So I am in the Airport waiting to hop on our next plain to bangkok and the spirit hit me with a great revaluation and realization. This past week god has been showing me some of my deepest passion and desires for my life. I don't think I have been so on fire and excited on my journey with the lord. He showed me amazing visions and passion for worship, ways he wants to bring freedom to the nations with such unique and exciting ways only possible through him. He showed me a beautiful family and husband I would love to have that would be greater than I could imagine. I felt so filled, so lucky, so excited, so focused and ready. Without even realizing it I took control, I started making plans, putting peaces together, taking his visions and adding my own plans for my future.
God spoke to me out of my excited thoughts. Andrea I give you a choice. I give you this life, it will be very fruitful, many people will come to know me, filled with the spirit, you will be very happy. And of course I said yes! Yes I take it god! wwwaahhhhhhhhooooo. Then without thinking I asked lord this is your highest right!? Right away I heard NO. (I froze, I ask again, sure I heard wrong.) God is this your highest? He spoke…. NO. He showed me a black path, nothing I could see, just black, and said this is my highest. I don't know how to explain it to you, because it was the holy spirit moving inside me but I started to shake. He said whichever you pick I love you the same, but this path you can't see is my highest. Its filled with harder things, greater things for my glory, you will have to die to yourself. And it hit me, I have laid down my life 50%. As christians we say often, god I give you my life, my whole life. But do I walk in that? I say it but have I been living it out?
I just started to cry, because I'm good at it these days, and it feels good. It feels good to let go of control, its so scary but so right. How can I not choose his highest? How can I choose my dreams over this calling from our god that sent our savior Jesus Christ and paid everything for our sins. He said, Andrea you need to daily surrender to me. Listen very closely every day, go where I tell you to go when you have nothing. When you have no money, no possessions, nothing but my word and your trust. Say what I tell you to say, fast obediently, pray for those I call you to lay hands on. Im starting to walk into more of him and less of me. Its not about me, its about him, its about his people. But Ive been holding onto things. Ive been loving myself more than my neighbors most days, dreaming of great lifestyles that include him in my plans not me his plans.
One things he has asked me to do is to stop living so luxuriously. I had a 65 liter pack, filled with nice cloths for every situation of weather, an air mattress, nice big fluffy sleeping bag. And yes I use these things, but this pack is filled with things I don't absolute need, but very nice to have and makes each day much more comfortable. I realized how much dependance I take in my worldly possessions. So i made a decision, Im going to learn to be happy in the lord with half of this. Im going to challenge myself this year to live off of less. When we got to the airport in LA we had a five hour layover so I ran to REI, exchanged most of my things. I got a 38 liter pack and fit what I could in it. I decided to go without an air mattress. I have always loved to give my whole life, I love to share and give. But Ive never had to sacrifice because I always regained what I gave, I have had everything I have ever needed my whole life.
I want to feel the heart of god more powerfully. I want to be poor, the poor teach us how to seek after god. The poor teach us how to long for god and how to forgive. The poor teach us more about gods heart because they have to depend on him. God wants us to be dependent on him at all times. The poor are always hungry. God is calling me to hunger and thirst after him. The poor are thirsty. The poor will never say no to a feast, they'll come and eat. The lord is setting out spiritual banquets for his church, but so many of us are just full. We have restaurants on every corner, were just not hungry. Im ready to live with the suffering instead of watching the suffering. Im ready to let go and surrender fully. God I give you my checking account, I give you my worldly things, I give you my desires, I give you my soul, I give my life fully. I know that I cannot do this on my own strength, but he is with me and when I panic I look into his eyes and he always shows up :).
We serve a beautiful, faithful god, with more love and passion we could ever imagine. I want more, I crave to feel his heart more and more intimately for his desires. I crave for prostitutes to encounter the love of our god. I crave for child soldiers to be restored of all the torture and put in warm homes. I crave to pray for the demonic enslaved to witchcraft set free, I crave to raise the dead. And that is exactly what god is going to do, through me and many others willing to die on the cross with him. I have never been this happy in my entire life. Im in love with Jesus :)!!!!!!!
Matthew 25:34-40
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Mesomething to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’
