Vulnerability. Something that I thought I always struggled with. Turns out it is something that comes very naturally to me. So why am I sitting here on the floor dreading these next few words that you are all about to read?
This morning it occurred to me that my emotional tank is very much still kicking and screaming. Now you might be asking yourself, what the heck is Gretta talking about? “Emotional tank?” This my friends is a “World Race term”… we have a lot of those so strap in. Living life constantly on mission, we need to be pouring out into peoples lives, this meaning that we give all that we have to the people around us… day in and day out. With that being said, each person has three “tanks”, picture gas tanks. Physical, spiritual and emotional each one of these tanks plays a role in how you pour yourself out to the people around you. A huge part of ones sabbath is to fill the tanks that need filling. Obviously the physical tank is referring to your physical self, your body needs rest so whatever it is your body needs to rest you do so to fill that tank. Spiritual tank is a huge one to keep full. How does one fill their spiritual being? Personally I like to sit and worship with the Lord, reading the Word and just flat out talking to Jesus. Listening to music and journaling has also become a big one for me. Finally the emotional tank… what does that even mean? How do you even begin to fill up something that holds all of your emotions? Cry. Laugh. Basically feel all the feels, another “World Race term”. Getting into my emotional tank is where my vulnerability needs to come out.
As I sat with the Lord this morning, talking to Him I said “Alright Lord what do I need to do today?”
He replied “Write it all. Take the pages of that cried upon journal and write it down. Share it with them. Let them understand that the World Race is not this constant fun, exhilarating adventure.”
Although it is fun… it also has its times where it is not. Yes I love what I am doing and I walked into this knowing that it was not about to be some easy check off the bucket list thing. I knew that I would struggle and I knew there were going to be times that I failed and succeeded. I knew that I was going to learn how to feel, but for the past three and a half weeks my emotional tank had been nonexistent. I was lost, dazed and confused because being the person I am, I feel all of the feels all of the time. Zero to one hundred real quick, I have my dad to thank for that… thanks pops love yah. Seriously I do love feeling life to the fullest. So you can see my surprise and frustration, being the person I am, to stop feeling and just sitting in my own confusion.
Earlier this week:
I was slowly fading and growing weary, so I went to the rooftop and began a conversation with Jesus on a bench. Literally talking out loud to him. To a non believer this would look mentally insane but here in this community that was a normal thing. No one around, but us, I dug deep and flat out told the Lord I was “done with all of this”. I was done not feeling. I was done being confused. I was done with India. I was done with people. He told me in that instant to stop, think about where I was and how good life is although at the moment it didn’t seem very good.
“Take a break.” He said.
“Okay—— from what?” I replied… utterly curious.
“Your people, any distractions with technology, take a break from food if you have to. I want you to sit with me and really sit with me. Learn from me, seek to understand my reasoning. You asked me to humble you so take away all of your distractions. Find holy ground in this place. Grow in intimacy with me and your teammates. Let me shape and mold you into the woman of God I have called you to be, the one you desire to be. It will be hard, I know that but fight for it. Nothing will come easy to you, but remember that I am sovereign and I am above all- the King, creator, maker, father, lover of all. I am the All in All. Dig deep Gretta, I love you and nothing can change that.”
“Alright JC. I see you. How long do yo—-?” I start. “Till I say stop” He jumped in.
Okay cool so here I sit, on this rooftop,on a bench and God wants me to really sit with Him and that’s it. How on earth do I even start this?
The next morning I didn’t go to breakfast. I wrote everything I could think of down. I laid it all out for Him to take and He took it. One by one we went through life together. Opening up the boxes that I had piled up high on a shelf and He walked me through each one. When we finished the box He replaced it with a tuba wear because I decided that boxes get moldy when they sit for too long. A tuba wear keeps things fresh and ready for when you need to revisit them.
Three days pass. No food, no talking to my people, no internet, three days of straight intimacy with the Lord. Three days and the Lord didn’t make me feel. Wait what, isn’t that what you asked Him to do, Gretta? Yes but all in the Lords time and his timeline runs a bit different than ours. Friday night I felt. I bawled actually, sobbing onto my former teammates guitar that he lent me because he knew that that was how I processed with the Lord. (Another “World Race term”) Singing my prayers was how I refresh myself and went over what had happened that day. I had just received news about my brother, who works for the Army. This was always a touchy subject for me. Below is an entry I had written into my journal that night.
“Tonight was the first night I actually cried in weeks maybe even months. I actually cried. Bawled with Jesus. As I sat playing and singing and praying I just let it all fall. Fall straight to the ground. For some reason I always cry when it comes to Noah. He really gets me. Maybe it is because I don’t get to see him that often let alone talk to him. I don’t like his job. I don’t like war and that our messed up broken world is so freakin horrible. We seek out violence where it does not need to be. We constantly poke and prawn at each other to get any reaction we can. It is so different when you have a loved one having to do the fighting that someone else started. Like what the heck. Our human minds constantly crave entertainment and somehow this is all considered their entertainment. War, nitpicking and childish tomfoolery. We even prefer the “action” films with shooting, explosions and car chases. We fill the minds of our children with violence from birth. As teenagers they are conducting wars with nothing but their thumbs. We teach them that violence is ‘okay’ if it is used to “protect yourself”. But if everyone is trying to “protect themselves” then when does the violence end. Who will turn their cheek? We are people of the world and people of the world are constantly on the hunt to fulfill the cravings of our flesh. We are human therefore we are naturally weak. Although we can build ourselves up to seem unbeatable we are without a doubt so incredibly weak. We have weak minds, weak hearts, weak bodies, weak spirits. You can’t deny that. EVERYONE has a weakness. But will we then fight and try to use those weaknesses that we find to defeat our enemies? All those “manly men” are probably holding up their beers shouting “YEAH!” or “‘merica” or “beat those sons a ——!” you know the rest of that one. Is that our weakness? We take control by using the weakness of others because we fear that they would get to us first. We are weak because we are afraid. We are terrified that something or someone could be stronger, bigger and better. Why are we trying to fight each other thinking they are the enemy. We as humans only have one enemy. One single enemy and I can assure you it is not each other. Not Iraq, Isis, Russia, China no it is not any of them. Stop lying to yourselves. We are fighting each other with guns and spies but this enemy is not one that can be taken down with our technology and materialistic devices. No man made weapon has any use or purpose when it comes to this enemy. If you want to fight and strategize based off of weakness than you will be looking for a long time for his weakness is not one easily seen. His weakness lies in numbers. Numbers against him. It literally hurts him knowing that he is losing people to a greater being. We win this battle, this war, that our small weak-minded human beings crave by standing firm next to the only one who can literally destroy this enemy. Now I am not some dirty hippie high on drugs, sex and alcohol. But I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ and I do live my life on a “Jesus high” because I know that in HIM there is safety, there is freedom, there is redemption, there is love, there is joy and there is peace. In Him there is ZERO chance that the enemy even STANDS a chance in winning any battle I could face.”
My small moment of vulnerably… there you go. If you didn’t figure it out “the enemy” was satan, the devil what ever you want to call him. I don’t think people realize the power that we have when we stand next to each other. It is pretty clear that I don’t like violence and being in India right now a part of me feels kind of like Gandhi writing this. I think people under estimate the power that God gives us. We under estimate the power of prayer. We under estimate the sanity of other people out of our own fear. We are human. We naturally fear the unknown and there are so many things that are unknown about God. The idea of following something you can’t see already wigs people out. But just as you feel the wind in your hair or the coldness of the winter air you know that it is there. You don’t doubt because you sense it and you feel it. You can see works of God, you can feel the Holy Spirit, and let us not forget that Jesus was a literal man that walked on the earth that we are currently walking on. We fear the unknown therefore naturally we fear God. There are so many things that we don’t know about him but the things that we do know. Take away any ounce of fear we could have. What kind of father sends his son, his ONLY son, to be crucified for a people that don’t even understand him. To die for a people that fear him. In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul says to Timothy “…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” So we are not to live our lives in a constant state of fear because that is not what he gave us. He didn’t give us life to go out and live in total fear. He gave us life to go out and share the gospel, to share his power with those around us, to share the eternal love of Christ and to live a life of self-control in doing so.
Now flash forward exactly one chapter, 2:7 states this, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
-What do humans fear? The unknown. We don’t know a lot of things but the more that we seek to understand our God, his creation, and His true character the more He shows us. The more we will understand about life and about God. The more we seek to know, the less becomes unknown.
Okay go forward another chapter, 3:7 and Paul says this, “…always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” Let us pick this apart, “always learning” simply meaning that there will never come a time where we are not learning and understanding something new about God and his creation. We could read the bible a million times and listen to these great pastors and always find something new. For if we are constantly learning about His divinity and His power it is inevitable that we will learn something new. God is the ultimate teacher we are His disciples meaning that we follow him and that there is never a time that He is not teaching us something. The world is crafty and full of false teaching. People will interpret the bible and morph it into what they want to hear. We need to stand firm to the Truth of the Word and be ready to respectfully correct those who speak false teachings. Chapter 4:2-4 talk specifically about that. I would love to challenge you to find a bible and read that for yourself.
If we continue down the verse seven trend you will see that Paul says in 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Now we are back to the term “fight” but in this context what does that mean. When Paul says that he “…fought the good fight…” this is not a literal hand to hand combat fistfight. No he was fighting for his faith and he was defending the God that he served. He is not fighting to tear other people down rather than fighting to save the people he was around. Fighting for their sake so that their eyes may be opened to the truth and the divinity of our God. He was fighting for their hearts and for them to desire to know and have a relationship with the true King.
In conclusion, I do not like violence but I do like a good fight. Everyday I wake up and I have to fight for that day. I go out to those villages and I fight for the people who have no idea what I am fighting for. The Lord is fighting for you. He is rooting for you and calling you. That you may seek Him and strive to know and fully understand His true being. He is fighting for you so that you may fight for Him.
