On monday night I experienced a turning point in my relationship with the Lord. I have never encountered so many emotions in one day. As I was sitting in my missions class called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, I was listening to story after story of God’s faithfulness and all that he was doing to communicate and guide his people to the calling he had placed on their life. I don’t think I have ever been so doubtful of the Holy Spirit moving in my life. I felt empty. Like everyone in the whole entire world had an open relationship with the Lord, and then there was me. The speaker put a verse up on the screen for us to write down and study that literally knocked the breath out of me because every word was exactly what I was dealing with.
Luke 14:33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
I asked God “why?”…”why must i give up everything to follow you?”… “how is that fair for me to lose everything to go tell people about you so that then they may go and lose everything and follow you?”
God didn’t respond with a voice, but with recollected memories. I remembered moments where I loved something or someone so much that I forgot about God. Then I could visualize the person or the thing I was so in love with slowly be taken away from me or even all at once.
In the midst of loss, your eyes are limited to see pain but when you step back and take a moment to view the “big picture” and not just the pain you feel you may discover how lost you have become in the things of this world.
I could never understand why things were being taken away from me but now I see that when I have nothing or I am willing to give up everything God is there. That’s when I feel him move most. That’s when he can restore the deepest places in my heart that I have filled with temporary things with the overflowing joy of the Lord.
By this point in the message I had been thinking a lot about whether this mission trip was something I had planned for my life or something God had called me to do.
The speaker then started a list that I began to write down.
“Things Missionaries give up to go spread the news:”
“Fashion”…”Food”…”Friends”…”Love”…”Relationships”…”Family…”Security”…”Sometimes, Life”…
As the list grew bigger so did the tears in my eyes. I began to question if I was really ready to give up everything; if I had what it takes to go where there was no one to protect me the way my parents have always. With every word I wrote down I pictured my life without all of these things. By now I was weeping in front of the whole class and trying to regain my composure. After the speaker prayed I hastily walked to the side exit of the auditorium and fell to my knees on the ground outside begging God to show me some kind of sign that this is exactly where I am supposed to be and that, with him, I do have the strength to be in a mission field. I felt excitement in all of my emotions. There was no reason everything the speaker had said would have effected me so differently tonight then from every other night that I had thought about these things. Thats when I recognized the Holy spirit speaking to me. All of these things were coming up to convince me that no, I cannot do this alone and without God I have no reason to go. I began to see hope through all my fears.
After I wiped the tears from my eyes and took a deep breath I prayed the same prayer I have been praying for months now.
“Dear God, please reorder my life, take away my foolish plans, and restore them with your divine purposes. Help me become so focused on bringing you the joy and glory that you deserve that I forgot about myself and the things of this world. Here am I. Send me.”
Before I went back in the auditorium, I felt a strong desire for someone to pray over me.
As I went back into the auditorium to grab my stuff, two of the girls from my table were waiting for me and they asked if they could pray over me. (Such a God thing!)
When they began praying it was as if they had taken every word I had thought that night and turned it into a prayer. They were reading me like a book. They knew every emotion I was struggling with and as they prayed I began to feel the weight lifting from my shoulders. The Holy Spirit had taken my brokenness and my fears and turned them into a desire for missions. Where I was weak HE made me strong.
Although my strength has been renewed I know things on the mission field will not be easy. But now that I have experienced how God is strong in my failures, I am not scared of what is to come.
This link shown below to my favorite song is a true testimony of fear and pain in the path to obedience! its worth listening to.
