An update to my “Heart for Hilo” blog..
About a month ago when my best friend, Jen, and I
started to really feel God laying our town, Hilo, on our hearts I began to pray
a hard prayer. I asked God to place the burdens of the people in my community
on my heart. At the time I wrote that blog, I was unable to finish my thoughts
b/c I knew God had something big planned but I didn’t know what it was at the
time.
Well, ever since then, He has slowly been revealing
his plan to me. I was sitting in church this past Sunday and after I spoke
about my mission trip at the first service, I sat alone quietly in the church
during the break before the 2nd service started and I had to speak
again. I was praying and I felt God lay something extremely large on my heart.
I felt God telling me that the burdens and the pain
and suffering that I have shared with my best friend this past month and
continue to share is nothing compared
to the pain and suffering I am going to go through these next 11 months. He
told me that this is just the beginning and is only a preview of what is
to come. This was so heavy for me to hear. Physically, my body is incapable of
handling something such as this, but spiritually I can do all things through
Christ who gives me strength [Philippians 4:13]. My flesh wanted to cry out in
agony and despair b/c I don’t know how much more crying and pleading and
brokenness I can physically handle at this point. However, my spirit was
instantly filled with JOY! I
immediately took great joy knowing
that all the pain and suffering that I am about to go through will only deepen my relationship and my love for
my Father. In my relationship with God, the more he breaks me the more I draw
near to Him. So, I know that for me specifically he is going to use pain and
suffering as a tool to multiply my love and understanding of who He truly is.
He’s been doing this for the past month and it has absolutely blown me away.
Romans 8:17 says:
17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and
co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we
may also share in his glory.
How then, can we expect to only experience the
glory of God and never share in the pain and suffering? I take great joy in
experiencing ALL aspects of God b/c he can be found in both the joy and the
sorrow, the good and the bad. We would be selfish to only expect the glory of
God and nothing else. If God willed Jesus to suffer, how much more than are we
to suffer [Isaiah 53:10].
18 I consider that our present sufferings
are not worth comparing with the glory that will be r
evealed in us.
Pastor Daniel during the Church service on Sunday. The message that Pastor
spoke on was “faith” and he mostly focused on John 10. He told us the story
about the shepherd and the sheep. When the sheep begins to wander, the shepherd
will break the sheep’s leg so that he no longer wanders. And while the sheep is
in pain and is suffering, the shepherd will then take care of the sheep and heal
the sheep. The sheep is in a place of submission and obedience. He is in a
place where his master can heal and restore him.
John 10:
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know
me- 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father-and I lay down
my life for the sheep.
This is exactly where I am at with God
right now. And it such a great place of comfort and rest. It isn’t easy when I
am physically enduring pain and suffering on a daily basis. However, God didn’t
promise that it wasn’t going to be easy, but He did promise that He would be
with us every step of the way. And let me tell you, in all of my life I have never ever experienced God in the ways
that I have experienced Him in this past month alone.
He reveals himself to me daily and I
now fully understand why He only reveals tiny pieces of himself and his plan to
me at a time …b/c I am not physically capable of handling the true utter greatness and power of our Holy God. The little things that he does reveal to me
just about crush me. How little am I
and how GREAT is He!! Most of the things He has revealed to
me I am still trying to wrap my head around and comprehend, but I honestly
don’t think I will ever truly experience the full greatness of him b/c as
humans we are unable to comprehend it. To know that I can perpetually grow on a
daily basis and still not even comprehend my Father makes me marvel in awe of
how truly loved I really am and how much I am falling more and more in love
with my Heavenly Father. Without him I am nothing. He is more than enough for me. I consider everything a loss..my being, my
life..so that I may daily die to myself and gain my life back again..through
the one who first loved me and continues to love me more with each passing day.
Philippians 3
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the
sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the
surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have
lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through
faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10
I want to know Christ and the power of his
resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him
in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from
the dead.
