I have a new favorite verse that I discovered yesterday.
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Luke 12:31-32
Not only has God been showing me what exactly his kingdom looks like or what is in it but now he’s showing me that it is his pleasure to give it to me. I might sound like a broken record when it comes to this kingdom stuff but the Lord is just constantly unraveling more and more about it. I don’t think I got it before. I didn’t get that it was my Father’s good pleasure to give me all the things in the kingdom: health, peace, love, security, acceptance, freedom, restoration, reconciliation, etc. These are not far-fetched ideas that always take years to accomplish or are earned through my hard work, but they are given to me with great pleasure. Incredible.
So on top of that there is more God is teaching me and testing me in. On Thursday I had this crazy revelation. This is what I wrote down in my journal:
“The way of God is brokenness and then healing. It’s not quick and easy with instant gratification. But you open up our hearts, bring light to the darkness and HEAL. You are faithful to put back together what you break – why do we try to cover it up? Let us be healed by you. Why won’t we let you heal us? Come and rule our hearts with peace.”
This is what I felt him say:
“Brokenness is good – hiding is not. Come into the light and let your crap get exposed. Don’t give Satan a foothold by harboring bitterness or any other type of darkness in your heart. Let my light invade and overflow in you.”
After meditating on this, I was like this is so cool (keeping in mind that I wasn’t broken at the moment)! Then that same night, one of our coaches said something along the same lines. He told us, “You are going to be wrecked all year! You are not supposed to have all this figured out. You did not sign up to be the same at the end of this trip. And this is an eternal thing that you’ve signed up for.”
This coat of being okay with brokenness.
So the next day, God broke me. He exposed ugly feelings and emotions inside of me to myself and to my team as well. That’s the beauty of community. They see all your crap too. And in that moment of brokenness, I could literally feel my spirit and my flesh fighting. I knew exactly how I would react to a similar situation back home but I knew it was not how God wanted me to react. I had a little bit of a breakdown. Completely frustrated with this battle inside of me. God’s asking me to live this lifestyle that is so opposite of how I have lived for 23 years! He is asking me to make decisions differently than the way we as humans have done for all of history. It is hard!
His kingdom is upside down and inside out. I’ve said that and known it but I don’t know if I even get it all. All I have is that soft voice telling me something so contradictory to what my flesh is saying. And all I can do is trust that voice, trust that God knows a better way for me to live; a way that builds character and stores up treasures in heaven and leads to a more fulfilling life here on earth. There is a song that pierced me to the core. Interestingly, I listened to it the first time I got this revelation of brokenness on Thursday morning, and again yesterday during this internal battle of my soul. It is one of the most powerful songs I have listened to on this trip. It is called “A Better Way” by Jason Upton. I can’t post it on here, but I highly recommend you listen to it. Sometime when you are completely free with no agenda or plans and can just sit for about 30 minutes, look up this song on Rhapsody or Grooveshark. The song is 24 minutes long and every minute of it is powerful. Thank God that he loved us enough to come down here to his creation and show us this better way to live, take on all our sins, and conquer death once and for all. He is glorious.
