God is always at work in Me. He created me to be a certain way but I was born in sin. I have been being sanctified my whole life. I have a long ways to go to become as God originally designed me. I may never get there while I am on earth and I’m okay with that. What I want is relationship with Jesus and in that to become like Him. But firstly, relationship.
In Estonia, on July 6, God spoke some big things to me about the next season of my life. He said that He is going to “Develop” me. He said these words,
“Jordan, I am taking you into a new season. This is BIG Jordan. I’ve seen your hunger for more and because of My promise to fill, I am going to fill your hunger. You wanted more of Me, and now you are going to get it! I am going to develop you. Jordan, I’m going to wreck you. I’m going to tear you down. I’m going to reconstruct you. It’s going to hurt. Hold on tight. Don’t fear Me. Trust in My goodness. Trust that I am going to change you for My good and My purposes. If you thought that you had yourself figured out, think again”.
A week went by and nothing was really happening in my life that seemed hard. Then it started happening. Things began getting really tough and a lot was going on in my life spiritually. I stopped and was like “God! What’s going on here!” Then He reminded me of what I had heard from Him the week before and I was like “Oh, right, crap”. It was something my spirit longed for, but the rest of my being was like “Hey, we didn’t agree to this!”
Over the past 3 months, God has not stopped “Developing” me. Some days, it really does hurt. There is a lot going on and a lot of garbage coming out of me that I have been blind to for so long. I hope to share with you some of the stuff that’s been revealed in my life lately. I hope it encourages you to keep pressing into relationship with Jesus and never stop seeking righteousness, no matter how hard it gets.
Pride, pride, pride. I have a lot of it. I knew that before the Race, but I’ve been realizing that there is some pride in my life that I was actually proud of! (That’s not good) We did an exercise in Estonia on pride. There is a list of 32 ways people are proud that is rooted in brokenness. What we did was write each team members name on a piece of paper. We go through this long list and write down every area on the list that we see pride in that person. So 6 people did this for me and it was a hard pill to swallow. These people I had been spending the past 7 months with knew me pretty well. They see all my good and all my bad. This list revealed all the areas of pride that they were seeing in me. It was humbling. Some of my top ones picked were as follows…
-Look down on others
-Independent; a self sufficient spirit
-Must prove you are right
-A desire to be served
-A desire to be a success
-I think “The ministry is privileged to have me”
-Feel confident in how much I know; task people with your own knowledge of something
-Concerned about what others think
-Wants to be sure nobody finds out about your sin.
-Has a hard time saying “I was wrong, will you forgive me”. Waits for the other party to come and ask forgiveness in a conflict
-Don’t think you need revival (but think everybody else does)
I grew up in church my whole life and was basically taught to be perfect. My siblings and other church friends knew how to perform as good Christians. People who grew up in the church are really good at “faking it”. Having sin in our lives was not a good thing and instead of bringing it to the surface for all to see and have God work on it, I would usually hide it away so that no one would see my brokenness. I wanted to appear like everything was good and fine. I did not want to be exposed. If I ever had to talk about sin in my life in front of people, I would want to make sure that it hadn’t been a problem in my life for a while. I couldn’t admit my “current” sin, because I thought people would judge me. If people found out, then I wouldn’t appear to be the good Christian kid that I was (or tried to be). I didn’t know how to handle that, so I hid my sin. In church, an exercise we would do often was to write down our sin on a piece of paper and attach it to a cross. This was good and all, but it was so secretive. Although I grew up knowing Jesus and the work He did for me on the cross, I still tried to hide my sin from people, for fear of what others thought.
This brings me into another area God is refining me in. I have a lot of “fear of man”. Yes, I am also bold and can evangelize more than most Christians I know, but I still have many fears of what others will think of me.(I dont say that to boast, but to speak truth to those who may think I am perfect) I fear whether people will agree with my theology, my methods of doing things, my leadership, etc. God will speak to me to do something bold and I will fear how people will respond if what God is telling me to do is “way out there”.
This leads into another area He is refining me in. Control. I have a lot of this as well. If God asks me to do a little thing for Him such as encouraging a friend, I say to myself, “Well, if God came to me and asked me to do that, how would I do it?” I play it out in my head and control the situation. Most times I never act on the command. I perceive His command as a thought in my head, and if I don’t like it, or if it’s too hard, I don’t do it. I control the situation, rather than think, “Okay, God is impressing something on my heart to do, I HAVE to do it”. There is saying in Christianity that goes, “If God is not Lord OF ALL, He is not Lord AT ALL”. This is scary to me because I desire God to be my Lord and have control of all things in my life. I sing the songs all the time, “I surrender all, all to Jesus I surrender, I surrender all” or “Lord I give You my heart, I give You my All, I live for You alone”. But the truth of the matter is that I don’t. There are still areas of my life that I have not given God control over. He asks me to do hard things all the time and I am constantly saying “NO” to Him. I don’t want to keep living like this!
Pride, Fear of Man, Control. I don’t want any of these. They are so contrary to the nature of Jesus. He was the most humble man that ever lived. He did not fear men. We see that in how he talked to the religious leaders of His day. He did not take control, but only did what He saw the Father do. He was led by the Spirit and was under His control. Jesus sets the perfect example for us to live by. When we spend time with our best friends, over time we begin to act like them. The same is true with Jesus. When we walk in relationship with Him, we see how He lives and talks. We become more like Him the more we spend time in His presence.
With my control issue, I would often try to force things with God. I had a big revelation in this area last month in Malaysia. I went snorkeling with my teammate Scott. I was there with my underwater camera trying to take in every moment I could. After about 3 hours of snorkeling, God asked me, “Jordan, are you enjoying this?” I paused and thought about it. “No God, I’m not enjoying this as much as I thought I would be”. He began to show me that I do this in my walk with Him as well. I try to take in every moment with Him and get as much satisfaction in Him that I actually miss out on it. When I read the Bible, if my spirit is feeling empty, I try to go to the meatiest places and read as much of it as I could. I try to force feed myself and it never truly fills me. But when I slow down and abide (sit, rest, dwell) in Him, I get filled. I could be reading through Leviticus and God can be speaking so much to my spirit!
We live in a fast food generation and expect everything NOW. I was expecting that with God as well. When I am empty and ask Him to fill me, I want it NOW. When I have a question for Him, I want His answer NOW. When I pray for healing, I want it NOW. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. That’s another area I need help in. In my control, I want things NOW. I can be very impatient at times and when I am antsy, it can affect others in a negative way. I am learning that there is a lot of power in being patient.
So to finish my snorkeling story, after God revealed my heart, He told me to put the camera down. For the next 5 min it seemed like everything changed. The water seemed clearer, the colour of the fish and coral popped and there seemed to be more fish as well. There was even a small shark that circled around me in the distance (not a dangerous one obviously). After that I went out of the water for lunch. Those 5 min were better than the 3 hours before that combined! God taught me a huge lesson in trying to force things with Him. As I sit and abide in Him, He fills me up without me having to try. It is easier and far more effective.
So as you can see, God is doing a lot in me. I have amazing people around me who support me through all this and I couldn’t do it without them. Also, for the people back home and around the world praying for me, thank you! I need you as well. And Jesus, You especially. I cannot do anything with out you. I desire to give You all my control and see miracles happen in my life on a daily basis. Thank You for all You do in my life!
Continue praying for me in this season of refinement and brokenness. I feel God telling me that it’s going to get harder yet in the weeks to come. I don’t know what that means or is going to look like. I am not afraid because I trust in God and His goodness to get me through any and every thing. Amen!
