If you haven’t read any of the previous blogs of this series, I recommend that you do…this blog will hopefully make a little more sense to you if you do. You can read them by clicking on the links below…
The Fall of Kyle
The Fall of Kyle: I Don’t Trust You
The Fall of Kyle: I Don’t Trust God
The Fall of Kyle: It’s Your Fault
You might be wondering where this last blog has been. Don’t worry…I have too. I have sat down so many times to finish this…but every time I have, I just can’t seem to find the right words.
Honestly…it has been really frustrating for me, because I have been thinking about this blog series for about two and a half months and I just want to be done already. In my mind, it is way to long to be thinking about a blog idea…but it turns out, God doesn’t agree with me on that. He has wanted this on my mind because this is something that He really wants me to learn. He has wanted to teach me more. He didn’t want me to be finished yet. And I am so glad he works on a different time line than I do…because He continually amazes me with what He shows me. He has brought me to a really great place because I have had to keep pressing into this idea.
TRUST
It seems like it should be such an easy thing to do but for some reason it is so difficult for me. I really struggle to trust. And it is really the one thing I need to learn to do if I am going to give my life to my Daddy. Because if I can’t Trust him with my life, how in the world can I give it to him? I will continually hold back until I can trust him.
And I am realizing that this whole blog series started with the fact that I want to give my life to Jesus…I want to do that more than anything in the world and I am trying to figure out how to do that and how to let go of everything. I am seeing how big of a part trust plays in that. If I am going to give Him my life I need to trust…just simply let go and trust God with everything.
As I have been working on there blogs I have been realizing more and more that I haven’t trusted people enough to do that and I haven’t trusted God enough to do that…and as I sit and think about this…it makes my heart hurt and it brings tears to my eyes. It is also so frustrating because I have this burning desire in my heart to give my life to Jesus and for some reason I feel in my heart that I am not doing it…so I find myself blaming others, you and God included, because the desire to let go and trust is in my heart but it just isn’t happening.
And God used Genesis 3 and a few sermons that I have listened to to show me that maybe I need to search my heart and see what is really going on.
GOD YOU ARE SO GOOD AND I THANK YOU SO MUCH!
So this whole series has been my thoughts…it has been my heart…my heart changing and being transformed by God.
Some of it may have sounded weird to you at times…maybe like I was stuck or trapped by this realization…but honestly…it has brought me so much freedom.
And that is originally what I wanted this last blog to be about. My plan was to tell you about all of the ways that I am beginning to trust people and God. I was going to tell you about how I view people. I was going to tell you about how I catch myself not trusting people or catch myself blaming people and then how I try to let go and I ask god to give me strength to trust the situation or I search myself rather than casting blame onto others.
It was going to be a great blog and I had the whole thing planned out in my head. It has been running through my head so much and it has sounded so good…but like I said, every time I sit down to type it up…my brain just completely shuts off. It has honestly ticked me off a little because I haven’t been able to figure out why it won’t just come out.
So now as I sit here in Hong Kong, I am starting to realize that I wasn’t ready to finish this before. I thought I had learned my lesson but God wasn’t finished…He had so much more planned to show me…because He loves me so much more than I think He does.
God started revealing more of what He was doing when I was in the Philippines just after Christmas. I remember waking up around six in the morning and stumbling, still half asleep, towards the beach for some quiet time. And I started thinking and praying…and God just started to reveal things to me.
He started by bringing me back to the beginning of this trip…which seems like just yesterday, but also like so long ago. There was a verse that had been really challenging me and I was trying to understand what it meant and where to start. The verse was Matthew 16:25—For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
My original desire was to just give up everything and just seek God. That is one of the reasons I am on the race. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know where that would take me. I didn’t know what that would cost me. And to be honest, I still don’t know the answers to those questions. But that was my desire…to just seek God with all my heart at any cost.
Since the race started, I think that I have lost sight of that desire lately…I haven’t completely lost sight of it but I have definitely only had part of this desire in my view for a while.
But this is such a good thing…and I see God’s hand all over it because what has happened is God has really been focusing me in on part of this desire in order to prepare me for something bigger. This original desire is so huge and He needed to break it down and just teach me in small parts…He wanted to teach me how to handle giving up small things…because I struggle to do that…and He wanted to teach me the proper way to do that…because He knows that the whole thing at once would have overwhelmed me.
God loves me and knows what I can handle…so He broke it down into parts…so that once I understood the small stuff He would be able to move on to bigger things. This IS so absolutely beautiful you guys…so incredibly beautiful.
This whole time He has had plans for me and He knew that He needed to show me in small parts before He could reveal a bigger part to me.
GOD YOU ARE GOOD!! I lOVE YOU!!
So, what God has done since the beginning of the race is just rock my world. Sometimes it has felt like He has been dragging me through the muck…sometimes kicking and screaming. He has been showing me all my junk. He has been showing me my darkness. He has been showing me how negatively I view people. He has been showing me how much of a bad job I do at loving people. Some of it He just reveals to me and other times it is revealed to me through conflict. Actually…I would say a large part of it has been brought out through conflict. Mostly through conflict with my teammates and conflict with AIM leaders, but also some inner conflicts.
And every time something has come up, I have usually find myself instantly frustrated…just kind of upset with someone or with myself. I would find myself thinking negative thoughts about the person or myself and after a while I would realize that my heart is way off. I would realize that I was not approaching the situation with love…the kind of love where you die to the situation and love the person or myself just because. The kind of love where it doesn’t matter what happened in the past…but I just love because it is the right thing to do.
So I would begin to pray and almost instantly God would change my heart. He would fill me with His love. He would reveal to me how I was supposed to be approaching the situation. He would let me see the person through loving eyes. He would reveal to me how I could love the person through the situation. It was never easy what he showed me…because love just isn’t easy, but it is the right thing to do…it was hard because it always involved me dying…letting go…submitting…I always had to let go of those negative feelings in order to love…and He gave me amazing strength to do that and an amazing peace in my heart…all the tension and frustration I had turned into peace and joy.
And so God has spent the first couple months showing me all this bad stuff. He has pointed it out very clearly.
And I love it…because when I found Him revealing this stuff to me…I knew what I needed to do because for the last year or so…I just keep hearing God saying, “Seek me.”
“Seek me.”
“Seek me.”
“Seek me.”
“Kyle, just seek me.”
You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13
And so I would try to let go and pray and just seek God…and He would give me so much direction and peace.
This might sound crazy but this has happened to me so many times that I know embrace conflict, struggle, persecutions…I actually get joy from hard times even before I know what God is trying to teach me. I know that He is going to watch after me and guide me through any situation. And I pray that God will continue to strip me down…until nothing is left…and I know it is going to hurt…because it has hurt so much already…it hurts when your “life” is turned upside down and completely wrecked…but it is wrecked in such a good way.
And I see now that He has been teaching me to really seek Him in any situation. I have learned that when it is hard I need to press into Him even more…I know that I need to go straight to Him and He will carry me through it.
So originally that is what I thought this was all about…I thought that my lesson was all about how to seek God when He reveals the bad stuff and to ask him for strength to let go of the bad stuff…you know…i thought it was about how to die to these desires and reactions that weren’t very Godly. I thought it was all about how to draw strength from Him when I need to let go of the darkness in me. I thought it was about learning how to trust people with the bad and hard stuff. And I also thought it was about learning how to trust God with the bad and hard stuff.
And the crazy thing is…it was…it was about all of those things…but…that was only the beginning…there is so much more…
He now has me in a really awesome place. I know how to let go of the bad stuff. I know how do seek him through the bad stuff. I know that I can trust Him with the bad stuff.
This in itself is so huge for me…such a big step…praise God!!
But there is so much more…
I thought that being stripped of the bad stuff was what it was all about…I found myself being held back by the bad stuff…and I thought that if He stripped the bad stuff away…I would be able to run towards Him at full speed.
But there is so much more…what He is showing me now is really going to hurt…it is going to break me even more…but I know that is what I need to do…
Now God is telling me that He wants the good stuff too…
He is saying this because He doesn’t just want part of me…He wants all of me.
He knows that I also hold on to the good stuff and in doing that, it keeps me from running full speed towards Him.
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
This verse doesn’t just apply to the sinful side of life and all our bad stuff in my life…it applies to my life…everything in my life… good…bad…everything. He doesn’t want me to try to save the good stuff in my life and let go of the bad…He wants me to let go of it all…He wants me to find life in Him and nothing else. He wants to show me that there is so much more.
He wants to know if I can let go of everything good in my life…more than just my family, friends, and home that I let go of when I left in September. He wants to know if I will let go of the gifts and talents He has given me. All the blessings in my life, including the most amazing blessing I have ever heard of or seen in my life…He wants to know if I will let go of it all and give it back to Him. He wants to know if I will trust Him with it.
Now he is saying to me…
OK…you know how to give up the bad stuff…I showed you how to do that…I have showed you that I will take you through that…you just need to seek me…I have showed you that I will make the bad things good…you trusted me with that…and I blessed you…is that enough for you to fully trust me…Kyle I love you and have amazing plans for you…but I need all of you…not just the bad side…you need to give me all of you…so now I want everything back…that is right…I want it all…now I want to know if you will let go of the good things…will you give them up for me…you trusted me to make the bad things good…but I don’t want to stop there…I want to make the good things better…because…THERE IS SO MUCH MORE…I want to give you more…please don’t settle for how things are…you have come this far, why do you want to stop here?…let me give you more…you are holding on the the good things with a very tight grip…loosen your grip and let them go…kyle, trust me…I am going to blow your mind…just watch what I will do, I will amaze you more that you have ever thought possible…but you have to trust me…let go…just trust me.
God you are so big…so much bigger than my mind can imagine…there is so much more that I ever dreamed…and you keep showing me that…and I am so thankful…God…I want you to strip me more…no matter what it cost…no matter how much it hurts…I trust you…I trust what you have said…I trust that you have plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future…strip me more…bring me in closer to you…I want to know you more…God I need you to guide me…I need you to give me strength…I can’t do this alone…You are so good to me…I love you and I trust you…
