Greetings from Penang, Malaysia!
This is a little two-in-one blog about the two big things going on in Malaysia for me so far!
SOAK
This month my team, Five Multiplied, is partnering in ministry with an organization called PenHOP – Penang House of Prayer. Our hosts prayed and asked God before we came how He wanted us to engage in ministry, and He told them to give us rest. We just crossed the “hump” of the halfway point of the World Race, and we as a team truly needed rest.
Our ministry work this month is to actively participate in PenHOP sessions. Three times a week we go to PenHOP and engage in personal devotion time (reading the Bible, praying, conversing with Holy Spirit), worship, and intercession in small groups or as a large group. These sessions last 3-7 hours. At first, we were all leary about 3-7 hours of prayer and Bible study, but now we love it and crave it. On the days we don’t go to PenHOP, I wish we could anyway. That place is just so blessed, and I have had so many good moments and conversations with God there. What’s cool is that the thirst for more of Jesus has carried over into my “everyday life,” so even when I’m at our house and have free time, I want to be reading the Bible or doing listening prayer or worshipping.
This is so beautiful, because before the Race, I hadn’t studied the Bible on my own in years nor cultivated a prayer life. I didn’t even really want to talk to God. To be honest, at the start of the Race, I was afraid to talk to God. I was afraid that if I opened myself up to listening to Him, He would tell me something I didn’t want to hear, something that would hurt me. So I didn’t give Him space to speak, nor did I ask Him questions. Slowly slowly and oh so gently, He called me deeper into trusting Him, and now we openly converse and I can trust Him at His Word when He tells me He is kind, compassionate, gentle, and tenderhearted. I trust and believe without a doubt that His voice speaks life, and so I have nothing to fear from His voice.
My biggest lesson from last month can be summed up in this verse from Romans 5: “So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends with God” (v11). I read John Eldredge’s book Beautiful Outlaw and fell in love with the person of Jesus – His personality, His playfulness, His cunning, His intentionality, His gentleness, and so much more. My whole life, I’d viewed God and Jesus as stiff, religious figures. I could have a relationship with them, sure, but they were stiff and boring – wow, two things I would never use to describe them now! So I rejoice in my new relationship with God, because He is now my friend! And what a gift that on the heels of the beginning of this new relationship, God gave us a whole month of time to soak in His presence. WOO! It rocks.
SLOW
The recurring theme of this month so far has been REST. Like I said, our hosts chose to give us rest and refilling as our Kingdom work. And because of my injured knee, I’ve been resting a lot. I stayed home on our first adventure day because my walking is so slow and I fatigue so easily. Every day is better than the day before, but I still have a lot of stiffness and still walk with a limp. I cut the stitches out a few days ago (with Ally’s eyebrow scissors – thanks for your sacrifice, sister!), and the wound is healing nicely, praise God! Stairs are still hard (and we have four flights of stairs to get to PenHOP haha), but they get easier every day! Yay!
This past weekend we attended a mini conference put on by a team from Minnesota who were visiting PenHOP, and after the last session, the pastor led the group in a time of healing, and asked anyone with pain to put their hand over the place where they feel pain. I didn’t really want to receive healing prayer, but I dutifully placed my hand over my knee. Within minutes, several sets of hands were on me, praying for my healing. I was really overwhelmed – I hadn’t even wanted prayer, and I had really wanted my teammate Mary Beth to experience healing, not me. I believed that if God wanted me to be healed in that moment, it would happen, and He would get all the glory from it. But I also knew that if I healed naturally (as opposed to supernaturally), He would still get all the glory for it.
I wasn’t healed that night, but I know why.
While chatting with one of the ladies from the Minnesota team after the session ended, I realized that as my knee has been healing, every inch of progress I get I respond to by pushing myself to a mile, which I have found makes me hurt worse the next day. For instance, last week I walked up stairs one foot at a time for the first time in over a week and I was so excited, I walked up the four flights of stairs to PenHOP – twice – one foot at a time, and the day after I couldn’t because of the pain of pushing myself too far. Haha whoops!
In the exact same way, my tendency in my walk with the Lord is to take every inch and sprint a mile. I rush ahead of Him, make decisions without His guidance, and seemingly leave His Spirit in the dust as I plow forward through life. An easy example is in my speech. I’ve received a lot of feedback on the Race about my speech. I’ve been challenged and encouraged to stop and think before I speak and leave space for others to speak or for the Spirit to guide my words. Often I speak so quickly, I end up talking over people, answering for people, speaking when someone else probably should be, and saying things that aren’t encouraging or uplifting. That stinks!
Just like in Swazi when God showed me He wants me to love myself exactly the way I am both physically and spiritually, God wants me to SLOW DOWN both in my walk with Him and in my speech. And He’s given me a tangible reminder to ‘slow down’ through my slow walking and gradual, natural healing. The day of the healing session, during my listening prayer that morning, God had told me, “You’re hasty, Jess. You do things quickly. Sometimes this is beneficial, but other times it impedes what I want to do in a given situation.” God wants me to learn to walk at His pace, savor life in the slow lane, and trust that His pace is good, all while experiencing unwavering intimacy with Him! Wow that’s so cool.
So I’m healing slowly, and that’s okay. I’m walking slowly (which is so unlike me), and that’s okay. It takes me three times longer to use stairs than anyone else, and that’s okay. I have chosen to not to participate in adventures or outings that I would otherwise do because I can’t walk properly or quickly and I fatigue easily, and that’s okay. I’m learning true fulfillment and satisfaction in Jesus, and that rest is important. I’m learning the beauty and benefit of life in the slow lane. It’s a good lesson and I’m thankful for it – stitches and all.
To God be the glory!
Jess
