I wanna catch you up on what the Lord has been doing in my heart and with my team. Just shortly before we left for Nicaragua we decided as a team that we wanted to grow in certain areas of our journeys and so we chose these four words.
* Mercy/Compassion – we felt that as a team that the Lord has given us this gift collectively and individually and so we wanted to push into and extend this to other members of our squad.
* Pursue – we wanted to create an environment where by going after the Lord and each other was a regular occurrence. Encouraging each other and to seek the Lord, to recognise the blessing and gift of community and in turn create a culture of:
* Growth – in every aspect of our lives and walks with the Lord. We wanted to do this together and we have seen the fruit of doing this intentionally. One of the practical ways we have done this is creating spaces of:
* Vulnerability – this has many facets it’s not a one time thing, it’s a process and if we wanted to see all these other characteristics in each other we needed not to hold ourselves back from one another and from Jesus but to allow ourselves to be peeled back and opened up. I want to share with you what that has looked like for me these last couple of weeks.
Rewind back two weeks ago having just finished our first month of ministry, we came together as a full squad for a few days for what we call debrief. It’s an opportunity to rest, reconnect, refuel and explore. We also get opportunities to have one on ones with our mentors, squad leaders and coaches.
During one of these specifically our coach asked us “if where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, what’s preventing you from doing that, what guard do you have up?”
WOAH!
It took me a minute but the Lord then whispers to me:
‘You don’t think I can protect you and that no one can protect you’
He was right, situations and circumstances have made me guard myself because I believe the lie that no one could look out for me and that I got to do this my way.
It was FEAR
Fear of being hurt by others and so I put a guard up, a protective barrier around myself, in order to prevent people hurting me again but also projecting that unto the Lord not letting him have those things of my past because I didn’t see Him in them, when I needed Him the most.
That’s a lot to unravel in a space and place where everything is still new – relationships, journeys, countries and cultures so naturally I default to what I’ve always known to do and retreat into myself, to try and figure out what ‘I’ needed to do in order to move forward and in truth, I got stuck. Stuck in my own negative thoughts, old mindset, distancing myself from others. I felt responsible for my past and so thought it only fair to be responsible for fixing it and finding the solution myself.
God had other ideas.
I wrestled with this for what felt like an eternity, not really feeling comforted, I wrestled with God because ‘I’ wanted him to tell ‘me’ what to do in order to move away from this – oh how easy that would have been.
A few days past and I’m still feeling sorry for myself, when I was reading the Psalms in my quiet time and came across Psalm 142:
“I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watch over my way. In the path where I walk people have hidden a snare for me. Look and see, there is no one at my right hand; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. I cry to you, LORD; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me. Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.”
Reading this I was momentarily comforted, some how Psalms have a way of doing that when your need it the most. After I felt the Lord challenge me to share my story, all of it, with these new people in my life. I have only ever told it start to finish with 4-5 people that I got to know over a period of time and that was still hard but now the Lord was asking my to jump in head first.
Again I wrestled with God, for days and didn’t sleep much. And as kind and gracious as the Lord is, the realisation dawned on me – I’m asking God to tell me how to do it, when I should just give it to him, I was telling the Lord what to do in order to make me feel better when actually “apart from him, I can do nothing” (John 15v5).
This was MY story but now the Lord was asking me to give HIM that story, to show others himself. I had to trust him that there was a plan and purpose in sharing it all.
So nervous and fearful as I was, I shared everything, all the details, all the things I chose not to share in previous conversations because of insecurity.
Now I know hand on heart, this is an invitation and initiation into deep intimacy with my Father, something I long for, we all long for.
Did I figure out the purpose behind it?
Do I know what he wants to do next?
Nope
But I’m ok with that, why? Because he is my refuge, he is my protector.
I LOVE HIM, His presence, His everything!
I’m learning and trusting to be me, fully me
IN HIM
“IN HIM ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE” (Matthew 19v26)
So beginning a process, a journey into the depths of me, I’m sinking deep, deep into the arms of the Father, of love, grace and humility unsure of what that even looks like but trusting in faith he’ll lead me to himself and true self.
