As I sit here reflecting back on Spring Break of 2014, I just can’t help but smile at how funny God can be.
I was in my second to last semester of school. I finally found my major and what I wanted to do career wise. I was traveling every couple months, working on personal development daily, and rejoicing in how much I thought I had grown. Then I went on a missions trip with my church at the time, LifePointe.
Everything changed after that week in Puerto Penasco, Mexico.
God was working on something bigger than I could have imagined. He answered my prayers and changed my heart, and my direction.
I was praying for “clarity and direction”, and I desperately wanted God to point me in the direction that I was already headed in. He didn’t.
Before we crossed the border into Mexico, God had already started working on my heart. In preparation for the missions trip our leader had us read the book Radical (which I highly recommend). The book talks about missions, and materialism in a way I haven’t heard anyone talk about prior. It was tantalizing, and made you want to take action. To change.
To not just simply be, but to DO.
I don’t know if I understood the tugging on my heart then, but God was using the book to open my mind to missions. To long term missions, not just a week out of the year.
We stopped right before the border and went and prayed individually. I wrote my prayer down, and part of it was about the clarity and direction I was seeking:
“…I also pray that THIS week you will bring me clarity Lord. Clarity with my goals, my purpose, my drive, and my focus. I pray that you help me make decisions that will help my life be the most honoring to YOU! I pray that my focus is on you and you alone God, and that you help me align my life to your will.”
The drive and focus I was seeking wasn’t towards missions, BUT that is what I was seeking and not what God was seeking FOR me.
It is funny how you can change.
I was vulnerable and open to my Lord, and he gave me the best gift that I have yet to receive from him. Assurance.
Assurance that I am doing what He wants me to do, and not just what I want to do.
God laid the World Race on my heart that week in Mexico. God told me that was to be my focus, my direction, and it was very clear. He answered my prayers with something I had not even considered! I prayed about the World Race for the months following. Yet, already knew. I knew that I was going on the World Race. I knew that it is what God had planned for my life. I knew it was the next chapter in my book, and the next step I needed to take to become closer to the Woman of God that He so desperately desires me to be.
A woman that knows Him, and relies on Him. A woman that trusts Him with her whole life. No doubts, no second guesses – just the direction from the clear voice of God that she hears, and more importantly listens to. A woman of Faith. A woman that embodies the fruit of the spirit in every word, and every action.
Well… I am one step closer to becoming that woman, I am listening to His direction.
Matthew 28:19-20
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
