May 3, 2007
AHHHHHHHHHHH! Maybe if I scream loud enough I can release
these emotions. I feel like I’m going to explode. The pressure in my heart is
building up. I can’t scream out loud; I’ll scare people. But typing a scream
isn’t working; it’s just not the same. Maybe writing a blog is the way to go…
Joy, love, life, God. I feel it coursing through my veins.
Each time my heart beats it grows stronger. Surging through my body. Peace,
excitement, refreshment, renewal, restoration. What am I feeling? I close my
eyes to try to calm myself down but I sense His presence and the sensations
only grow stronger. God, what’s going on? How can a book do this much to me?
But it’s not just the book. Oh no, it’s so much more than that. God is flowing
through the veins of my life. Convicting, revealing, teaching, nurturing,
healing. It’s beyond my comprehension. Every little thing that has happened in
my life over the last month has had a specific purpose.
Take last night for example. I was planning to drive up to
youth group in Islamorada (45 minutes away) and afterwards spend the night at
Lisa’s house. Lisa is the youth leader up there and we haven’t been able to
hang out in ages. I was really looking forward to it. Then two of the high
school girls that live here in Marathon asked for a ride.
Of course I would take them, thinking that they would be able to find someone
else for a ride back. On the way up, one asked me about the World Race training
camp. I opened up to them about my testimony, something I’ve only shared with a
few people down here in the Keys. I told them how God revealed so much to me
about my brother and my past and how, with God and the leaders at camp, I was
able to work through it. Then I started telling them about my interest in
speaking in tongues and told the story of how I was prayed over and received
the gift from the Holy Spirit. One of the girls got really excited and started
asking me questions about it. What exactly is it? How does it work? Do you know
what you’re saying? I answered everything the best I could.
We got to youth group, which was actually a “full moon
party” at one of the church members’ houses. The two girls stayed separate from
the group for most of the night, talking amongst themselves. I was curious (and
hoping they weren’t talking about how crazy I am) but I didn’t want to break
in. At one point they came and asked me if speaking in tongues was biblical so
we got out a bible and I showed them some passages from Acts. We were called
inside to begin music and singing so I left the girls but they stayed behind
and continued to talk. By the end of the night, I realized there was no one
else to take them home so I would have to drive them. When we were ready to leave they said they wanted to ask me some questions and continue our
discussion on the way. Any disappointment I may have felt about not being able
to stay at Lisa’s vanished and was replaced with excitement about the potential
of this conversation.
We got in the car and started heading back. A hesitant (and
thundering) silence filled the car but I was determined not to fill it with
music or idle chatter. I waited. Finally, it was too much and the girls started
talking. They both shared how they’ve been feeling a deep desire to grow more
intimate with God but feel they aren’t able. One girl described it as a wall
between her and God. They want to be consumed by Him and only Him (did I
mention these wonderful women are 16 and 18 years old and they’re seeking God
more than people twice, even three or four times their age? God is no doubt
moving among our generation). They shared that when I talked about speaking in
tongues, I was describing the kind of intimacy they were longing for but
couldn’t obtain. When we got to the house we all got comfy in the giant bean
bag chair, took each other’s hands, and began to pray. I had already been
praying silently for the last hour that God would show up. My own fears of
inadequacy, not being smart enough, not having all the theological answers had
been tormenting me. But when we started praying I knew God had things under
control. How else could a simple favor of giving them a ride to youth group
have turned into this? I closed my eyes, and before I began praying, I saw a
dam breaking and water gushing towards me. Lord, please let it be like that. After
praying aloud, I was silent. I took a couple deep breaths and I began to
whisper a prayer in tongues, my own personal prayer language with God (this
still amazes me to no end- I love it), and I was flooded with peace. When I
finished, they shared what they thought. One compared it to a song and the
other agreed. Both could feel, hear and see the calm in me when I spoke it.
They could feel my heart beat as we held hands.
Thank you God. Thank you for trusting me with your precious daughters.
My sisters who are willing to do anything to quench their thirst for you. But
the doubts return. Who am I? Who am I to teach them?
You are my beloved. As are they. Oh God. This is overwhelming. I
don’t have all the answers. I don’t know everything I need to know. How can I
be your disciple when I need discipling just as much as they do?
Share your story. Share what I’m doing in
your life. Share Me with them. Is that all there is to it? I just have to
share my story? Can it really be that simple? You mean I don’t have to know
everything first? Immediately my mind is flooded with examples of the people in
the bible who asked these same questions when God called them. Moses, Gideon. Men
who went on to do great, mighty and powerful things in the name of God.
An excerpt from “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers (the
book I just finished reading and afterwards couldn’t concentrate on work, but
am writing all this instead):
Then came a still
small voice.
She looked up and
saw Michael standing before her. A small flame burned where his heart was. ”
My beloved.” His mouth hadn’t moved, and
the voice was not his. The flame grew larger and brighter, spreading until his
entire body was radiant with it. Then the light separated from Michael and came
the last few feet toward her. It was a man, glorious and magnificent, light
streaming from him in all directions.
“Who are you?”
she whispered. “Who are you?”
”
Yahweh, El
Shaddai, Jehovah, El Elyon, El Olam, Elohim…”
The names kept
coming, moving together like music, rushing through her blood, filling her. She
trembled in fear and could not move. He reached out and touched her and she
felt warmth encompassing her and the fear dissolving away. She looked down at
herself and found she was clean and clothed in white.
“Then I am dead.”
”
That you may live.”
Blinking, she
looked up again and saw the man of light covered with her filth. “No,” she
wept. “Give it back to me. Give it back…” Yet even as she reached out, the
defilement disappeared and he stood before her perfect again.
”
I am the way, Sarah. Follow me.”
As she stepped
out there was a thunderclap, and Angel awakened in the darkness. She lay still,
staring upward, her heart racing. She closed her eyes tightly, wanting to go
back to the dream, wanting to see it finished, but she couldn’t grasp it.
God is teaching me about fear, love, compassion. He’s
showing me my weaknesses and how to grow through them. He’s holding my hand
every step of the way. He will not leave me or forsake me. What a wonderful,
amazing, magnificant God we serve!
But God, IF YOU ARE A CONSUMING FIRE THEN WHY AM I STILL NOT
CONSUMED?
The question, asked during training camp, hits hard. I want
to be consumed. These two girls want to be consumed. Consume me God. What a
scary prayer, huh? When you tell God that’s what you want, you’re opening
yourself up for anything, e
verything.
But what do we have to be afraid of? God has not give us a spirit of fear. Fear
is fiercely and relentlessly fueled by the devil. If we want to be utterly
consumed by God, until “(we) aren’t even there anymore and instead are just an
aura of the presence of God,” then we are leaving absolutely no room for the
devil. Knowing this all too well, the devil tries to keep us from giving
ourselves completely to God by filling us with fear and doubt. But when we resist
the devil, when we give up our own desires and give God complete control, when he
has our whole heart, when we let him consume our entire being, it begs the
question, “who could I become?” God, who do
you
want me to become? Not “who am
I?”
anymore, but ”
who do you want me to be?”
“I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.”
~Psalm 34:4
