I dont want you to read this.
I’m being so serious.
Let me tell you why.
This month has been full of new experiences- new ministries, new people, new ways of seeking Jesus. To be honest, it’s all a little overwhelming and kind of awkward. Doesn’t growth always feel that way? So when I sat down to pray and think about what I should write about this week the Lord put these things on my mind- evangelism and inner healing. I wasn’t excited.
What if it makes people uncomfortable? Also, what if it makes me uncomfortable? That’s the real issue here.
But here we are.
And you’re still reading.
So, let’s talk about it.
At first glance I could’ve told you I’m not sure how I feel about evangelism and I don’t even know what inner healing means.
What are your thoughts?
Think about the connotations that these words have for you.
If you’re like me, they might not be great.
So what is evangelism, really?
Evangelism is defined as “the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness.”
Coming on the Race I assumed I would be evangelizing at some point, but I didn’t quite understand what it would look like.
Let me let you in on what it looked like for my team and me.
As I sort of touched on in my last blog, prostitution is legal here. In fact, just down the road from our ministry is a brothel. My team and I have gotten to visit there a few times at this point and know many girls by name, as well as their stories.
A woman from AIM named Teresa has a passion for evangelism and came out on the field to share her knowledge and love for evangelizing with our squad. She came for ten days specifically to help us conquer our fears of talking to complete strangers on the street. One Wednesday night, Teresa headed out with my team to evangelize.
Previously when we had gone out as a team, we had simply been making plans to hang out with these girls and were slowly let in on bits and pieces of their stories. When Teresa came, she unapologetically jumped right in. She got right to it, sharing her testimony with some of the girls and even asked to hear theirs. It was amazing to see these women open up and show us pictures of their kids, tell us about their lives and even share their beliefs on God. We even got to pray with them right there at a bar in a brothel, despite music blasting and men and women all around us.
It truly was a surreal experience.
Did it make me uncomfortable at first? Definietly.
Did I consider not going? Of course.
Am I glad that I went? Absolutely.
Its crazy what the Lord can show you when you just submit to doing things that make you uncomfortable- like evangelism and inner healing.
Are you uncomfortable yet?
Would it make you more uncomfortable if I said that the Lord calls us all to evangelize (Matthew 28:19-20)?
Yes, that really means you.
Since we’ve been here, the Lord has asked me to pray for prostitutes, children and even business owners.
Who is God calling you to speak to and pray for?
Ask Him.
Ok, so now we dive even a little deeper.
I’ll tell you what my first question was about inner healing- What even is it?
Basically, inner healing is a more intentional process of taking every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Open any psychology book and you’ll see that our childhood deeply affects who we become as adults. One person said it this way, “Children are the best observers and the worst interpreters.”
Literally, memories that weren’t even negative could be processed incorrectly and therefore affect our adulthood and the things we believe.
Take this for example- a friend of mine remembered watching her aunt trip and break her leg right in front of her. Because of this, she grew up believing that it was somehow her fault if others were injured or if anything negative happened to them at all. Furthermore, it created in her a deep seated anxiety.
Can anyone relate?
I have had those moments of fear, especially coming on the Race and being away from home.
What if something happens? What if I could’ve stopped it?
This anxiety in her continued to grow and overwhelm her day to day life until she realized why she believed it and asked the Lord what the truth was- and the truth was that she wasn’t responsible for anyone’s misfortune then and she’s not responsible now. And even more than that- God is undeniably active in our lives, so though bad things do happen, we can have peace that surpasses understanding (Phillipeans 4:7) when we know that the Lord is always with us.
So simple, yet so refreshing.
I heard it this way once, “A lie believed as a truth will become a truth.”
She believed these things as truth, until she realized they were lies. Now she can walk in freedom from the weight she was never intended to carry.
To me, that is so exciting!
So, I went through inner healing, too.
And you know what? The Lord spoke so much and revealed so many lies that I had been believing because of these random memories of my life.
And I was terrified to even say that because I think I can feel the percieved judgement. I can feel the skeptic in the room. I can feel the self righteous concern.
But I’m choosing to set aside those things and obey.
So if evangelism or inner healing makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone.
I’m here, too, taking it one day at a time.
