Last week I had youth camp & young adults retreat back to back. It was filled with intentional discipleship, worship, pursuing Abba, hanging out in what family is meant to look like, & all the fun that come with being on both camps (ie: all the spontaneous dancing & singing at youth camp – my youth girls, you know exactly what I’m talking about haha).
Like hundreds of other camps I’ve been on similar to the above, I’m always challenged with the whole let’s not keep what we’ve learned at camp here, but let’s live it out motto. I am all for this, BUT how often do we intentionally seek to live out the insights Holy Spirit has spoken to us after coming back from camps, conferences, or training? How many times have we moved with the motion of old habits or the busyness of life instead of letting our minds be renewed with the Truth’s we’ve been revealed to?
Reflecting on this, Holy Spirit has been speaking to me about ‘becoming all things.’
I’ve been exploring & wrestling this on & off for a solid four years, but it’s been re-highlighted to me over the past few months, & Holy Spirit bought it up a couple of times last week.
Are you willing to become anything & do anything that Jesus asks you?
We all have dreams. Everyone has dreams & wants them to come to fruition, even if it’s as silly as dreaming you’ll own your own sunflower garden as a kid. In church-life, most if not all of us go through seasons where we have a dream to serve in a specific area, or we know we’re anointed & have prophetic words to serve in a particular area. But through this, do we focus on the Spirit’s voice or our heart’s own ambitions?
In a video that was shown at youth camp last week, I shared a testimony about how I had to surrender my calling & step away from it for 8 months. IT WAS SO HARD, but it was GOOD. No one understood why I would step away from something when I was anointed to serve in youth ministry. I didn’t even fully understand myself at the time, & I put off stepping away from it for 6 months.
But I knew God was faithful with His promises & with His word. God knew why I needed to surrender my anointing to Him, & I wouldn’t change it for the world. It was through the process that my heart grew evermore sweetly in intimacy with Abba. Now four years on, I get to walk in God’s redeemed plans & my anointing for youth ministry is now rooted in such a deeper capacity & influence to what it was.
See, we’re most ourselves when we position & sacrifice our hearts humbly to the Father, not in wrapping ourselves up in what we are actually doing. In other words, we’re most ourselves when we’re wrapped up in our Kingdom identity, over wrapping ourselves in how we’re meant to be doing, serving, or outworking something.
When the Spirit rocked me with this revelation four years ago, it changed my whole outlook on serving, leadership, ministry, & missions. At the time, I was so focused on trying to become this one thing that God had called me to, that in due course, my heart became bitter when I wasn’t seeing the outcome I thought was meant to happen, misplacing part of my identity.
From this experience, I learned how to consistently posture my heart in humility to the Father, rooting it in trusting His faithfulness, even when I can’t see the outcome. I learned that our ‘why’ in doing something is so much more important that our ‘how’ or ‘what’ – something I was reminded of last week.
In 1 Corinthians 9v22-23, Paul states that he became all things for the sake of the gospel. Paul refers to how he has adapted to various cultures, hung out with people who live by different beliefs, etc, so that he could share the gospel through demonstrating sensitivity to non-believers.
Reflecting on this verse, I was reminded am I willing to become all things or do anything that Jesus asked me to do for the sake of His Kingdom? My answer ever since I was a kid has been yes, & still is yes. But some things are better said than done, right?
Would you become ‘all things’ or literally become anything that God asked you to do, trusting in His faithfulness & promises?
If God asked you to surrender the most important promise or calling in your life, even if you didn’t know why, would you? (think Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac). If God asked you to stop for a person in front of you, sharing His goodness, even though you’ll be late for something, would you? If God asked you to stand up for your beliefs in a country where Christianity is illegal, would you, even if it meant risking your life & being a martyr?
Would you position your heart & mind to be rooted in humility to become & do anything God asked you to do, so His faithfulness, goodness, & loving nature would shine through?
I don’t ever want to not be reminded of this.
We need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable in becoming ‘all things’, because this one of the greatest growth points of our lives. When the soil of our character is expanded, our seedbed of influence is cultivated for fruitfulness.
It’s through the process of rooting our hearts in humility, surrendering through the ‘upward freefall’, that we rediscover & re-wrap ourselves up in the arms of Abba, returning to the place of our truest selves.
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UPDATE!
I am 30% funded for next year! S/o to God for His faithfulness & provision – I met my first deadline 3 months early!! ThankYOUUU to everyone who has prayed, supported, & encouraged me – I am so THANKFUL for each of you!
My adopt-a-box is still going! If you need a refresher on what it is, check it out here: https://www.instagram.com/p/ByCiQR7lVi6/ if EVERY box gets filled (90% of box’s are still up for grabs), I will reach my next deadline of $10,000!
Below are current prayer points for those of you journeying with me in prayer:
: God’s continued provision in finances, specifically with the gear I still have yet to track down before mid-Oct, & holistically as well. My goal is to be fully funded by the end of the next 6 months
: prayer for physical health (I’ve been to the doctor’s 3 times in the past 2 months…I usually limit myself going to the doctors max. once a year because I hate it lol)
: heart preparation & continual renewing of the mind in preparation of next year
: & prayer for my team mates with their prep journey’s for next year too
– em
