Sweet, Sweet REDEMPTION

“The Spirit of the
Sovereign Lord is on me� (Isaiah 61:1)

It’s difficult for me to even attempt to convey what the
Lord has been doing recently. But I’m going to try.

God rocked me
tonight. His Spirit fell and His presence was made known to everyone in the
room. I am simply left in awe, complete awe, longing to stay in His presence. I
don’t even know where to begin. I have a heightened sense of the Spirit in this
country. Brittany told me recently that God is giving me more of His heart, and
gave me the image of His heart positioned right up next to my face. With every
beat I could literally feel it move – an image similar to the one Carin gave me
about Jesus holding my hand up to His heart. Tyler told me that God has given
me the ability to deeply love people, but that He was going to expand my
capacity to love even more – with the Father’s heart. Tracy has spoken compassion
over me multiple times. It’s clear that God is allowing these things to come to
fruition right before my eyes.

We had the opportunity to serve at a drug rehab home today
with an organization called Betel –
they are amazing. We did various tasks throughout the day (I delivered flyers
door to door like a mailman… it was awesome) and then we ate dinner with all
the guys, tried to get to know them, and had a time of worship and testimony at
the end of the night.

Wow. God freakin showed up. I was talking to one of the men
before dinner and he was telling me that he almost died four times before he
realized that God was keeping him alive for some reason – that there was a
purpose to his life. After years and years of pain and addiction, he gave his
life to the Lord. PRAISE GOD.

I started speaking to another man during dinner who had an
amazing testimony of his own. He had been a fisherman years ago and worked
18-hour days on a boat; he had therefore turned to taking speed every day for
22 years to stay awake, along with some other drugs such as acid, cocaine,
ecstasy, heroin, etc. When he stopped fishing he started drinking heavily
instead and would simply down bottle after bottle of vodka each day. He
continued living this dangerous, destructive, and destitute lifestyle until he
was caught drinking and driving, lost his license, and his wife left him. He came
to a point when he was simply sitting in his car in a parking lot, drinking a
bottle of vodka, and thinking to himself,
“There must be more to life than this.� It was soon after that that he
found out about the Betel house (a Christian rehab home) and God literally put
people in his life to provide a way for him to go. (A skipper on a ship drove
him over 300 miles to get there – a beautiful picture of God’s provision.) Once
he got there he began seeing how all these other men had struggled with the
same problems as him, but they were now changed – something was different. He
said he started asking questions about faith, reading the Bible, learning more
about God, and finally decided to give his life to the Lord. PRAISE GOD. He is now the house leader
and recently moved away from England to start serving as the leader of this
house in Ireland; he realized that God was calling him to something more,
something out of his comfort zone, so that he could grow more in Him (it
sounded strikingly similar to some of our reasons for leaving on The World
Race). He said that experiencing God’s peace, grace, and redemption were like
nothing else in his life. He is now living a life of FREEDOM in Christ.

As he told his story I was simply mesmerized; I saw Jesus in
his eyes. I saw how the Lord had brought him from the pit of despair to
abundant LIFE in Him. I saw sweet, sweet REDEMPTION. And I started to cry.

“Thank you so much
for sharing your testimony with me,� I choked out. “There is a lot of POWER in that. Keep telling it.�

I don’t usually cry in these situations; this was abnormal.
I have heard stories like this before and have not been moved to this degree, but
for some reason today was different. God
is literally melting my heart for people. He is giving me glimpses of HIS
love, HIS compassion, HIS eyes, HIS ears, and HIS heart for others. I told this
man that hearing about God’s sweet redemption will never get old; I realized in
that moment that that’s exactly why I’m on this race. I am here to share the
LIFE, FREEDOM, HOPE, PEACE, LOVE, JOY, and REDEMPTION
that can only come through Christ. The “GOSPEL� literally means “GOOD NEWS�,
and Jesus is the BEST news that ever was, is, and is to come. That is what I am
here to do. That is what I am living for. That is what I want my life to be
about. Let me live so that others may
find life abundantly in Him, and ultimately glorify His name. I felt so
deeply about this in that moment that I didn’t even know what to do with
myself; we finished talking and I walked around awkwardly, wondering where I
should go or what I should do. I ended up grabbing my Bible, putting it down,
grabbing a book, putting it down, and finally grabbing my journal and began
writing furiously, trying to process through what had just happened.

As I was writing and thinking about all of this I had an
additional revelation. I have been praying about where God is igniting my heart
and what He wants me to do in the future for a while now. I am so easily drawn
to different issues, people groups, and places, but one of my main prayer
requests before this trip was that God would reveal what He wanted me to do
with my life after these eleven months. I am praying for a focused passion. I
still don’t know what this looks like, but God is beginning to answer my
prayers. The thing that brings me the
most divine JOY in this life is talking to people about JESUS. Hearing
about how Jesus has redeemed lives, being able to speak truth and life into
people about Christ, and praying with others never ceases to light a fire in my
soul. Jesus is the ANSWER. I know this may sound broad and obvious, but I’m
realizing how real this passion for the Lord is. My faith is maturing and
growing… and sometimes the simplest things are actually the most profound. I
love Him.

Hearing about the ways lives have been completely redeemed in
this place got me all fired up about the subject. God has been speaking to me
about REDEMPTION a lot in the past few years and he is continuing to reveal
even more. As Mary (my sister) put it one time… “God specializes in redemption.�
I love that.

“For all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace
through the REDEMPTION that came by Christ Jesus.â€� – Romans
3:23-24

God’s redemption is
sweet. He takes the darkest points in our lives and transforms them into something
that can be used for His KINGDOM; our greatest weaknesses become our greatest
ministry tools. When we experience true life after redemption of sin in our
lives, we are able to help and witness to others in the same situations better
than anyone else. Recovered drug addicts speaking life and truth into other drug
addicts is the best possible scenario; they can understand each other, they
know the pain, they know the addiction, they speak the same language – and yet
they can testify to how Jesus has transformed their lives. In this way God uses
everything for good, everything for
His glory. “And we know that in all
things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purposeâ€� – Romans 8:28. What Satan intended for harm God
turns to good. That is sweet redemption right there, and PRAISE GOD for that.  

Along the same lines, there is POWER in the TESTIMONY. “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit
of prophecy� (Revelation 19:10). This verse is saying that what Jesus does,
He’s going to do again. So as we KEEP TESTIFYING we will continue to see the
Lord work in mighty ways!! I love testimonies of God’s goodness… they build our
faith and encourage us to believe that what He does in someone else’s life, He
can surely do in ours. Sweet!

So yea, the night didn’t end after talking to some of these
men and hearing how the Lord has worked in miraculous ways. We had a worship
service after that and I was again moved to tears by the presence and power of
the Spirit.

Tyler, Casey, and Heather led worship and the time was
simply anointed; the Lord penetrated that room and it was clear that His Spirit
had fallen on all of us. There was
freedom. Chad then came up to introduce the night and he too had been moved
by the presence of God; we all just sat in that place and soaked up what the
Lord was doing. It was cool to see all of them simply surrender to the Spirit’s
leadings and allow Him to move and speak to us freely.

Two of our teammates then got up to give testimonies and
BANG – God moved. Justin went first
and was completely real, open, honest, poised, at peace, and anointed. He was
saying things that I had been praying for, and it was just a beautiful picture
of how the Spirit is continuing to unite
us as a family by confirming His words among us.  He then busted out the Word and preached it –
it’s clear that we have a gifted teacher in our midst. It’s so exciting to see
how the Lord is growing us individually and as a team by revealing our giftings
and allowing up to operate in them. SO awesome!

Like I said, God is just confirming things left and right by
giving members of my team the same Spirit of truth. What I am thinking or
praying one moment, one of my teammates is praying the next. I shouldn’t even
be surprised by this anymore… it happens almost daily… but at the same time I
want to be. I never want to lose the raw
wonder that comes from seeing God move. I am expecting more, but when I see
it happen I want all the unconstrained
praise and glory to go to Him. He is
worthy to be praised.

Brittany then came up to give her testimony and she absolutely
BROUGHT IT! Wow. She was not speaking… the Spirit was speaking through her.
That was so ridiculously clear. “I love addicts,� she said. She continued to
tell her story, an incredibly moving testimony, and finished by delivering powerful
statements of God’s TRUTH to all of us. “I stand before you tonight as a sister
and a daughter and I say, you are forgiven. YOU ARE FORGIVEN. God has cast your sins as far as the east is from
the west and you are washed white as snow. Jesus doesn’t see your sin. HE DIED FOR YOU; HE DIED so that you
could be set FREE. He died so you
could be REDEEMED.� Thank you, Jesus
for sweet redemption. Thank you, Jesus. I started crying again; I am simply melting
in HIS presence and I cannot control it. GOD IS ON THE MOVE and grace like rain
is falling down on all of us (lyrics from the song they were singing during
worship that I couldn’t get out of my head – “AMAZING GRACEâ€�.)

After the service I was again affected to the degree that I didn’t
know what to do with myself. I attempted to convey how powerful the whole
experience had been to my team later tonight and what do you know, I started
crying AGAIN. I am such a mess! But it’s ok. It feels like a good mess…
whatever that means.

Aly looked right at me and stated, “I don’t know what God is doing in you. But I love it.�

Additionally, I have been feeling hot recently… like Holy
Spirit hot. My body can be freezing and yet my ears, face, and sometimes hands
will just be burning up. It happens during worship, prayer, or when I’m
speaking words of truth or encouragement into someone. So yea… God is showing
up. I don’t know exactly what all of this means, but I like it.

Right before bed Carin and I prayed together about the men at
the Betel house and everything that happened tonight. It was an intensely passionate time with the Lord to say the least.
It’s clear that He hears our prayers and is bending down to listen. Thank you,
Jesus!

As I sat down to blog about all of this tonight (or I guess
early this morning), Justin saw me on his way to bed and told me to go to sleep.
I told him I wanted to record what God had done while it was still fresh in my
mind or I feared I would forget some important stuff.

“You’re not gonna
forget it,� he said. “It was EPIC.�

My thoughts exactly. 🙂

 

p.s. I checked my Daily Bible Verses email right after that
and guess what?! Another little present from the Lord was waiting for me… it
was PSALM 16:11… one of my life
verses that the Lord likes to give me at pivotal moments in my walk as
confirmation of what He’s doing. Thanks, Dad. 🙂