*This blog was written Feb 6th*
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”
So this is my 5th day I Byron Bay and already God is doing so much in my life. I’m still figuring out everything for myself, but I also feel led to share with you all everything right now. Remember that question Rob posed in one of my last blogs, “If you had nothing but God, would that be enough?” Well, that question just got a lot more serious than before.
Day one we get to Bryon, set up our tents, check out the beach, do some prayer walking, basically just get situated with our new environment. Well that night, the local YWAM was putting on an outreach that we wanted to partner with. So we headed over to their base around 7:00. Well before each outreach, they spend time in worship, prayer, and maybe a message to prepare them to share the Gospel. It was a pretty intense worship time, and let’s just say God hit me pretty hard.
It all started when they played this clip from a pastor back in California. The pastor was preaching on how there is no anguish in the Church anymore. No one is mourning , weeping, or crying out to God for their communities or the state of the Church itself. He spoke about having the spirit of Jeremiah or Nehemiah, men that cried out to God for the salvation and restoration of God’s children. He also said that “Anguish breeds true joy.” And as I heard that message, I didn’t really like it. I thought to myself, I really don’t want to have anguish. I don’t want to be the guy who is sad and broken all of the time. I rather like laughing, and joking, and dancing, and just being happy. It’s who I am, ya know? And I have a hard time believing that anguish could ever breed joy.
As they put on some worship music I went outside as I felt God leading me to process this over with Him. As I dug deeper into that thought of being like Jeremiah and weeping for lost souls I felt uneasy. “God can’t I just have a healthy balance of you?” I asked to Him. And very clearly He replied, “A healthy balance? You want a healthy balance of Me? I thought you said you wanted ALL of me?” That stopped me right in my tracks. God was right, I did say that I wanted all of Him. But I thought that I had surrendered everything to Him already. But the idea of giving up “fun” and laughing just never occurred to me. And honestly, I didn’t know if I could give that up.
I went back inside and felt this urge to go tell everything to Ian, the main staff guy for YWAM. So I told him everything I was feeling and thinking, “It would really suck to be like Jeremiah,” and he responded to me with something like this. Anguish breeds understanding, understanding freedom, and freedom true joy. When you are truly anguished for what God anguishes He gives you this divine understanding. And with that understanding you can release freedom in your life and those around you, and once you gain freedom, well then that is the fullness of joy.
I went back outside to process everything I had just heard. In my mind I believe what the Bible says is true. And I know that if I don’t trust God for EVERYTHING, then I really don’t trust Him at all. I just had to get my mind and my soul to agree on this truth. So with not a little difficulty I said, “God, I give you fun. I give you laughing, I give you dancing, I give you my joy.” And immediately after I finished… I started gagging. No joke people. I was literally brought to my knees as I heaved on the ground. Right when I thought I was about to actually throw up, it stopped. No more gagging, no more uneasiness. And when I stood back up and went into the room it was a lot easier to say that I gave up fun and laughter and blah blah blah. I didn’t necessarily WANT to, but I knew that I would trust God if that is what He called me to.
Hold on, the story isn’t over yet… ; )
So now we are finishing up the service and about to head out to town, when I sense God telling me, you need to fast for three days. Excuuuuuse me? God did you just say to fast for three days? Like not eat any food for three days? No matter how hard I tried to pretend like it wasn’t God, I couldn’t. I knew it was His voice and when God tells you to do something, well you better just do it. Let me also just remind you that I have never fasted, nor really know anything about it. But like I said, who am I to argue with God. My team also agreed to fast for Hope’s (my teammate) mother. She is battling a serious form of cancer right now, and we were all happy to join her in this submission to God. It just so happens that we chose Friday, the day after my three day fast was supposed to end. So now it’s turned into a four day fast. As a type up this blog it has been 89 ½ hours since I last ate any type of food.
Okay Okay, I know some of you are thinking right now, “You are ridiculous, why would God ever tell you to do that?” All I can really say is trust me, I WOULD NOT have done this if I wasn’t sure it was what God told me. Seriously, this is not something I would come up with on a whim. And two, this is what God taught me…
I really am okay with giving up my definition of joy, and laughing, and singing, and dancing. For the past 3 ½ days now, I really haven’t had the energy to do all of those things. I haven’t gotten in the ocean, I didn’t play in the volleyball tournament we did as an outreach. I haven’t danced or laughed hardly at all. All these things I thought I could never give up to God, I did without even knowing I was doing it, and all the while being totally sustained by the Lord. I literally thought I would pass out after a three day fast, but to be completely honest, it hasn’t been that difficult of a struggle. Every time I get extended time in the Word, or get to spend solid fellowship time with my team, I automatically am refreshed and renewed in my Spirit. It really hasn’t been hard to give up those things, because I know I am right in the middle of God’s will.
I wrote this in my journal today, “Where do I trust you, where can I tangibly see the Spirit work? I guess that’s it. When do you move powerfully in our lives?…when we don’t have anything else to trust in, when we do things completely outside of ourselves, then you move. That is when we really see your protection, guidance, and provision. Why would we see you or experience you when we don’t think we really need you. Well God, I haven’t eaten in 90 hours and you’ve shown up. I’m about to go street preach and that is outside of me. We are going to sleep with and feed the homeless, we are going to set up living water and healing booths, no way I would do that with you God. We are about to jump into the deep end God, and we can’t swim. But we know that you are there to keep us afloat. You will be there to pick us up when the water is over our heads.”
