At training camp, I did not just step a little bit out of my comfort zone. I jumped far over a line that I always told myself I would never cross. I am the type of person who usually does not like to spill my feelings out to people and have them know what I am thinking. I am a very good listener and sometimes my listening becomes a way for me to shy away from sharing my feelings. Whenever something happens, I usually just shove my feelings deep down and pretend that I am perfectly okay. In reality, I deal with it all in my head, on my own. God does not want this for anyone. He does not call us to walk life alone and in solidarity. In order to not walk in solidarity, we need to be open and share our feelings with people. I have been fighting with myself too long. In the Bible, Jacob, too, fought with himself because He didn’t believe God was fighting for him (Genesis 28:10-17). I have fallen into the lie that God is not fighting for me. However, in just 11 days, I have discovered that God has INTENSE and SCARY plans to crush any comfort and shyness that I have during these 9-months and beyond. Also, He has plans to demolish any lies that I have believed in. How do I know this? Because He has already started His construction.
The first few days of training camp were hard. When I called home on the first night, tears in my eyes and very choked-up, I told my family that it would be so easy for me to quit right then and there. I was SO uncomfortable and SO shoved out of my comfort zone that I barely wanted to even go through it anymore. God put me in a place where I knew absolutely nobody and told me, “Okay Gabby, now just work with me and let me work through you.” Hearing that was scary for me. I like to know what I am doing, when I am doing it, and who will be there. As you can probably notice, I really like my comfort. Thus far in my faith, I have taken very few risks. I have said to God, “Sure, I’ll do that. But, no way, I will never do that.” I have the tendency to put limits on God in order to make myself more comfortable. I say, “I love you Jesus, but I don’t want to do what you’re calling me to do.” However, what God taught me at training camp is that comfort should never exist when you are living for Christ. Because of my numerous amount of excuses, I have missed too much of what God has for me. God is calling me to immense reconciliation. He is calling me to reject my fears and comfort and to trust and obey Him completely.
Reconciliation. God spoke this word to my leader, Taylor, before she even knew me. Taylor took numerous hours of praying to God in order to hear the word that He wanted to speak over each and every one of my squad members. God was diligent and gave Taylor a different word for each of us that He would fulfill in our lives during these 9 months and beyond. When Taylor called my name for me to come grab my paper from her, my heart was racing. When I read the paper, I was a little confused to be honest. My thoughts were, “What does reconciliation mean? What is God wanting to say to me? How do I figure out what this means for me?” I am still processing what that means for me fully, however, I have gotten a good idea of what God is going to be doing. Reconciliation for me means a change in the relationship between God and myself. Bible Study Tools explains, “It [reconciliation] assumes there has been a breakdown in the relationship, but now there has been a change from a state of enmity and fragmentation to one of harmony and fellowship” (Woodruff, Bible Study Tools). Also, “In Romans 5:6-11, Paul says that before reconciliation we were powerless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies; we were under God’s wrath (v. 9). Because of change or reconciliation we become new creatures. ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!’ (2 Cor 5:17)” (Woodruff, Bible Study Tools). God has a STRONG desire to reconcile me to Himself. I wish the process was quicker, however, reconciliation, as I have learned so far, is going to take a daily surrender and a deeper love for my Father.
Regarding a deeper love for God, I want to speak on an attribute of God that I was really unaware of until after training camp. When we were having our first session, the speaker came up and before starting her message, she said, “I feel God calling up a young man to pray something over you guys. I’ll wait for that person to come up.” Not even ten seconds later, a young man walked up to the stage. This young racer prayed for us to be “safe but not too safe.” Because of this racer’s obedience in hearing God’s voice, God began to show me deeper into who He REALLY is. In my relationship with God, I have started to distort who God really is in order to fit Him into who I want Him to be. I have given Him attributes that fit my circumstances and love for my earthly life and often times, they have been very different from the reality of who the Father is. God really wanted to get the point across to me that He is not safe. During worship one night, the worship leader started talking about the movie Narnia. In the movie, upon hearing that Aslan, the ruler of Narnia, is a mighty lion, Susan asks Mr. Beaver if he is safe. Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King.” When the worship leader was retelling this story, with the tune of “King of my Heart” in the background, God started to shift my interpretation of who He is. God is not safe and He never plans to be. God is powerful and mighty, but He is oh so good. I have forgotten the goodness of the Father at times and have forgotten to fear Him. Not the type of fear that will cause me to run away but the type of fear that will bring me closer to Him. And, if I choose to pursue Him and run closer to Him, He will make me look like Him. In the movie Narnia, the lion, Aslan, was killed and Susan and Lucy were devastated. However, when they saw him walking along the shoreline days after his death, they ran with all of their might to him and shoved their faces in his mane and hugged Him so preciously. When else would you see someone run towards a lion and put their faces in his mane? Never. Aslan was not safe, but SO good. He loved the girls so deeply that when their safety was in question by others around them, they just ran closer to Him because of the fact that they KNEW how good Aslan was. Imagine if we all KNEW how good our Father is. We would be able to run to Him at all times and shove our faces into all that He is, unaware of any lack of safety other’s may see. Our Father and Creator is not safe and does not plan to be, but we should rest in the promise that He is good and ALWAYS WILL BE.
When thinking of stepping further out of my comfort zone, like I mentioned before, I really need to keep in mind the fact that God is not safe. A word that God spoke over me a lot during training camp was “OBEDIENCE.” Before training camp, this word had no significance to me. Now, this word is the cornerstone of my relationship with God and it is the thing that I am working on the most. If I am not obedient to the voice of God and the stance that He has in my life, I will limit His power in my life. My relationship with God has been led by me for the longest time because of my lack of obedience and God is working on teaching me to reconcile everything I am to Himself. A story in the Bible that shows complete obedience is Luke 5:1-11. The men who were fishing chose to obey God and then they realized the depth of the Father’s faithfulness once they got rid of all of their fears and doubts.
1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
God has such big plans for each and every one of His followers and all it takes is a ‘YES’ is our spirit. In Luke 5, Simon said, “because you say so, I will let down the nets.” Lord, BECAUSE YOU SAY SO!! As hard as it is to say these words and to really live them out, it is important to realize that He has already fulfilled so many promises and He won’t stop now. I have learned that if I could just KNOW my Father, I would be able to do what He says even if I don’t understand the process.
In my endeavors of working on choosing to know God completely and having obedience, I was hit deeply with this: “I have the Bible in my hand, but because I pick around everything, I have no voice and no impact.” Do I want to have no voice or no impact? Absolutely not. During these 9 months, I cannot choose to live in comfort like I have thus far. I cannot choose to find the parts of the Bible that I want to speak out and disregard the rest. Do I truly understand that God owns me? Do I understand that anything in this world will never satisfy me like God can? In all of these questions of what I have been holding above God, I was encouraged to hear that God will never ask me to let go of what I have to have nothing. No, He wants to give us what we need. However, that takes surrender, obedience, and a love so deep that we wouldn’t ever want to pick around the Bible or what God has to say to people. “Obedience is the key that will release the power of God in your life.” Sure, this obedience may be scary, but the world needs to hear something from their Creator and we’re keeping it from them.
On another note, sometimes I get discouraged because I think I should have it all figured out before going on a trip like this. However, God has been so good to me. He spoke to me numerous times during training camp and always reaffirmed things in me that I had been wrestling with in my head. Guys, God is so good. He has no expectation of me being perfect, however, He wants to work out my reconciliation with me and He knows exactly how to reach me. I struggle to hear God’s voice in my head at times and when I hear Him, I think I tend to doubt that it is actually His voice. At training camp, God used A LOT of people to say things to me verbally that He was already trying to tell me in my head. The fact that God goes as far as to use others to speak to His children is encouraging. As long as we are willing to listen, God will go to whatever depths He needs to to reach your heart. REST EASY ON THAT PROMISE. On day two, during worship, I was struggling with fear. I was talking to God during worship and telling Him that I was scared that my squad wouldn’t like me or that I wouldn’t make the connections I need to really grow these 9 months. Honestly, the first few days were hard. I had not yet made any connections with anyone and it caused me to really doubt my calling to go on the World Race. However, God used my team leader to come in and speak to me when all I wanted to do was go back home to my comfort. While everyone was shouting “Do whatever you want to do, say whatever you want to say, and move however you want to move,” I sat down and started to wrestle with God. I wanted to be able to say that and mean it so badly, but I was SO scared. It is so hard to understand how to put into action the things God is saying to me and speaking out those lines were difficult. I sat down and started journaling to hide my tears from everyone else. I was SO SO scared and unsure of why God was calling me to something that He knew would take me so far out of my comfort zone. During this time, when I was fighting my thoughts and trying to push every emotion back down, God used my leader Taylor to hold me and rock with me. I sat there and wept as she spoke out God’s message for me. God used her to tell me that I am a genuine friend and that people will pursue me. Oooofda. I was JUST fighting with God before that and telling Him that I was sick of trying to make people love me. I am an internal processor and I beat myself up for that sometimes. I have always longed to be the outgoing person that everyone wants to be around. However, I know, but have struggled, to put it into practice that I AM WHO I AM and people will pursue me. God doesn’t want me to be so worried about what people think about me or so worried about whether or not they will pursue me that I forget the love that He has for me. I need only to work on pursuing my CREATOR and everything else will fall into place. PEOPLE WILL PURSUE ME. I AM A GENUINE FRIEND. GOD LOVES ME AND WANTS ME TO CHOOSE HIM. And, I learned that when I really truly knew how much the Father loves me, I will not be able to sit still. That is the dream and the goal for my entire life. I want to REALLY know my Father so well that I will never be able to just be comfortable. I want to have such a deep passion like He does so that I have the passion to go out and save as many people as possible in the name of the Lord.
Last, God spoke a lot to me about what He wants me to do in the short 7 weeks between training camp and launch. On day 7 of training camp, after the session about listening to God’s voice, I chose to try and hear God’s voice during worship. While everyone else was singing and worshipping, I took a moment to ask God what He wanted me to do when I got home from training camp. As always, I listened for a little bit and then got discouraged because He wasn’t speaking to me. I just decided to continue worshipping and praising Him even though I was discouraged that He wouldn’t speak to me. Then, as the good Father that He is, He found a way to speak to me in a way that I would listen. The thing is, I was waiting for a voice from God in my head. However, during worship, three different people came up to speak and each and every person spoke on something that I have struggled with in my life thus far. God used other people to speak to me on what He wanted to do through me when I got home from training camp. The first person came up and said God was telling them to speak on boldness and being open. God told them that too many people were trying to rush through life and weren’t allowing God to work in them. Then we continued singing and the second person came up to the stage and said that God gave them a vision of a waterfall of living water. The waterfall was so powerful and it never ran dry. However, then the person explained that they saw a brick wall being put up that stopped the flow of the waterfall. There were still cracks in the wall where the waterfall could still come through a little, but he said God told him that we need to talk to God and ask Him to reveal what walls need to come down. And then, the third person also explained a vision that God gave them. They saw a heart being held in someone’s hands. It was God’s hands. Then, all of a sudden, God dropped the heart and it splat on the floor. She said, “Ouch God, that hurt.” She then explained that she saw God look down at the heart and see a little black ball that represented darkness. God reached down to the little black ball and it all of a sudden disintegrated. Sometimes God needs to break us down a little to get rid of the darkness in the center of our heart.
Each and every one of these prophetic messages from God spoke to me precisely about what I need to do during these 7 weeks. I need to step back and allow God into my life to make me more bold. Additionally, I need to break down any walls that are stopping the flow of the Father in my life. He has the abundance that I need and I need to break down the walls that are stopping the flow. And last, I have pieces of darkness that I have stuffed deep into my heart and in order for God to get rid of that darkness, He needs to break me a little. All of these messages REALLY REALLY spoke to me. God is a good Father who will find the way that I listen best and speak to me that way. I have so much reconciliation to do in my relationship with God and it starts today. Not tomorrow or next month. TODAY.
As I am closing all of my thoughts, as messy as it may be, I want to let you all know how I am currently feeling so you could be praying for me. Right now, I am in a place of confusion and numbness. I am aware of what I need to do to get closer to God, however, it just seems so difficult. I am scared of leaving my comfort and I have the fear that I will come back to nothing after the 9 months. I don’t want to lose my friends and I have a deep fear that when I get back, it will be really difficult to connect with them again. With all of these doubts and fears, God still uses moments in my life to bring me back to the realization that HE. IS. GOOD. The devil knows my weak spots for sure, but God knows how to reach me in a place where I will be moved to action before the devil can corrupt me.
After training camp, I am way more excited for the journey. I am still scared of what will go on, but the community I have experienced so far gives me so much hope. I know for a fact God will use my team and squad to bring me to reconciliation with Himself. I am excited for this new family! Also, I will be introducing my team REALLY soon because I love them and know you all will love them too!
MUCH LOVE,
Gabs
