I could not be more grateful to have anyone on my team.
Amber is a present day Joan of Arc.
She is fierce and bold but gentle. All the passion and boldness stands under a cloak of compassion and kindness and patience. (And 5 coats, cause she’s cold).
She is the sort of person who would be absolutely dying but you would never know, because she would be the first person to nod eagerly and get up during the climax of the movie to get you water – or a napkin.
She is self sacrificing and self effacing.
She is willing to think better of others than she thinks of herself – yet, she knows exactly who she is, and lives from a place of pure confidence, contentment, and consideration.
She will lift you up in ways that far outshines your actual, because she thinks the best and hopes the best for you.
She also knows how to call people higher in the most gentle and humble way.
She has a way of listening that makes everyone and everything else that is happening disappear into the non critical.
You are her only patient. And she is there to learn from you.
She is dependable and loyal. And she has an unquenchable excitement for all things challenge!
She will always be the one that did that thing that no one else did – that should be done – but no one knows who did it.
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Ministry this past two weeks has looked like:
We were in Texas, then Louisiana, and then Texas again.
We went to Louisiana to meet up with an alumni who wanted to spend time with us and work alongside her in her church community.
We got a chance to help them with a few church organizational tasks that needed a big group to get it done in a timely manner, help at their food pantry, have a night of doing youth ministry, and set up and help run a car show!
A CAR SHOW guys! A legit – 200 cars of all types and abilities show with people from all walks of life showing up and raving all things cars; backfiring through the lot and all.
It was literally off the hook.
This video doesn’t convey the atmosphere super well – but if you’re a gear head, here’s a peek: CRUISIN’ IN THE PARK BY COTK
And it was so kewl to be there and to help and see God fund their entire missions department budget for a year in a single day.
We also got to be there for our friend Amber’s (the alumni in Louisiana’s) birth of her first child and got to prepare her house for her return! It was a sweet week of Alumni love
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This week we are working with a few WorldRace Gap alumni who are certified foster parents, and doing ATL in the city of Austin, Texas. We have been blown away by their maturity and with the way they have pursued God’s calling on their lives since the race.
They are 21 and 22 years of age, and have been doing/preparing for this for several years.
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What has the Lord been speaking to me about lately?
There is a point where living with 11 other people is going to be hard.
At some point there are perspective and routine and opinionated norms that are going to be offended.
Not everyone feels the same need to honor or consider others the way I do. Not everyone has the same calling from God in the way they serve – or when they serve.
When you are on a team of people asking the Lord what He has for them to walk in every day – there are going to be times when you have to wrestle between the internal need to fulfill duty…or walk in obedience when the Lord tells you to cease and spend time in His presence, or spend time interceding over places, or people.
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How does that look when doing life together with others?
How does being at peace at all costs, as well as laying your life down, and well as submitting to one another all fit in?
The Lord has been speaking to me about how I live out my calling and have a heart posture that allows people to walk before Him without my judgement of their obedience.
How do I release people and bless people and back people and believe in peoples integrity without having consistent experience of that with them?
What am I aware of vs. what am I called to address?
How do I call people higher in their walk?
How do I hold people accountable in their walk if Im just supposed to believe the best?
These are still questions on my heart that I am asking the Lord to speak into.
I realize that it is the HolySpirit’s job to convict. Not mine.
It is my job to walk in obedience to the Lord, and my job to hold people accountable for what they have said, and to biblical truths.
Then the rest is between them and the Lord unless the Lord tells me specifically otherwise.
What does that mean?
It’s not about me being right, it’s about me being in obedience to God.
And nothing more, and nothing less.
