The first week we arrived in Ghana we had Debrief. This is when the whole squad comes together for spiritual and physical restoration through rest in Jesus. All 5 teams came together this month in Cape Coast along the shore of Ghana. Our logistics team booked a guest house called Akomapa. It contained enough rooms to house all of our teams and had a kitchen and stage where it appeared some shows might take place from time to time. It was also conveniently located next to a resort called Coconut Grove where we could spend our personal money to swim safely on the beach since the area behind our guest house wasn’t safe. We would enjoy this haven of rest for 5 days.
I was so excited. During this time, I spent a lot of time trying to achieve what I believed to be a position of true spiritual rest. I came to realize that yes, a restful relationship with God does require some work, just like any other relationship, but not in the way I was pursuing it. I had some sort of idea that I needed to give him something more than just myself. For that reason, I always felt inadequate when coming to him. My thoughts would run freely with everything I wasn’t instead of focusing on him. It was overwhelming, so I would walk away from my time with him feeling exhausted and a failure. Until one day, when I began to feel a heavy cloud of anxiousness surround me, and I couldn’t get away from it. I went to devotion that morning and sat in a chair to the side. I began to feel this urge to run. I couldn’t breathe. The room was getting smaller. I knew this was something spiritual, so as worship began I laid my head back against the wall, and I began to ask God for peace. I remembered the verses Philippians 4:6-9
“Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ. So keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always. Follow the example of all that we have imparted to you and the God of peace will be with you in all things.”
Get that? Bring your requests to him with “OVERFLOWING GRATITUDE.” “FASTEN YOUR THOUGHTS ON EVERY GLORIOUS WORK OF GOD, PRAISING HIM ALWAYS.” I switched my mind from being anxiety focused to praise focused. I began to worship him and I felt him there right in front of me. I felt a wave of peace as if it were water being poured over my head and flowing down to the bottom of my feet. I dropped to my knees and began to sob. I began to boldly ask God for things I had never asked for before. I asked him for the gifts of healing and faith. I asked him to show himself to me in some tangible way daily. I asked Him to increase my boldness and bring me closer to Him.
I went on with this incredibly bold list of things that I desired in my pursuit of Him, and I was overtaken by this incredible feeling of love and peace. I was finally able to move from my position on the floor, and I decided to immediately write down everything I had experienced. I didn’t want to forget it.
These requests came from somewhere so deep in me. I had always felt drawn to specific gifts of the Spirit and I had always desired an incredible and unshakable closeness to God that I had heard others speak about, but I had never thought to ask him to give it to me. I wasn’t sure what it would look like to walk in these things that I had asked for from the depths of my soul. I felt incredibly inadequate, but with God all things are possible, I remembered. Even an incredible change of a shy and anxious girl to a bold woman walking in faith, healing and authority, hand in hand with God. WOAH. I stood to my feet and left that room changed. Little by little God has been showing me more and more of His true character and I’m always in awe at each new thing he reveals to me. That day I went from always trying to please God through what I had to offer Him and always feeling like I’ve fallen short, to being a child of a great and loving God who takes the shortcoming we have to offer and covers them with His blood making us holy and worthy of his love, gifts and presence.
