God of mercy sweet love of mine
I have surrendered to Your design
May this offering stretch across the skies
These Hallelujahs be multiplied
(Multiplied, Needtobreathe)
Let me tell you how I got to the World Race. I want to do this in the least cheesy way possible (no promises) and in the most genuine way I can.
The song at the top of this blog has been my prayer for the past couple of months. Before I got to this prayer, I was trying so hard to force what God wants for my life to fit into what I think my life should look like. God had revealed my heart for missions to me when I was in college and from that point on I began to yearn to be on the mission field, to serve the hurting and broken overseas. However, graduation rolled around, I got scared and began creating really solid reasons as to why doing missions as a college grad was a bad idea and I think a lot of people would have agreed with these reasons. I swore to myself that I was mistaken and that mission work could not possibly be for me. I spent my time since then looking for anything that could be a good substitute for that desire in my heart. You might be surprised to find out, that plan didn’t work. As much as I wanted the safety and stability that I had found, my heart was continually restless. I had many talks with God upset and asking why I felt this unrest and asking what I could do to fix it. When the answer came back “missions” my stubborn self refused to listen and would rather live in the unrest than face the challenge before me.
Eventually, I had enough and had to humble myself to really hear what God was telling me. God showed me of the ways I was lacking faith and the places in my life that I was refusing to give up control and I couldn’t deny it. That is when I let go. I let go of my plans for the future and gave them to the one who really has control. I became open to anything God might have in store for me. So when the World Race came my way, I knew that this was it, this is what He has been leading me towards and followed. All of the doors opened and now here I am writing my first blog. Funny, my heart doesn’t feel so restless anymore.
Now back to the song…
Like I said this song has been my prayer for quite some time. This song echoes what my heart has been screaming. It is the joy I have in this relationship with such a God that he would continually pursue me with relentless love. It is my amazement that this God and this love could possibly be mine. It is the joy found in letting go in surrender. It is the prayer that this surrender could be used for His glory, that what He has done in me would be multiplied and spread throughout the places I go on this trip. It is my hearts amen to the promise that no matter who we are or where we go His love will surely come find us and we can count on that. I am excited to set out on this journey and I am ready to see what God has in store, to see His power, to reach His people, and to testify to the goodness of our Father. It is also my prayer that through reading my blog you will be able to see these things too.
