Ann Voskamp - The Way to Abundant Life

so I'm walking through the airport when I see this billboard plastered on a wall and it brought me up short and I just sort of stood back to take it all in blazoned across the three panels like a wake up call it read why do you get out of bed in the morning three images first one some daredevil is plunging off a surfboard and it reads fear of failure panel 2 an astronaut is launching himself off into space and the quote is the need to succeed and number three some guy is holding a purring cat and the quote is the love of your life so why in the world do you get out of bed in the morning I'm pretty sure I don't bother to get out of bed for any purring feline and no I don't have any rocket ship or this hankering to launch off into the cosmos but standing there before the billboard and it's haunting question it sort of is like this beat this question begging for an answer and I sort of want to accost the steady stream of commuters and travelers and ask them why with your broken heart why do you bother getting out of bed morning after morning because this is what I know nothing is more necessary than finding God and falling deeper and deeper in love with him love decides everything what you are in love with decides what you live for what you are in love with what you treasure decides what you get out of bed for the first priority of God's people is always to keep returning to our first love our lives aren't meant to be about impressive perfection but about intimates affection you know right now in my life there is a young person who has fallen madly head-over-heels in love and he can't stop talking about or thinking about her praising her and my husband the farmer he keeps grinning watching his son experience first love and he turned to me and he said see how in love he is that's how we should be the priority of God's fallen people is to keep falling in love with God over and over and over again you have to fall in love because this is what will keep getting you up out of bed every morning because love what you treasure ultimately decides and hear me love love isn't about agreeing with someone it's about sacrificing for someone love it's a verb they say and I always want to say well what verb is it the verb is given for God so loved the world what did he do he gave love is given this love is surrendered love is willing to be broken and given like bread love decides everything which is another way of saying sacrifice is the essence of everything fall in love fall into sacrifice and you will always rise read the headlines read your news feed and then defy the dark and go fall in love with kids raised in different neighborhoods than yours fall in love with God and faces that tell different stories than yours fall in love with people who think and live and walk in different circles than yours sacrifice for someone so your sanity your fulfillment your abundant joy isn't sacrificed and God is most glorified sacrifice will always leave you the most satisfied when I carried our youngest daughter adopted from China into the emergency room for the first time two summers ago with that brave broken half heart of hers she literally has half of a heart the doctor looked down at our little girl and he asked me point-blank how did this broken child get into this country and I look back at him and said love got her here love got her here which is another way of us always saying sacrifice got us all here someone sacrificed something and someone to get us all into this country and I held our broken and brave baby right there at my shoulder I looked at the round at this room of interns and doctors and surgeons and nurses with names like Sharov Adi and Marek or and dip Chand and we are a nation of sacrificers a nation of givers and gift errs and sacrificers and Reacher's people who give when it costs and step up to lay it all down and choose to take less to give more people who know that the foundation of anything worth anything is always sacrifice because the real truth tellers and freedom dwellers believe that when things are crumbling when foundations are giving away when relationships and hopes and dreams and countries and the world feels a bit like it's falling apart there is only one shape the pieces of our brokenness can take to know wholeness and that is the shape of the cross right there you fit into the abundant life the life you ultimately want when you live shaped like a cross cruciform sacrificing you can say all you want about love and sacrifice and choosing a truth-telling life but if your truth about love it doesn't tell the whole truth if it doesn't look like the sacrifice of a cross love is about laying down our life otherwise it's not love it's self gratification the only form real happiness can ever take is cruciform the only way to break free into the abundant life is to leave broken and given like bread because life's not about choosing a lifestyle so much as it is about choosing a way to serve audacious transformation happens wherever there is audacious love change transformation doesn't happen as much by forcing something as much as it does by falling in love with something where do you want change in your life change your loves and you change your life audacious transformation happens in our life where there is audacious cruciform ation living shaped like a cross where we change and love him and flormar lives cruciform cross formed arms open wide given to him cruciform ation is an actual scientific term it comes from biology referring to the transformation from the line form DNA to actual cruciform DNA cross form DNA draw a cross on your wrist every day and ask what loves do I have to change to change my life what do I want the most what do I really love and this cultural moment is begging the DNA of all things to transform from a linear worldview from a flatline view of the world to a cross shape view of everything from flat screens flat faith from flatlined living to cross shapes thinking cross shape seeing cross shaped choosing cross shaped giving the way a life audaciously transforms is to become audaciously cruciform this is the broken way the broken wide open and given way the way that reaches out and sacrifices and gives and loves his word reads in first John three sixteen to seventeen this is the message this is how we've come to understand and experience love Christ sacrificed his love for us this is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers and not just be about ourselves if you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing what happens to God's love it disappears and you made it disappear my dear children let's not just talk about love let's practice real love let's practice real love we have been audaciously loved by Christ so what does this audacious love do to us it audaciously transforms us to live cruciform to live reaching wide-open sacrificially to the wounded spouse the prodigal kid the misunderstood the misfit the dismissed the overlooked we get to do this we get to live like this would you want to live any other way this one truth has radically and audaciously transformed my life our theology is best expressed in a hospitality is my door my heart my hands my life wide open wide open to the orphan the refugee the seeker the lost the wandering the unloved how cruciform do I live I was once on a flight headed west seated beside a Hasidic rabbi and he leaned over and he picked at my full water bottle off my tray and he says you know how we all want more in our life and he holds up the full to the top water bottle in front of me then he tipped over the water bottle and poured it in to my Styrofoam cup he said look at this you can't have more unless you pour out when you are filled to the brim with the audacious love the audacious enough nosov Christ the only way you can possibly have more is to pour yourself out the only way to the more life is to pour yourself out pouring yourself out for those in need so Christ might be magnified in you love lives given maybe more than having bucket lists you want an empty bucket pouring yourself right out empty poured out buckets are actually always the fullest buckets you heard of the UM the ATM repairman the summer he was changing out a lock at an ATM of a Bank of America and a scorching July afternoon in Corpus Christi Texas and he found himself trapped inside the ATM machine and he left his phone in his truck so with no phone and no one around him to break him free throw a pair man scribbled out SOS notes and slid them out of the ATM machine where customers were waiting for the machine to spit out their money and instead they get the surprise note help I'm stuck in here come on what would you do if you're standing there in front of the ATM machine and get this note that literally reads please help I'm the repair guy stuck in this broken-down ATM machine and I don't have my phone please call my boss at this number everyone thought it was a prank or if the para man yelled flipped up SOS note after SOS no customer after customer thought it was a joke until one guy hailed down the police officer I snuck in the ATM machine and the police officer Richard olden of the Corpus Christi Police Force said sure enough we could hear a little voice coming from the machine and you want to know something that ATM repairman is not the only one sending out his SOS notes into a world that isn't paying attention a world who has made comfort their way and self their truth and wealth their life there is a whole world out there of people trapped in all kinds of broken-down situations and they're sending out their SOS they're hollering and begging and waiting and we read their notes and ignore them or think their distress is not real or kind of shrug our shoulders and focus on getting what we need there's a whole world out there in their own kind of captivity in their own heartbreaking situations who are hoping someone will generously pour out their lives someone will generously open up their hands reach out and live cruciform crossing and break the Machine and help them break free this is what audacious love does it lives the transformation of cruciform ation of cruciform ation so that others can experience what liberation love lives given I think of Queen Esther that young Jewish girl who found herself a Persian Queen when her people faced genocide her people who were sending out their own SOS notes and Esther where she was for such a time as this with audacious gift upon gift in the palace not for her own comfort but for own calling to be compassionate for those in crisis and Esther's cousin Mordecai says this to her don't think for a moment that because you're in the palace you will escape when your people suffer if you keep quiet at a time like this delivering them relief will arise from someplace but you and yours will die you are Esther audaciously loved given so much and you have got to risk your position inside the palace for those outside the palace or you risk everything even your own soul you are esther audaciously loved given so much and you've got to give your gifts or they may become your idols your identity and you become the walking dead you are esther audaciously loved given so much and if you don't risk your position your palace your platform your power for those on the outside you will find yourself dying with meaningless on the inside for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his own soul if your life isn't about living given and maybe you're already dying you have known Christ's audacious affection his audacious transformation that cruciform ation our life calling now is to be about audacious liberation setting other captives free because love does what love lives given break the machines to break the captives free break down the gates in your generation for such a time as now because you know what we could have been the ones outside the gate we could have been the ones fighting the Lord's Resistance Army slitting your child's throat in the middle of the night we could be the ones born into a slum or violently raped and left for dead the one born into AIDS or starvation into lives of crisis desperation there are so many of us drinking down our lattes dying thirst dying for something more dying for the abundant life there are so many in need and so many esters who are thirsty for more than vanilla lives sweeten programs or watered-down vision hungry to take the broken way and have some real meat for their starve stools some dirt under their fingernails some real sacrifice in their veins there's a whole generation of esters who want to be the gift who want to give it forward whatever is in our hands who want to lives lives that are more holy than Hollow there's a whole Esther generation and it is us who want the abundant life of being dead to all ladders and to go lower to the least and the lonely and the lost the world needs us who have known audacious affection audacious transformation cruciform ation audacious liberation to now deny cynical indifference by making a critical difference every one of us can start changing headlines if we start reaching out our hands when we shape and form our lives like a cross broken and given like bread cruciform because love always lives given what if caring was more than just caring about easing our conscience --is what if caring meant sacrifice and that was the way into the abundant life are we giving to God just what we can afford to give are we giving to God what changes how we live break the machines to break the captives free break down the gates in your generation for such a time as now let's not just talk about love let's practice real love transformation which is cruciform ation so we can be about the audacious liberation of those in need because love always lives given my granddad told me a story once that there had been a tropical snake longer than the length of a man that had wound its way up the stilts of a jungle cabana and slithered right into one unsuspecting woman's kitchen and that woman had turned around split the day with one blood-curdling scream and flung herself outside and that's when a neighbor showed up with a machete calmly walked into the kitchen and sliced off the head of the reptilian thing but the strange thing is that a snake's neurology and blood flow makes it such that a snake still slithers after it's been sliced headless for hours that woman stood outside waiting and the body of the snake still rampaged on thrashing hard against windows and walls destroying chairs and tables and all things good and home a snake can only wreak havoc until it accepts it has no head but it's actually dead the enemy of your soul can only wreak havoc in your life until you accept that it's already dead and you're already free your enemy is already dead so silence the lies in your head the greatest lie of the pit is that you have to prove yourself this is the lie that has bound you up and ripped you apart in a million ways the lives that you aren't enough the lie that the myth of scarcity the lies that you haven't been given enough so that you can't give enough that you don't have enough time to give enough talent enough resources so that you can't live given but your enemy is already dead so silence the lies in your head and live into the mystery of abundance because you already have the riches of Christ Christ can now already be abundantly magnified in you no enemy can now imprison you because your Savior now empowers you to go live cruciform the greatest truth of Christ's reality is that you are free so live free the snakes dead so silence not enough nests that you don't have enough the glory of true freedom is you are always made free from something to become free for something else this is what the realist most audacious love does it frees you from slavery and now frees you for serving for living given freedom is not about doing whatever we want most but the opportunity to do whatever is most christ-like audacious transformation audacious cruciform ation audacious liberation to set other captives free we are free to be the esters to live cruciform for such a time as now and that's that's really my story the journey that I've been on about seven years ago and it's now I started giving thanks for all the gifts that God has given and I mean I mean quite literally writing them down number by number everything that God was giving me and Counting it as a gift I took the dare to count 1,000 gifts a thousand ways that God looked even B to do what Jesus did at the Last Supper take everything as bread and give thanks for it to see it as a love gift and this is the thing joy is a function of what more things some dream job some dream life no Joy's a function of giving thanks and giving thanks is what giving thanks is a function of perspective of how we see so how do we see how do we get and keep the perspective to see that there are gifts everywhere a thousand gifts more to be grateful for you train your eyes to see gifts to see that all is Grace to change your life you don't need to change your circumstances you need only to change the way you see your life you make Thanksgiving your life habit you pick up a pen and begin to write down even one thing you're grateful for because that's impossible to simultaneous they feel fear and gratitude and there is always always always something to be thankful for the answer to a whole lot of anxiety is the adoration of Christ I discovered this radical revolutionary truth as long as thanks is possible then joy is always always always possible scripture reads that on the night he was betrayed Jesus broke the bread lifted it up and gave thanks if Jesus can give thanks in that then we can give thanks in everything if Jesus chooses gratitude as elemental in destroying evil do we have a better weapon against the dark if out of a cosmos of choices Jesus chose to give thanks in the face of evil then maybe our giving thanks for all the gifts is how we face life now once they're glorious diamonds say it in an interview gratitude never radicalized anybody in the minute the words were out of her mouth I was on my feet saying wait up no ma'am no ma'am I have to tell you miss Steinem if you ask the 1 million people who dared to count 1,000 of their own gifts that's what they will all tell you gratitude never fails to radicalize the radically grateful when you are radically grateful for what you have you will go to radical lengths to share it when you are radically grateful for being blessed you are radically generous to the oppressed so this is our story our stories of family this living transforming us giving thanks coming to the place of us wanting to be the gift to take the broken way and be broken and given like bread because love always lives given in my journey I explored the broken way which is the sister book to 1000 gifts and I worked out the last half of that Lord's Supper what does Jesus do after he takes the bread and gives thanks he doesn't hoard it he doesn't keep it he doesn't say thanks be to God that I got all of this I hope it works out for everybody else he breaks the bread and he passes it on he gives it forward because love always lives given he lives with his arms outstretched cruciform because there are those living in the land of starving a place the need of hurt of ache outside the gate and I took that same pen that I had given thanks for wonderful thousand things and every day I started to draw a cross on my wrist because his audacious affection has led to audacious transformation cruciform ation and now I get to reach out and give given like bread so others can experience audacious liberation our story led us to another and actually Anna in Africa a little girl in Uganda who needed someone to share the gifts and the grace that they've been given to live cruciform so she had enough food enough clothes so she does school and future and a hope in Jesus the journey I've been on has actually taken me from the joy of counting the gifts to the joy of getting to be the gift to become the gift taken me and our oldest daughter hope from the farm to Uganda to meet Anna a little girl we sponsor through compassion international Anna was waiting for us at her little church which was called the true love Baptist Church and hope saw her first pointed to Anna the one that we got to share our gifts with so she too could experience his gifts in His grace and hope pointed her out this little girl in a white dress this little girl in a satin white dress with a summer hat with handmade paper white lilies in hand and our daughter hope whispered to me she looks like a little Queen mama and all I can think of as Esther for such a time as this all I can think is if you have any food in your fridge any clothes in your closet any small roof rented or owned over your head we are richer than 75 percent of the rest of the world I've been given so many gifts how can I not now live cruciform and share all those gifts if I have anything saved up in the bank any bills in my wallet any spare change in a jar I am one of the top eight percent of the wealthiest people in the world I've been given so many gifts how can I not live cruciform and share those gifts if I can read I have a gift three billion people right now don't have if my stomach isn't twisted in hunger pains I have a gift that 1 billion people right now don't have if you know Christ you have a gift that untold millions right now don't we have been giving gift upon gift a thousand ten thousand a million more how can we not now they've broken and given and share those gifts we're all esters living in the palace given so many gifts how can we not share them with those outside the gate at Anna's church in Uganda hope and I listen to the compassion international Sunday school teacher tell the kids dressed up and not a whole lot more than tattered rags he said God lets us all give just like the widow's offering he couldn't stop laughing giddy he said you don't have to wait to have more you don't have to wait to have much you don't have to wait at all and I'm looking into the eyes of all these little African children all these hungry dancing eyes and the compassion teacher he's literally dancing under the tree and he says you all get to give it's not just the rich you get to give it's all those who give who get to be the rich you don't wait until you have more before you give to God you give now so you get to become more in God and the children were all smiling and singing because they knew love lives given the compassion teacher he's waving his hands are on extracting and joy and he says bring your only mango to Jesus bring your one handful of beans bring your heart overflowing with song it's not having much that makes you rich it's the giving much that makes you rich give and you are the rich love lives given I'm sitting under a tree in Africa with the richest in the world and it's not Bill Gates it's not Warren Buffett and then it's not a family with two cars a flat-screen television a week at Disney it's a bunch of kids in Africa in ripped shirts and torn shoes who have no knives or Forks and sleep on floors it's only the people who give sacrificially who get to live richly this is coming back to the heart of worship this is what it looks like to keep falling in love with God this is coming back to Thanksgiving to God because whenever I can give to the least of these I am giving back to God I'm with you still on this journey of learning of how to give thanks for all of His grace and then to live transformed cruciform arms reaching open broken and given like bread into the abundant life the children like Anna so she can fill with this grace find in the giving that he fills us with the most abundant grace of all our journey has led us to sponsoring more than 23 kids around the world with compassion international from Anna and the red soul of Uganda tisha Mora and a tin shack from Guatemala City to John Wilson under a thatched roof in Haiti and today right now there's a child who's waiting for you waiting for you to find them for you who've been giving gift upon gift grace upon grace to now live broken and given like bread to live cruciform to give the gift forward so a child who needs food needs clean water needs education needs Jesus fills with His grace the next step on your journey today your own broken way towards the abundant life it's really important and I'm a farm girl who messes things up so I don't want to mess this up because it matters so I'm gonna leave the logistics of getting to connect with compassion in the details to your pastor it's gonna speak with you right after we pray together so would you stand with me right now stand with me right now and break your arms wide open stand cruciform with your arms stretched open and I know what you're thinking you're thinking lady this is really awkward because I'm touching somebody else and that's the point you're touching somebody else because this is the way we get to live audaciously loved and now audaciously loving others how desh ously transformed and living cruciform not using our fingers to point at each other but stretching out our hands to touch each other to be the hands and feet of Jesus could we go now before the throne of the wounded healer and just still our hearts God you know our own unspoken broken this morning you know where we feel like we are failing today where we feel like we have broken what we never want to do forgive us God for falling in love with other things instead of you instead of you who is seen in the least of these forgive us for ever wanting change apart from changing our love's part from living sacrificially forgive us for loving comfort more than loving Christ more than living cruciform like Christ Lord where are we facing temptation today do not live cruciform ation right now what do we need to die to Lord speak to us right now how are we living for us and not practicing real love real love lives given where are you calling us to live cruciform to live given today this week make us people who take our directions from the cross make us people who live cruciform can't evict us as to what those idols are that you know we need to break break our bucket lists and move us not to want to fill up our lives but to pour our lives out more because you keep filling us up with more and more of yourself so that we have enough to give because of you giving yourself to us in the cross we aren't the ones known for yesterday are known for our messes are known for our fillers are even known for our own brokenness we hear you now speaking to our hearts Lord we are the ones known as beloved but we don't need to ever fear that Jesus is it entirely for us completely for us a hundred percent for us we don't have to prove anything perfect anything perform anything anyone because we get to be pressed into you Jesus and to be formed in shaped like you cruciform we are the ones known as yours and you are ours because we come to the cross in exchange all of our brokenness and sin and grime and failure for your perfection and flawlessness and righteousness so that we don't feel abandoned but we get to live cruciform abandon ourselves to you wanting and longing and hungry this appetite for more of you because we can always have as much of you as we want right now where we want closeness with you intimate affection close communion with you because love lives given thank you Lord that your love for us is oceanic you're welcome of us is enthusiastic your purpose through us is cosmic your commitment to us is astronomic and your hope in us is meteoric we are returning to You Lord our first love give us the courage Lord to live cruciform reaching out broken and given to those desperately in need when gifted least of these were giving to you cause us to dare to take the broken way living cruciform into the abundant life because love lives given formed like Christ because you Lord this is how you transform the world through your people living like Christ cruciform and all the people have been loved to death by Jesus and back to the realest life because of Jesus said amen

Channel: Ann Voskamp

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Keywords: ann voskamp interview, ann voskamp testimony, ann voskamp the broken way session 1, ann voskamp false teacher, ann voskamp if gathering 2017, ann voskamp the broken way, ann voskamp one thousand gifts session 1, ann voskamp one thousand gifts, ann voskamp the broken way session 2, ann voskamp one thousand gifts session 2, ann voskamp, ann voskamp 2017, ann voskamp spoken word, ann voskamp christmas, ann voskamp advent, ann voskamp attitude of gratitude

Id: iKHq-bJCxW4

Length: 39min 33sec (2373 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2017