Showing up to Life

I just spent the last five days in Portugal at a “celebration” meeting aka a conference on how to be a relevant church and one quote that stuck out among many was “Don’t forget to show up for your own life”. I found that to be an interesting idea, for don’t we assume if we are living that we have shown up? Yet the meaning of this phrase goes much deeper than living, it is a state of being, and better yet, living for what you were made to do all along. 

 

I meet people all over the world who are searching for the meaning of life, their “purpose” as they call it and yet people find it so hard to connect their heart’s passions and desires with purpose. For example, I chose to be a teacher because I LOVE encouraging, teaching and strengthening people. Those are just some of my God given gifts. I know that, chose to walk in those gifts and as a result, made much impact in others lives through the passion I exuded in my own.

 

Then why is it so many people feel “stuck” and fearful to step out and do what they truly love? Did it ever occur to them that maybe, just maybe, what you truly love and how God made you is a gift to the world! People often think of my missionary journeys as vacations but let me just say that I know quite a few people who would NOT enjoy living out of suitcase eating strange foods who speak foreign languages in uncomfortable conditions year round. I, on the other hand, love it and enjoy the adventure—and I know that God put that desire for travel, people and the nations in my heart because HE MADE ME FOR THIS before I even knew what I wanted to do. My passions are for His glory and I find the more I find out who I truly am, the more others reap the benefit of being around someone who is secure in their identity and has a true zest for life.

 

This past weekend in Portugal, I had the privilege to see three men, one evangelist, one prophet, and one apostle walk in their gifts and because they chose to show up for their God given lives, they were used by God to bless others lives by guiding them into freedom, identity and healing. They were transformed by the power of God! I was amazed by the transformational power that three men filled with the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God in us, had on a church. I saw the deaf hear, the fatherless fathered and pastors awakened from the lies they believed as the spirit worked in their lives. I saw tears of joy as people learned to awake from the dead and start showing up to their own lives! I want to be a change agent for those I meet as well. I want to be so in tuned with God’s Holy Spirit that everywhere I go, people see Jesus Christ in me! I want to see the blind see, the Thai prostitutes set free and the American church awakened to the power of God. I want to see people transformed from the inside out. I want the church I bring to be a place of grace, love and power. I want to see the world transformed through me.

 

I believe I have shown up to my own life. In fact, every day is an opportunity to show up. I will make my decisions based on what God says, not what the world says. I will live for one audience alone. You are…but you will be!