I didn’t realize it until last night. I mean I did, but I didn’t. I mean I knew what the Lord was wanting to accomplish in my life these last two weeks because he had spoken it to me before I ever stepped my first foot onto the plane in Columbus, Ohio destined for New Zealand. I knew this month would be more about me and my heart and less about ministry as crazy as that sounds, but the analogy of what God really did came last night.
“. . . ‘Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.’ And Moses said to the people, ‘Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent!'”
In March 2009 the Kingdom of God began to stir within me. This feeling of, there is something more; I am not experiencing the abundant life Christ himself spoke of. It was then God began calling me out of my “Egypt”- the United States, and through the World Race this month He quite literally took me into the wilderness of New Zealand.
There were a handful of times these last two weeks when I longed for the comforts and convenience of the United States; when food rations were slim; when my feet were sore; when the wind and rain were blowing my tent over on top of me; when I was beginning to ascend my fourth steep mountain trail for the day; when I was emotional and missing my friends and family- these are the times I longed to be back in Egypt.
But it wasn’t until I was alone with him that I realized how enslaved I had been in Egypt. And each time I longed to be back there, God fought for me. He fought for my heart and he wooed me (and my attitude) back to Him. God captured my heart in a deeper way. I fell more in love with my Savior in the bush of New Zealand this month. I know that is crazy to say because I wouldn’t give up a year of my life to live in poverty and tell people about Jesus if I didn’t already love him. But Jesus wasn’t the complete satisfaction of my heart. He was competing for space with many smaller idols that I didn’t know I needed freedom from until he removed me from the comforts of Egypt and got me alone with him in the wilderness.
