I am not one for writing or being very good with getting my thoughts on to paper. God is clearly stretching me out of my comfort zone with this World Race Blog.
I am in the process of learning that pruning is hard and rough it can be a lonely time but I have also discovered that sinning is much more costly than pruning. Pruning is the act of God cutting the bad parts of your life out of your life. Sinning is the act of doing things that disobey God which then God has to prune out of your life.
These two go hand in hand in my opinion because God through Paul says that “you are either a slave to sin which leads to death or you are a slave to righteousness which leads to life” Romans 6.
In my life over the last 6 months or so I have been praying “kill me” “replace me with you” “Prune me”. Bold things like that and God has answered in great and unpredictable ways through friendships that have developed. Through people speaking into my life through my World Race Family that I love dearly and pray for. Through this time I have discovered that I just want to give God everything I have which has opened me up to seeing places where I have been holding control over.
This is a major problem in my life because I cant do anything well with out the things God has given me. So yes I am in the pruning process that way and seeing how God is working is crazy beautiful. Seeing how God is speaking into my life through my bible study and through my friendships that have been discovered and developed more. Resting in that has been absolutely wonderful.
Sin still has a hold on my life because I am human and will never escape it but I am no longer bound to the believing I have to do better. I have realized that the best thing I can do with sin is turn back to God and let the pruning happen because sin will lead to death, pruning will lead to life when we allow it to take place. For it is a joyous event when we are able to conquer our sin through God and his abundance of mercy, grace and love poured out for us in the precious blood of Jesus on the Cross.
Yes, surrender of everything is hard and a difficult learning process but through this time you learn how to love so much better and grow more fully into your true self and when you are allowing God to reveal himself to you and when you are looking for him in all things you grow into yourself so much more and the gospel flows freely in your actions and words when you don’t even realize it. It becomes natural to give and love on others. This is what is truly life giving.
I am not there nor will I ever get there on my own. This is a process and staying true to the process of hearing asking and seeking understanding is the most important thing.
So for those of you who are wondering how I am applying this know that it is a carving out time for God, being still and letting God speak (which I am really bad at) and knowing that the process is what matters and God will do the work if I stay true to the process.
Boldly I ask the Lord to provide and boldly I ask you to pray about joining me over the next year and a half plus in prayer and financially. I today added $250 to my fund via a check from my grandma and some money from two of my friends Taisha and Brandon. Thank you so very much. I have now raised $400 of $18100. God is so good. I need your help though and I will be working on more letters tomorrow and Sunday.
Rest in the Lord,
Zack
