God is constantly teaching me new things and showing up in fresh ways each and every day. He tears me down so that He can build me up again. The last three days, we’ve been receiving from the Lord and have been poured into by the AIM staff at the first annual Awakening conference, a gathering of all current world racers and alumni. (Nathan, if you join the WR someday, I’ll come to your Awakening.) In conversations over the last few days, God has finally taken me to a deeper place of revelation. In my personal time, God has taken me to fresh understanding of who He is and my identity and security in Him. But before He could mold me, I needed to die to myself, go through refining fire, and give up my security in my identity based on the roles I have pigeon-holed myself into and allow God to fulfill the prayer that I have been earnestly praying since before the race: Lord, show me more of who I am in You and new parts of me that I have not yet discovered.
As my “Who am I?” blog alluded to, God began to break me down and took away my security in the roles that I had played at home by allowing others on my team to step into those roles. I began to feel as if I didn’t fit into the puzzle of my team, unloved, and misunderstood by my teammates. Now looking back, I see where God was just awakening in me some new spiritual gifts and desiring to give me more of Him. But before He could pour into me, I needed to die to myself and release the safety and security I felt among my family and friends at home and in the roles I’ve played most of my life – caregiver, nurturer, mentor, encourager, worship leader etc. In Arcalia, we picked beans for our host families, but to my surprise it was not the fresh, bright green beans that we harvested. Instead, it was the brown, crispy beans that were ugly and dead that were ripe for the harvest. In the same way, God has shown me that I am ripe for His harvest and ready to be used by Him only when I am dead to myself. So I have let go of my security in my identity in these roles and instead embrace these roles as a bonus blessing part of me and am ready to discover what other parts of me He has created me to step into.
Through this process of dying to myself, God has begun to awaken my spiritual giftings and has revealed Himself to me in fresh ways that I never expected. Our God is a giver of good gifts and desires to encourage and uplift His children. When we ask for a little, He gives us exactly what we need and more. He meet us when we call out to Him and He is relentlessly pursuing us in creative ways that are undeniably God alone.
This month, I was asked by some teammates what my dreams were and honestly replied that I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t have dreams, but I am learning that many of my plans and dreams God has already brought to fruition for me, including my education, my career, and now I desire to receive whatever the next Kingdom dream He dreams for me. Yet, I know that He will not awaken these dreams until I am equipped with the tools I need to take on these dreams. He is still reminding me that it’s okay to fail and that success is not measured by money or reputation but by the growth and change that He is doing within me in the process of the journey.
Please pray for me throughout this year that I will be “equipped to do every good work that He has prepared in advance for me to do” and once I am prepared that the Kingdom dreams He dreams for me will be awakened and I will have the obedience to follow His call.
