It is official. I am living the best life I could possibly live.
And I am absolutely in love with the Holy Spirit. Our squad just finished a week of debrief in Hua Hin, Thailand and God was present every second of that week.
It was beautiful, relaxing, and a time of refreshment and refilling from the Holy Spirit. We went to the beach and ate Mango sticky rice.
God + the beach + mango sticky rice = Paradise.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what heaven is like.
But onto the serious stuff God has been shining light on…
What does it look like to be great? How do we define greatness? What makes us great?
God is challenging me more and more everyday with these questions. I have a desire inside of me to be great. I have a longing to go places that no one else has gone, pray prayers that have never been prayed, and to do things that are said to be impossible. But it is amazing to see the process God is taking me through to rid me of all my pride and ambition and fill me with his definitions and his strategies. And at the same time flood over me with deeper revelations of his love for me.
Yesterday, I listened to a testimony by a woman named Jennifer Toledo that completely rocked me. I cannot stop thinking about it and am still processing all of it. But there is one aspect of it that I am beginning to go deeper and deeper into and desire for my life. She tells her story starting with her childhood and everything that God did to bring her to different places in her life. She grew up in California but went to Canada and eventually Africa and I think she is now back in America. There were several times in her testimony when she had a plan for that season in her life and God would tell her to do something different. And in every decision he would say, “If you do what you’re planning to do, I will bless it…but it’s not the highest I have for you.” And in every decision, she chose to listen and obey God even though it would not make any sense. This series of decisions led her to do amazing things!
I do not want to live any more of my life settling for the choices I make for myself that God blesses because it is in his nature to, but are not the highest he has for me. What if God has something extremely out of the ordinary Christian life for me? What if God has a plan bigger than I can even comprehend for my life? What if God’s thinking is so much bigger than my life and yet he desires to use it? What if God chooses the completely inadequate, ordinary nobodys to accomplish something GREAT?
One of my favorite verses in the whole Bible is Acts 4:13
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.”
I have come to the realization and confession before Almighty God that I do not care if I am not in control, or if I cannot see one step in front of me. I do not care if everything around me seems impossible; I want the highest that God has for me. I want to live in such a place that if God does not show up, I will fall flat on my face because I am so inadequate without him. I want the kind of faith that puts all of my weight on God’s promises and watches his faithfulness carry me through all things.
