Back in July, when we were all living as a squad in Romania, I beginning to feel exhausted. We had just come off a debrief, which should have brought rest and rejuvenation, but instead I was feeling burnt out and overwhelmed. Fear of failing – in my responsibilities, my relationships, and maybe even in life -seemed to overtake me.
Thankfully, at the same time, the Lord blessed me with an intense hunger for Him. I had never before experienced anything like it. In worship and prayer I would feel physically ravenous, but I knew it was in my soul. I knew that no amount of anything worldly could appease it for long.
This hunger led me to fight when much of me wanted to quit.
During one desperate prayer of exhaustion and desire, I heard the Lord tell me to ‘Choose In.’
I sat with it for a little while, remembering how I had felt a similar push back in Latvia, in May. I had listened then, and obeyed to the best of my ability. But this felt different. This felt like a bold command, a powerful charge. It also felt a little unclear, too general to pull me from my rut.
So next I asked the Lord what it meant, how it would look. Below is the list I feel He gave me.
Choose In:
* get messy
* look less than your best
* hurt, feel, change, be molded
* keep trying when it doesn’t work
* break boldly
* confess and receive confession
* let go and let God
* cry shamelessly
* don’t protect your heart, the Lord will protect it
As I wrote the last phrase down in my journal I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t know how hard it was going to be either.
Over the last couple months I realized that while that revelation was given to me in a time when I needed it, it was really for the things to come. It was really for the times when I didn’t have the strength to even ask what to do.
I share this list with you because, when I let it, it has changed my life and walk with the Lord.
I have too long been controlled by my fears, by my doubts, by my shame. When those things try to manipulate my thoughts and words and actions – I have a choice.
I can choose to be silenced by the fear of failure.
I can choose to withdraw from relationships that may one day cause me pain.
I can choose to accept the negative labels that are spoken over me.
I can choose to avoid all conflict and growth.
OR
I can CHOOSE IN – to joy, to pain, to humility, to life, to love.
