Recently I had an opportunity to practice my faith. Some may ask what that means, well let me break it down for you. The word Practice has several meanings in a religious sense it means to follow, observe habitually or customarily. In the military or athletic sense it means to train or drill. In the talent or skill sense, practice describes the act of performing or doing something repeatedly in order to acquire skill.Finally, the word also means to exercise or pursue as a profession, art or occupation. So we can practice in all these ways but maybe not all at the same time. When I say that I got to practice my faith, I am not talking really in a religious way at all but more in training, drilling and doing something repeatedly in order to acquire a skill or exercise my trust and faith that God will use me to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” Matthew 10:8
God has called me to the nations and Peru and India were just tastes of what God wants to use me for. In Peru I saw God use my team and He multiplied goodie bags like He multiplied the fishes and loaves in the Bible. In India I saw many healings, but the one that touched me the most was as I saw sight being restored to a woman and then she testified of God’s goodness of complete healing and sight. So as I am preparing for the World Race, I am stepping out in more boldness and seeing more healings.
So now that I gave you a little background let me get back to why I am writing this. The first week I moved to my new home to work with animals and to train the very first day we had a sick goat. The whole time I was praying for her to get better and it seemed as if she was but by Friday she had passed away. So here came something to practice because I never would try this before.
I prayed and asked God to raise her from the dead, not once but 3 times. Once when we found out, once while I was wheel barreling her down the hills, and once right after I dug the hole to bury her, which the hole had a lot of big roots that had a lot of emotional meaning and I had another blog about called no more secret garden, if you haven’t read that one then you should read as well. Then I placed in the hole and waited about a half an hour to make sure she didn’t come back to life. Then I covered her with the dirt and packed it down. I took the stuff back up the hill to be cleaned. I stopped and cried for a few. All kinds of thoughts flooded my mind, thoughts of digging up roots, thoughts of why my faith wasn’t strong enough, which I knew was Satan because it has nothing to do with me.
God didn’t want me to pray to raise her for Him to bring back a goat from the dead, but so if the opportunity arises I would be willing enough to lay down how silly, weird or crazy it might look like, and that I wouldn’t be afraid or fear trying to raise the dead. If God places that before me on the world race or any other missions trip in the future.
The story does not end there! This is where it gets funny and really weird. About a week later one of the dogs smelled like she rolled in dead animal. At first we didn’t think about it, but then my one room mate said “What if she dug up the goat?” Sure enough part of the goat was uncovered. So I dug another hole that ended up also having a lot of roots and almost as big as the first one and put all the dirt on top of the whole thing and packed it down again. Again I cried because I reburied the goat and the emotions that went with the roots.
The next day it rained really hard all day. So a couple days later for some reason I felt the need to check and see if the goat was still buried. When I was walking towards the grave the stick that I had used to mark the grave was not standing up. I got to the grave and this time the body was completely out and it wasn’t even by the side that was out before but it was like it was out of the hole just laying next to it, completely out of the blanket it was wrapped in. I walked back up the hill and told my friend that I was going to have to bury the goat again in the morning and she told me not to. She said we should try to burn her because if we bury her again other animals will still find her since the dog was not able to go down to her this time we know it was another animal. My roommate also cracked a joke saying I think she was trying to come back from the dead. Of course we laughed because it was starting to look like it. The next day my room mate and her daughter went and got the goat and put her in the fire pit, pour gas on her and tried to burn her. She wouldn’t burn all she did was smoke.
So now it became this big joke that the goat didn’t want to stay dead. It proceeded to rain everyday so she would never dry out so we could try to burn her again. During that week my friends daughter came to the conference that my church was having. There was a time where they asked all the people who have pain or need healing to stand up. I saw my friends daughter stand and I heard the Lord say to me go over to her and pray. I could have let doubt creep in with the whole goat thing but I just knew God wanted to do something. So I prayed and God completely healed her of all her back pain. See it is not us who heal anyone but God wants us to show faith and trust in Him. So the next day vultures came at first there was three, and then six. For three days it took them to completely eat the goat. So there was this whole thing with three going on. I even forgot to mention that the dog that first uncovered the goat was a 3 legged dog.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that it was 3 days before Christ was risen from the dead, that I prayed 3 times, that it was a 3 legged dog, that we tried 3 times to dispose of the goats body 3 times and that 2 sets of 3 vultures ate her or that it took them 3 days.
If you look up the meaning of 3 you get these:
3 is moving forward of energy, overcoming duality, expression manifestation and synthesis
the number 3 is uses 467 times in the bible. It pictures completeness, though to a lesser degree than 7
the 3 righteous patriarchs before the flood were Abel, Enoch and Noah
the 3 righteous “Father” Abraham, Isaac and Jacob(Israel)
There is 27 books in the new testament, which is 3x3x3 or completeness to the 3rd power
Jesus Prayed 3 times in the garden of Gethsemane before His arrest.
Jesus was placed on the cross at the 3rd hour(9:00am) of the day and died the 9th hour (3:00pm)
there was 3 hrs of darkness the covered the land while Jesus was on the cross the 6th-9th hour
3 is the number of resurrection
and so on…
The World Race will be my 3rd out of the country missions trip, This will be my 3rd launch date and I believe it will be my official launch date.
So Maybe I shouldn’t practice my faith on goat but God will use anything to teach us, to reaffirm what we are called to( lol reaffirm is 3rd person present) and to speak to us.
Are we really looking at everything and asking God what are you teaching me through this or we just going through the motions of what we call life? Are we practicing our faith to be religious or to have relationship? Are we just reading the Word of God or are we practicing it so we can live it out daily as Christ calls us to.
