Today we had just about the most amazing day ever.
This month, in Romania, my team has the opportunity to have the ministry of “Ask the Lord” and the new project for AIM, Unsung Heroes. This means that we are not set up with a ministry contact for the month, it is our task to really listen to what God is telling our team and the vision He has for our time here in Romania, while at the same time networking with new contacts within the country for the World Race to partner with in the future. When I first found out that we had this ministry, I was a little disappointed because let’s face it, if you know me, “asking the Lord” is not really my style. In my daily life when faced with a set amount of time or a decision to make, I research and study and ask every single person I can find what their opinion is, everyone that is, except for the Lord. I like being able to do things on my own strength. It’s comfortable, it’s easy, it’s what I know. This month has definitely been a stretching month for me so far, and I’m sure it’s going to be just as stretching in the days to come.
Anyway, back to our fabulous day of Unsung Heroes work…
Today we met with a contact named Becky from Casa Shalom on the very outskirts of the Bucharest city limits. This woman talks so fast that she will make your head spin, but every word that comes out of her mouth is a gift from the Lord. She has lived in Romania for the last thirty years as a missionary and during the communist years, she smuggled Bibles across the border from Germany and was never caught once. She has followed the Lord’s calling for her life and never looked back. Just being at her ministry and talking to her made me feel so much closer to God. While we were there, a worship leader that works with her named Mario even came and led us in worship in the hallway of the house. He didn’t speak English at all, but it was so amazing and we could just feel that it was what God had for us in that moment.
At one point, Becky was talking about the vision she had for her life and the vision that God had for her life. She told us that you have to have a vision that is bigger than yourself, otherwise you don’t feel like you need God. It was a total God thing that she said that because I have been living with a vision for my life that is not as big as it could be, because the GRAND VISION is not something that I can accomplish on my own. The GRAND VISION requires God and His grace and his timing. Not Abby’s timing and her plans and what she wants when she wants it or what’s convenient for her. It’s all about what is best for God’s Kingdom and His ideas because at the end of the day, that’s what’s best for me.
The other thing that Becky said during our meeting is that “God is sink or swim.” I’m not sure if this is what she was getting at when she said this, but what this means to me, is that with God, you’re either going to do something really awesome, or you’re going to fail really big. Doing awesome, doesn’t necessarily equal success though and failing doesn’t mean forever. God teaches us the most through our failures and hardships and those are some of the most beneficial times in our life. If we don’t sink sometimes, then we never learn to appreciate our successes in life and truly give them to God. Without failure, we believe that we can go through life on our own strength and do everything without His help. In order to truly understand the grace that God gives us, we must sink a few times before we swim. I’m awesome at failing and making mistakes (aren’t we all though?) and without those mistakes and failures, I would never have become the person that I am today. I’m not perfect by any means, but what I am is a strong, beautiful, loved daughter of God and no one can take that identity away from me. There may be times I’m going to fail and forget it for just a moment, but at the end of the day, that is my identity. I am loved better than the most successful person in the world who has done it by their own strength and without putting their trust in the Lord. I will fail, I will make mistakes, but I will succeed eventually in the place that God has prepared for me.
