I am having so many guy moments this month: I miss peeing in the woods for the privacy, I escape to the garage for my quiet time with the Lord each morning, I delight in getting my hands dirty while moving stones into place as a border for the new garden at our ministry site and I have all but cried like the dad in “Courageous” for our Lord to call out the godly woman in me.
See last month I felt the Holy Spirit all around me: in Bible study each morning, in the kitchen while I cooked, on the streets of El Alto, Bolivia…when I just walked into a room, He was there. God spoke to me through scripture, through movies and through the hermanos at the couples recovery house, my ministry site. Jesus’s love, strength and courage was rushing through my veins. I have never felt so assured, so close to the Father, so alive. So I prayed for more of Him. I told God that I wanted to thirst for Him. I asked that He would take me deeper into His word. I prayed that God would help me remove anything that I’ve placed above Him, let go of anyone I’ve allowed in between us and crush any fears I was still dragging behind me…holding me back from His majesty.
My Journal Entry, March 23, 2014 reads:
Lord, I surrender my entire life: my family, my health, my time, my money and my dreams. My past, it is yours. My present, is yours. My future, including the husband you are preparing for me, is all yours. I want you to have everything. I want to move each time the Spirit says move, I want to praise the Lord no matter the circumstance and I want to yearn for my Heavenly Father in ways I have never experienced before.
Pslam 84: 1-2 expresses my longing so well: How lovely is your dwelling place, o Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Fast forward to today, three weeks after my squad entered Peru. It has been the exact opposite as I prayed. Scripture isn’t jumping off the page at me, the love that rushed through my veins last month is turning cold and God seems extremely quiet. It feels like He is hiding. Now, let me immediately state God never hides from us, He never leaves us and He never forsakes us. But God does ask for us to seek Him.
Seek…to pursue, to search for, to go after and find. I realize now, after two weeks of being frustrated with the Lord and feeling slightly abandoned, He never left. He just sat patiently waiting for me to pursue Him. That was my prayer wasn’t it? To yearn for the Lord’s presence, to thirst for His living water, to go deeper into His word.
God cried out, “Isa, you said you wanted more of me. I am right here. You said you wanted to thirst for me. You’re thirsty, are you not? You said you wanted to move. Here’s your chance. All you have to do is say yes.”
Yes…it is such a simple word. Probably one of the first four words we learn as a child. Definitely one of the first four words we learn in other languages. Yes…means I accept, I agree, I will, and ‘Aye Lord’. In reality, “Yes” is one of the most powerful words God asks for us to say. We use yes when we accept Jesus Christ as our savior, we use yes when we share our vows on our wedding day (don’t worry, I haven’t shared any vows), and we use yes when we agree to step into God’s calling on our lives.
My team is having the pleasure of reading Kisses from Katie by Katie J. Davis together during our first month alone. The book’s eye-opening, heart-breaking and empowering stories, of a 19 year-old young woman’s experience ministering in Uganda, are wrapped in humor, scripture and presented with such a sincere love.
She writes:
I serve an unbelievably gracious God who will honor a willing and obedient heart. I have learned that something happens when one makes herself available to God: He starts moving in ways no one could imagine. God began doing things in me, around me, and through me as I offered myself to Him. I began each day by saying, “Okay, Lord, what would you have me do today? Whom would you have me help today?” And then I would allow Him to show me…I was walking through life one moment at a time, blown away by what God could do through me if I simply said yes.
She continues:
My God, who could do this all on his own, chose to let us be a part of it. He already knows we will make a mess, but His plan for us is great….Because the God who created us loves us. Because He created each one of us for a purpose and He wants us to fulfill that purpose. Because the God who knows every hair on our heads desires to lift us out of this dust and into His glory. Think of what God can do through us if we simply said yes.
God will honor our willing and obedient hearts.
And He will. I see God doing it already. The blessings the Lord has bestowed on me when I get the courage to pray physical healing over a stranger and see it answered the next day. When I get the courage to sing in Spanish [when I’m nervous just singing in English] with the worship team at almost every church we visit. When I get the courage to ask an Australian sitting alone in a restaurant if he knows that God loves him. And it isn’t just me. My squad mate Matt, from Texas, just wrote a blog about this same resolve…stepping out of our comfort zones, grabbing hold of the opportunities God is giving us, and simply saying yes. Tyler, another gent I’ve had the pleasure to meet through the race, originally from Georgia, is on a different squad currently in Nepal. He wrote in his most recent blog about letting go of our need to look like we have it all together, allowing Jesus to write our stories, and simply saying yes.
It is happening all around the world and I pray it is happening where you are too. If it isn’t, think of what God can do through you if you simply said yes. He will honor your willing and obedient heart.
Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
Habakkuk 1:15
