.
I know that God was the one who inspired me to get this blog started or re-started, if you will, and I also know that He doesn't want me to have all the answers at one time so, maybe after I start writing, I'll have a coherent and somewhat inspiring or interesting or something to s o m e o n e blog post written. If not, maybe I'll learn from it something I've never known before. Either way, I'm not gonna sweat it.
I've been wrestling the past few months of my life (as you may have noticed) with the question "why?" and trying to answer it in terms of an almighty God. I've thought long and hard, and I've come to conclude that God is who He is and I am who I am to worship Him. I've come up with a lot more conclusions than that, but that is among the many. I know that He's in charge, and I'm okay with not knowing all the answers. I just am now. It's like a complete release and all these things I've thought about or worried about have been completely taken off of my mind and my heart and handed to God so that all I have to worry about is Him and pleasing Him.
All His characteristics make me so okay with not knowing. The more I've struggled to find the answer to my "why?" question, the more I've realized that God is good, loving, all-knowing, eternal, merciful, and patient. This all leads me back to just letting go of everything. I mean, why not? I'm in the arms of an excellent mind and a very biggggg God. The earth is His footstool.... With gas prices these days, I'm sure we've all been understanding distance and just how far things can actually be. Think about this in terms of GOD. He's all the distance in the world, but that's nothing for Him. All I gotta say is "dangg," in a very teenage and awestruck way.
A lot of the time, my mind will freeze up when it comes to thinking about what to write in a blog post. When I come to blog just because it seems like a good idea, I have nothing to say... yet. It's almost like I'm experiencing something, and I know what I want to get at, but no words will come to mind for me to say them. It's at the end of a new experience or a new lesson learned that God's like, "okay, go ahead and tell em about this part," or "you can talk it out on here."
I've noticed that I'll go long periods of time without blogging much (not that long, really), and then EVERYTHING  will just get blurted out in one, biggg, longgg, post. They must be a drag to read in a rush.
But the importance of realizing who our God is comes from our need to serve Him. We have to know who our boss is to know what exactly He wants us to do. I want so desperately to do what God wants in my life that I just want to get to know more of Him on a daily basis. For instance, today I recovered some hidden truths about God and today's religious lies. Tomorrow, I want to learn more. I don't know what I'll be learning because I haven't gotten there yet, and that's a good thing... because then there'd be no point...
 God does things in His timing the way He does them for a reason. I pray, "YOUR will be done, Lord," because His will is good, pleasing, and perfect. Mine, on the other hand, not-so-much.
 I love God, and when you finish reading this, I hope you'll love Him a little more too. If not, that's okay, because He's so lovable it doesn't matter if a post by little, ol' me didn't do no good for you. God is who He is, and I'm trusting Him with absolutely everything in my life.
One final thing before I leave for a bit (maybe not), I hope this made sense, and I'll leave you with something God's left me.
Think about all the times you've asked God why something had to happen in your life, all those times you've regretted past mistakes and wished you could go back and stop yourself from making them. Now, answer this question in response to you asking God why.
Why not?

Think what good would have been prevented had that one thing not happened. I hope you understand from this that, bit by bit, God is the one planning out the pieces of all of our lives, and He knows what He's doing. I trust Him way more than I have before, and that's saying a lot. Hopefully you've gained a little more eternal perspective on life and its sometimes random occurrences. byyeeeeeeee now.

ps. donchya think cell phone and facebook addictions have gone TOO far?? Random, but increasingly on my mind. I hope you could read that, I'm not used to staying up this late this week, so I am writing veryy sleeppppppppppiilllyyyy.