When I first got saved, one of the first things I understood about walking with Jesus was the need for complete surrender. With that understanding, I was very quick to lay down and walk away from any and everything that the Lord required of me. Little did I know, how easy it is to pick things back up, how easy it is to take things back without even realizing it and how surrender is not a one time or even a two, three or four time requirement but rather a daily laying down of our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our desires so on and so forth. It is part of the cross we bear, part of the constant dying to ourselves. Our flesh is full of pride and it desires to be in control, have what it wants when it wants and it justifies itself by staking claims to some form of right. Our carnal minds have their own ideas of what our lives should look like, the time frames we should accomplish things within, the way that we should serve God, the blessings we should have, even the best trials that we should face that would result in the greatest refinement. Whatever it may be, we have an idea of what it SHOULD all look like. And then, Jesus comes along shatters every box, bursts every bubble, does exactly what you DONT expect and that is how you get from what you THINK it should look like all the way over to what it ACTUALLY does look like.
Most of you are aware that when I returned from IHOP-KC that I had plans to go on a mission trip to Africa/Israel. Oh I was sooo excited to be serving God in this capacity. I was excited to experience God on this new level and looked forward to being used by Him in a radical way. I figured it had to be fully in the will of God because I was planning to go on this trip to serve Him. I was struggling a lot at this point, I couldn’t figure out what was going on but I was tired of listening to sermons and teachings, tired of singing songs and reading book after book that talked about DOING the work of the Lord but meanwhile it seemed that I wasn’t doing anything. I knew I needed a fresh encounter with Jesus; I needed SOMETHING to ignite the fire within again. Although my hearts motives were pure, God knew what I needed more than I knew. And He knew that He didn’t NEED me to go to Africa, as much as I NEEDED to remain home in NJ. But at this time, it made zero sense to me. I felt as though I had failed God. I felt as though the past year and a half had been a waste. I returned back to "normal life" with my head hung low in defeat with no other option but to return to work. How could it be? Didn’t God have big plans for my life? Wasn’t I of any use to Him? I had already failed at so many things in life but the one thing I could not face was failing God. Of course these thoughts were all lies but one of the biggest dangers when "our plans" get interrupted is instead of recognizing our sin and going before the Lord, we listen to the screaming voice of the enemy as He laughs at us, calls us failures, unworthy and tells us that our God has forsaken us. When in reality all that happen was I picked my life back up, I took control again. And God loves me way to much to leave me outside of His will, attempting to do things in my own strength and so He allowed me to fail at my plans so that I would have to fall back into His grace and ultimately align myself back up with His perfect will.
Of course through this all, in HIS faithfulness, God was still very much at work. In a different way than I had experienced, it was as if He was working behind the scenes gently pushing me along and orchestrating things together while I was caught up with the hopelessness I felt. He opened doors for me to work again, it required about 1% of my energy and next thing you know there I was working. However, I found myself back in the mundane routine of "life"-getting up early, going to work all day, coming home exhausted, having dinner before bed- only to start all over again the following day. One night in an all out moment of desperation after a few weeks of feeling as though nothing had a purpose, I got in my car and as I drove I cried out to Jesus. "I give up God, I give up!! I don’t care what it takes, what it looks like, im sorry for trying to control my life, I just want to feel your closeness, I want the peace that comes from being in YOUR total will." Something broke. I immediately felt something lift off of me. That night I went to bed with a little more hope than I experienced in weeks and the Lord began to show me that night as well as in the following weeks how I had built walls in the process of His healing when we got to the deep places where I was wounded. Instead of trusting Him, I ran from the pain and in the process of protecting myself, I blocked Him out too and attempted to move forward the way I saw best. But home in NJ it was impossible to run from those things, the familiarity of it all caused memories and things within to surface bringing me right back to that same place. We may think we move on but Jesus is patient and will continue to bring us back to the same places over and over again until we are able to face them and deal with them once and for all. The following day a friend invited me to hear Lou Engle speak at JHOP in NYC. The moment I stood there in the midst of my fellow brothers and sisters and I raised my hands in worship I remembered all the promises Jesus had made me, I remembered WHO I had given my life to. I felt His love wash over me and I was able to put my complete trust in Him again. I didnt have to protect myself, make plans for myself or really do anything because He was in complete control. The following week at work, a beautiful thing happen, I felt Jesus working along side me. He was teaching me how to find Him in the most worldly of places, teaching me to acknowledge Him in all things. And most importantly He reminded me that the people I was surrounded by were just as lost and broken as the people in Africa. I had my own mission field right in front of me and I didn’t even have to get a malaria shot or go thousands of miles on a plane!! Lol In addition to that, before leaving IHOP, the Lord had put NYC on my heart- something I was unable to focus on when I returned because I was so discouraged by everything else going on, but as He led me to JHOP-NYC to reunite me with the body of Christ and the family that I very much needed after leaving my IHOP family, and continued working on the heart I had been protecting the past few months, He also began to stir that burden for NYC up once again. And so, these past few weeks I have been attending their friday night prayer sets as well as Sunday service and the Lord has been doing incredible work in my heart, giving me such amazing revelations of who He is as my father and bringing me to new levels of freedom. As I move forward allowing Jesus to heal me and change my wrong mindsets (a daily process), He has also opened my eyes to all the lost around me. The burden on my heart is intense and as He places so many lost souls on my path that I am able to share the goodness of Jesus with, my prayer is that that I would faithful to Him, that I would be sensitive to all that He is speaking and requiring of me. It is His heart that none shall perish and because the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few, all I can do is offer myself in full surrender, be willing to be His hands and His voice even when it looks differently than I expected it to. Even when it’s difficult, when the burden on my heart aches to the point that I can’t sleep at night, when it feels like im not accomplishing anything. I will remain faithful to Him. Why? Because He is faithful to me and above all else, HE IS WORTHY.
This experience above all else has been so humbling and has taught me to have soooo much grace on others. And so although life is turning out completely differently than I expected, knowing that I am in His will brings me a greater peace than anything else. I dont have any idea what things will look like moving forward but I find that very comforting. I believe that sometimes when we THINK we know what His plans are we hold onto them and they become a source of comfort for us. When they dont turn out the way we planned, well we get discouraged. BUT when we walk, gazing ONLY on the beauty of our savior, not looking down at the path or where we are walking, it is Him we place our trust in. It is His job to keep us from falling and guide us the right way and I cannot think of anyone else who id rather place my trust in.
