Short Update: We currently are in Croatia working with a church in the city of Split. I hope to share more details about last month in Romania as well as this month soon!
As much as we are able to share Christ with others, God has continued to take me through alot of very painful and yet sweet struggle, and I want to share just some of what is bleeding out of my heart right now as I learn from my team and the people we share with and begin to love and fully understand the cry of David throughout Kings and Psalms. Yeah…so here it is!
My heart desperately and deeply desires to long for and be one with the heart of my God. And yet I feel like it can so easily taken with hopes for a wife. Perhaps because I don’t believe; I don’t see how desirable my God really is. My heart lately feels confused, feeling somewhat swayed by the wind, uncomfortably fickle. I can’t wholeheartedly make anyone the center of my affections. And yet, it’s exactly where God wants me. Because He wants to be at the center of my affections. I know this is where God’s taking me. I’m desperate to see the beauty of my God. I long deeply to know why David was filled with joy and shameless praise because of our God!
“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all of the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek.” — Psalm 27:4,8“O God you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you…Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you.” — Psalm 63:1,4,5,7,8
For a long time, I’ve struggled to worship through song, struggled to understand why people are so passionate when they sing about God. For me, I often worship through running or swimming here in the Adriatic Sea, or hiking through the woods. And yet at the same time, I’m aching inside to join the party – to be filled and fully express the joy of knowing the heart and seeing the face of my God. I’m aching to shamelessly dance, stand, kneel, raise my hands, and passionately sing no matter what anyone else is doing around me.
I’m afraid of becoming who God is asking me, transforming me to be. Yet I feel a lion roaring within me that wants to lead the way and free others to know Jesus, wants to defend and protect the weak, wants to have the courage to pierce the lines of our enemy even if no one else yet has the courage through the strength, love, and courage of my God flowing through me. I want to shout out all that God is laying on my heart, and yet I feel so incapable; yet I don’t know how much longer I can hold back all of the passion that is within me. What I fear is also what I greatly desire — I deeply want to courageously take the joy, life, love of God and free others to know, be filled, and express that life and joy too!
My place is not where it’s comfortable. It’s on the front lines, on the battlefield in the greatest battle of our lifetimes — the battle for the hearts of people. One of the final scenes in the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has long resonated with me; the scene where Aragorn chooses to charge the gates of Mordor regardless of who follows. I’ve long felt that’s who I am to be. And I’m beginning to have the courage to believe it. And yet who I am starts with a shameless humility and joy…and a deep love for my God. He wants all of my heart and affections — He wants to be at the very center of them — no matter who I’m with or what I’m going through. And when that happens — then I can truly love and fight for others.
