Open this:LET GO in a new tab for some easy listening along with your read.
At the beginning of Launch, right before the squads left on this 11 month service and growth thrip around the world, we were given keys.
Each persons key was prayed over and the word on it was chosen specifically for us. The goal is to bring the key to the Lord and talk with Him about what it means and what He wants us to do about it.
Here were my initial thoughts about my Key:
Oh, God wants me to “let go” of some sin in my life.
What is Sin? There are many great and accurate Biblical definitions.
The most simple way I think of (sin) is = Lies. Or disbelief in Truth.
So its a sin to not believe in who I truly am. When I don’t know who I am, I am telling God “I dont trust You.“
What is love without trust? Ouch.
I already made the commitment to trust God wholeheartedly in 2015, but its a process. So here are some more examples of how His is renewing and refinng me.
It didnt take me long to think of 3 specific things I should let go of.
1) Vanity:
My place of value on the outward apparence. Spending too much time on myself with makup and clothes, expeessing myself in that and putting MORE intentionality and need in that rather than my thoughts toward loving othrs better or seeking the Lords face above my own.
2) Pride:
My idenity in what I know, my experiences and what I Can Do on my own. I am super DIY and no one else around me seems to be or have the same level of stubbornness or street smarts.
3) Desire to merry:
This is a difficult thing for me openly admit, but the reason i thought that i should Let Go of this desire to get married is not because I think God has called me to singleness or anything like that. I know He wants me to want Him more than focusing on that “dream life” or idea. (Even though i logically know that being married is not theGoal nor will it make my Lust go away or instantly make anyones life better. Its going to undoubtably bring more challenge)
Its honestly Letting Go of the WHY i want to be married. I somethimes think its more of my desire to be able to engage with someone physically again, which is self focused and impatient. For a large portion of my life I put sex on a pedistol. I thought it was the most important and fulfulling experience, and from a base & blinded standpoint it is. Ever since i decided to not neglect my Spirit, and i have sought ways to healithly feed it, I know different.
A common thread i see through all of these is that my confidence was misplaced.
I only want to put confidence in what is lasting and real.
“Do not love the world…. For everything in the world and- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does- comes not from the Father but feom the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever ” 1John 15-17
Also, this next month in Sri Lanka is an all womens month (my team got switched around to an all female team). My deep desire is to be able to give to them.
Yes, I am on this trip to volunteer and show love to the people we are working with.
But what good is that if i cant be loving and really encourage and lift up the people immediately around me.
One thing God reveald to me and helped me Let Go of is my feeling of not being worthy because of the ugly things i saw and see in my life (lust, pride, comparison, annoyence, etc).
One morning, on the 20th of Feb. while singing, God just airdropped in my mind that I DO desserve the good things in life and more specifically that I am worthy to be married to a super godly guy. (Deep down where i didnt realize it, I was thinking wrongly.) And in that moment I was so certin that I dont have to settle for less because if my past wrongs.
Another thing I am processing is
EXPECTATIONS i have put on myself or that other people in my life have put on me. I am already accepted, and I dont have to preform from a place of fear.
So Ive been praying with my hands open. . . . The way I want things to happen, and what God uses to grow me may not be the way I am expecting Him to transform my heart.
Through asking God what he wants to show me, He has given me the root of some of the lies I was believing. For example, I have always strugled with being impatient and frusturated, not over long car rides or waiting on dinner, but the desire to be further along in my growth, also with the lust thing..even with friendship. jumping ahead and skipping vital steps in my relationships with others because i dont want to patiently put in the time it takes, especially with more closed off people.
This is just a small glempse of some things happening in my personal life. There is so much more going on. Each day is jam packed with so many moments of Joy, Discovery and Encounters, amongst my squad mates and I, and of course many of the strangers we meet.
God is at work, healing the mind body and soul. LET GO, and know that He loves you and desires for you to be whole.
Even if you are whole, there is still a wholer more loviler you to become.
Each day we can choose in our thinking and in our hearts to Let Go of who we are not and hold on to the Truth of who we are.
Colossians 3:3-4
