Over the past three months God has been taking my heart and life and has been wrecking it. Wrecking it for His kingdom. I am experiencing abandonment of all the things I use to take comfort in.
The comforts that hide who we really are. On the race, we are faced with constant changes and challenges. Every month we’re in a new country, experiencing a new culture, new foods, new living conditions, language barriers, etc.
We are seeing and experiencing things at such an intensive level, that it leaves you faced with the hard reality of who you are. All you really have that’s consistent is your character
and God. When you witness a small gypsy child who’s skinner then twigs offer everyone around her her small portion of food, you can’t help but have your heart broken. Yesterday I was walking in this very poor area of Lipova, Romania. I was visiting this one home where the family was using an electrical line to hang and dry their wet clothes. They had trash piled outside the front of the house and this house was broken and dirty. They had a baby with a cleft mouth and all I could think of was, “this is so awful! This is bad.” This isn’t the first time on the race that I’ve been in a situation like this or seen and experienced something like this. Just like this isn’t the first time I’ve had those thoughts. But yesterday it just really hit me how much I need God, how much this family needs God, how much the world needs God, we just need Him! We need Jesus and all I could pray was “Jesus I need you, Jesus this family needs you, this baby needs you, my family needs you,. Jesus my leaders need you.” Then as I prayed that prayer my soul started to find peace. God is teaching me that His kingdom is here on earth now. When Jesus came to earth He brought the kingdom with Him. He is a living and breathing spirit still at work today. I’ve seen it. I’m continuing to see it at work here in Bulgaria, Albania, Transnistria, Romania, at work in my life.
Next month E-Squad will be serving and doing ministry in India. We really need your prayers even more now as our ministry is leaving Europe and going into Asia and Africa. This also means that we are transitioning into the rougher part of the race.
My prayer request is that you’d pray that me, my team, my squad, my team leader, my squad leaders, that we would all persevere and not grow weary in this Race, not just the World Race, but the race Christ has called each of us too. That we would keep pressing into the Spirit, truth and our community.
“You’re blessed when your at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule.
You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the one most dear to you.
You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are-no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourself proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”
Mathew 5:3-5 (TM)
“..we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5 (NIV)
