December 10, 2013 started out like any other day this past week. A morning spent desperately trying to pursue Christ because of the incredible distance I felt from Him. Honestly, it felt like I was receiving the cold shoulder. I have felt distance from God before, but this time was very different, as though God was purposefully ignoring me.
Later that night a few of us decided to watch a documentary called “Furious Love,” about how powerful the Lord’s love is. How it defeats everything else, especially the darkness of the enemy.
Spiritual warfare is something that freaks me out quite a bit because let’s face it, it’s scary. Normally when I’ve faced spiritual warfare or experienced something, I’ve been able to stand up to it because I’ve had Christ and was able to stand firm in Him promise of light and protection.
But tonight was different. I didn’t have Christ because of the distance I had created between us. Throughout the whole movie I prayed in Jesus’ name the enemy wouldn’t be given a foothold tonight by watching a documentary about spiritual warfare.
After the movie ended I knew I needed to ask everyone if we could worship. I was too afraid to go to bed. As people were talking, I continued to pray. But then I suddenly felt this intense darkness rushing full force at me. It was almost like a train of darkness was approaching me at top speed and was going to overtake me. It was a moment of pure, real fear. For one moment I was 100% convinced I was about to be possessed and the enemy would win the battle between good and evil.
It was a moment of pure terror. And then the moment ended.
In that one second, I experienced what it really means and feels like to live a life without Christ. A life without His protection and powerful love – a life full of death, darkness, and a pure real fear I have never ever experienced before. A real fear that my life was over because evil won.
After that we worshipped and it hit me – I didn’t want God’s good things. His blessings. His gifts. The amazing promises He has given me about my life, my future, the hope He has given me in those promises – I didn’t want any of it.
Unless I had HIM.
If I didn’t have Jesus, nothing else was good enough. I imagined things that society says can make me happy in life (money, house, security, a husband, family, comfort), and none of it compared to having Jesus. Because none of those good things existed without Jesus, none of those things are even sweet without Jesus.
For the first time I realized that Jesus IS enough. That I can’t imagine a life without Him, because a life without Him would mean living in petrified real fear for the rest of my days. Even if I lived the happiest most perfect life, if I didn’t have Him, it wouldn’t be enough. Because HE is the enough I am looking for.
I lay there on my back and started crying as I desperately realized, all I want is YOU Jesus. I don’t want ANYTHING if I can’t have YOU.
I’ve lived a life filled with Christ for a while now, but I’ve always felt like I was missing something. And this is the missing piece: that nothing else is good unless I have Christ. That nothing will ever make me happier than having Christ. The good things He has promised His children, are only good because HE is the one giving them. If I try to snatch them away on my own and live a life without Him, those things will never make me as happy as I think they could. Those things will never be enough. They will never be as good as they could be if He was the one giving them.
The next night I felt an incredible desire that I needed to ask for Christ to come back into my heart. That I need to start over, because I just started over with this new huge realization. And then I realized that God was confirming, for the second time in the past three months, that next month in Malaysia, I will be re-baptized. That after this incredible new mindset and path with Christ, at the end of next month, month five, I will be re-baptized and I will be washed with the Spirit again. How amazing is that?!
God is so good.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1:2-3)
God takes trials and He works them to His good. I was living in a trial of distance, for HIS purpose.
After I shared about this night with my team, my new team leader Jena Foster told me about how when someone is delivered from something, the void needs to be filled. At debrief at the beginning of this week, my entire squad prayed freedom for me over something – and I was delivered. It was something I had never told anyone about, but decided to bring it into the light with my squad. They prayed deliverance over me, and God answered all of our prayers. I was delivered, and thus the void that was created, needed to be filled. And God provided. He provided me with the incredible realization that JESUS IS IT. Jesus is enough! Jesus is all I need.
I could always say that, but now I believe it. I can now cling to that real fear I experienced, and remember what it is like to live a life without Christ. Jesus is worth it. So incredibly worth it. And now I believe it in my heart.
God is so good. First He delivered me from the one thing that was keeping me from Him, one of my deepest secrets, and then He filled me up with Him completely. God is so good.
