It’s been awhile since I shared what I have been learning. I have been learning a lot over the past few months and I would like to share it with you. It is a bit long… sorry about that.
God is ALIVE and still working in and through us. He wants to have a relationship with us. In a relationship people communicate with each other. It is the same with God. He wants to communicate with us. He is talking… are you listening?
This was something that I had to ask myself. I felt like God didn’t talk to me… knew he talked to other people but why not me? Realized that I wasn’t really tuned into God. How am I going to hear him if I’m not expecting him to talk to me? Sure, I would read the Bible and say a prayer but then I was done… off and running again! I may be a quiet person, but I have a hard time sitting still and not doing something when I know there are other things I can or need to be doing.
As I was asking these questions, God began to speak to me through his Word. He spoke to me through the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). I am like Martha and God is wanting me to become more like Mary… to sit at his feet and LISTEN. God is talking. In order to hear him, you need to be tuned in and listening to what he is saying.
Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
In order for me to tune in and listen to God, I had to learn to be still. God speaks in different ways to different people. He can speak through the Bible, through other people, through dreams, through audible voice, etc. The way he talks to my teammates may be different from the way that he talks to me. I had to learn that it may look different and to not compare myself to them.
There is so much MORE to God then I ever knew. The more I get to know, the more I realize there is so much I don’t know. Not only is God still speaking, he is still working. He does this through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit isn’t emphasized as much in some churches as God and Jesus are so this has been something I have learned more about. God wants to release his power in us but we have to allow the Holy Spirit to come in and fill us.
I wanted this – I wanted more. Felt like this wasn’t happening for me and that God wasn’t using me. Realized that I wanted God to speak to me and I was telling him I would do anything he asked me to do, but when it came down to it I wasn’t listening. I was hearing what he was telling me but I wasn’t acting on it for whatever reason. He began to ask me questions… how can I give you more if I can’t trust you to do the little things I ask of you?
This hit home.
Okay God, I will do whatever you want me to do. Death Scream. Really? Are you serious?! (Earlier that day, I was talking to Micah, someone on the squad, about how we can be stubborn. I was telling her how my old team used to try to get me to “death screams” with them for fun. I wouldn’t do it no matter how much they tried to persuade me. I don’t scream and don’t want to. In telling her, said it still something never plan to do. Later, in a meeting with my current team, one of my teammates mentioned something about me screaming as way to break free from stuff. I chuckled and thought it funny that he had said that considering conversation from earlier with Micah… but was more like.. haha, right, not happening). Scream. No.
This conversation with God went on in my head for a while. The squad was together and we were worshiping. I ended up leaving to go sit outside. Sat there trying to process why I didn’t want to do it. It was more than me being stubborn. There was stuff underneath that I thought I’d dealt with but realized I was still struggling with. As I was dealing with this, God began to speak to again. Alright, you don’t have to go scream right now but at least go ask Micah to pray for you. No, I don’t want to. Go. I don’t want to… I’ll have to tell her what’s going on.
Another squad member then spoke up and asked if anyone needed prayer for anything. I reluctantly went to her and had her pray for me. I didn’t tell her anything but her prayer was dead on. Micah happened to be next to her so I then turned to her and told her what was going on. She said that she was going to pray for me and then we were going to go do a death scream.
She prayed. We screamed.
I learned that you better be careful when you tell God you will do whatever he wants you to. He might ask you to do something you don’t want to or he may ask you to do something that sounds stupid (like stand on your head in the middle of the street). He has a reason though and is going to use it. It may be an answer to someone’s crazy prayer they thought God would never answer or it may open doors for conversations. For me, it was as much for myself as it was a doorway to conversations with several people from my old team.
With this I realized that I needed to start acting on what God told me to do. I needed to lay everything else aside and put my focus on God. He has been telling me for several years to get baptized. Over the years I kept giving different reasons to put it off. With God speaking to me in different ways, I knew it was time to get baptized. I didn’t want to put it off any longer. I had the opportunity to be baptized when I was in Malawi. I got baptized in Lake Malawi on November 19! (Sorry, tried to put up pictures but internet isn’t allowing it)
I learned that the more you walk in obedience the more that he can entrust you with. God is speaking and can use you to be the one he speaks through to other people. God is working and he can use you to do his work if you are willing. In Matthew 10:8, Jesus told the disciples to “Heal the sick ,raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons…” God gave them the power to do this and has given us the same power through his Holy Spirit.
You have to have faith, even if it is the size of a mustard seed, God will use you. You have to step out in faith that he is going to use you. If you exercise your faith, it will grow. The more faith you have the more God will use you. This is something I am still learning to walk in. I have seen God speak through me countless times and it has been communicated to me that it was something that person needed to hear at that moment. The more people confirm what I say comes from God, the more my faith grows that he is speaking through me and the more I speak up. It is an amazing feeling when you are being led by the Spirit! We have seen people healed, we have cast out demons and crazy prayers have been answered.
