To my Family,
Flying on the plane to Guatemala I got to spend some time talking to my team leaders Lizzie and Dura. It changed my life.
They Dream Huge.
Dura’s bucket-list of things to do in life was pretty much completed on her original world race. At that point she had done more, and been put in more crazy situations in which she had to rely on God than most church bodies do in their whole life.
Lizzie finished her world race a month and a half ago. She is already leading ours. Basically having no time to regroup, and get re-adjusted to American society.
ReGroup for what tho? Their lives have been drastically changed. They are not "American focused" versions of Christians anymore, they are sick-focused, poor-focused, hurting and lost focused, world-focused, God-focused. Not just because they have seen cool things, or had unique experiences, but Dura and Lizzie have relied on God in ways not many have.
They have let God create and meet their dreams.
As I listened to them I was overwhelmed with how small my dreams and life are. I mentioned it in a blog a few weeks ago, but God keeps pushing me in. Creeping into my soul are these ideas of more. Literally more than I, Jake, could ever imagine. Such a power and force for Jesus unlike any I have been introduced to before.
Dura talks constantly about all the things she can’t wait to do (after already visiting and serving Jesus in 28 countries): teach school in another country, go back to school to get a nursing degree to help orphans in Africa, couch surf for an entire year just to tell people about Jesus in Europe, disciple people in the USA, live in the middle east, climb the highest mountains, do the craziest God-inspired things. She was just getting started. She wasn’t bragging, it was the most sincere and open heart for people around the world I had ever seen. I wanted what ever they had. What ever possessed them to continually do every day with a “What’s Next God?” attitude.
Seeing lives all over transformed because of Jesus, just because they said yes, letting God take them where ever, what ever, when ever.
I got convicted that I don’t dream THAT big. I read the bible and think how cool it is that in the old and new testament ordinary people have let God use them in big ways. I read the bible and believe in what it says, but don’t have the faith to actually be like that. To speak to crowds of people who don’t speak my language, to heal people, to spend all day (24 hours) seeking out what God wants, even to raise the dead. But I want to.
It’s starting.
God has laid it upon my heart to totally rebuild who I am in him. Humble myself in every aspect so he can teach me exactly how he does life : ) To read things in the bible with no preconceived idea of what or who Jesus or religion is, just to learn what it actually says without shrugging off what it says. To actually read things in the bible and believe them not just for some one else, but for me. John 14 says the Christ’s followers will do things that are even greater wonders than he did. I believe it.
I tried it with my favorite book 1 John, and was blown away at what I had been missing all the other times I had read it. 1 John 5:13-15 talks about believing in the eternal life we have, being bold and confident in that, asking God for whatever in his will, and he WILL answer. New perspective. I like it, I want it.
Rebuild me.
Expand my previous boundaries God. I want to actually know you in your hugeness.
-Jake
