So I have been reading a new book
this month and it has been making the old wheels turn in my heart and head.
It’s called The Barbarian Way by Erwin Raphael McManus (Thanks Jimmy!!) . I recommend it to
anyone who wants to see what living a life different from others may be like.
He talks about just living your life for the One who made us and maybe He
called us to something more than conforming to a safe and proper religion.
He says, “This is the
barbarian way: to give your heart to the only One who can make you fully alive.
To love Him with simplicity and intensity. To be consumed by the presence of a passionate and compassionate God. To go where He sends you, no matter the cost.”
That has been making me think a lot
about how I may not live in the full trust of God that I should be. I mean I am
far more trusting that I was before I started my first race. I am more
confident in who I am and the words I know I have inside me. I can confidently
say I prophecy over people and myself all the time. I hear from God and he
gives me signs and visions that I use to encourage others I consider family. He
shows me how he sees them and trusts me to bring his word and love in a way
that will bring him glory. I pray in tongues when I have no words to speak. I
am developing that as the months go by. I used to wonder about all that, but
once I felt the feeling I get when I am in the spirit praying and speaking in a
different language that God gave me, I knew I was not imagining things. I get
chills at times when I am talking about something that God wants me to remember
or something that I am hitting right on point. I have been finding out more and
more about this God whom we may contain in something that he shouldn’t be. He
is more alive than the typical church cares to talk about. He holds us to a
higher standard than the rest of the world. He gave us gifts that he WANTS us
to use. He called us to go out and fight
the enemy head on with a confidence that he is more powerful. To LOVE those who
are lost and not judge.
1
Peter 2:1-5
Therefore,
laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil speaking, as
newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. If
indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living
stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also as
living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Erwin
also quotes 1 Peter 2:9-10
“But
you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. His own special
people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light: who once were not a people but are now the people but
are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained
mercy.”
He
then goes on to say ” He went on to describe us as aliens and strangers in the
world; all of us different, but a part or the same tribe; all of walking in the
same direction, but on a unique path; all of us becoming what we could not
without the One who created us. When barbarians travel together, they do not
march in single file. There is no forced conformity. They are not required or
expected to keep in step. They walk together as free individuals joined not by
standardization, but by spirit.”
If that doesn’t hit you in a
different way and make you think about how you live, then I don’t know what
will. I feel I am a part of a similar tribe in the World Race. There is a
freedom to experience God in your own way and not be judged. If you shout and
dance in worship, Amen. If you speak in tongues, Amen. If you draw prophetic
drawings, Amen. There is no judgment and if there is we talk about it and are
open with our feelings. We don’t let things get in the way of us calling people
out. We live a community of feedback where we speak life all the time and we
call people out when they are stuck in sin. We want to call them into greatness
and not allow them to be stuck in the things they are battling. We are fighting to avoid the tragedy that
civilized society falls into which is that is it appropriate to mind your own
business. Being a barbarian, you choose AGAINST that and take on the
responsibility for those who need that life which we all swore to……the day we
accepted Jesus into our lives.
All this to say that I have been
convicted in the part of my life where I trust God with all things. I know that
He has the best out there waiting for me. That doesn’t mean it is riches and
glory. It could be the very opposite and I need to learn to take that with love
and continue to seek him. Our part in
this is to follow and His is to lead. Am I willing to let go of the things I
want and love for more in God’s plan? I have been obedient for a few years to
go where I feel him calling me and he has been faithful. I am coming up in
another cross road in my walk. I have been asking God if I can go to Denver to
take some time in a different place with some people who could possibly grow me
into the next level for me. I have been praying for God to guide me and I am
wondering when that time comes, will I go and trust…..?
Will
I go wherever he sends me……no matter the
cost?
This
is the last thing I will leave you with. It is still from The Barbarian Way. It
is part of the whole thing of following God that can scare the more timid away.
“This is the sticky part of the barbarian call. It’s not fair or equitable.
When you hear the call, when you follow the call, you must recognize that it is
a life-and-death proposition. When you understand what Jesus means when He says
that you must follow Him, you finally realize that this is not a cattle call.
He is not calling you to the same life that everyone else will live. He’s not
even calling you to the same path that every follower of Christ will walk. Your
life is unique before God, and your path is yours and yours alone. Where God
will choose to lead and how God chooses to use your life cannot be predicted by
how God has worked in the lives of others before you. Jesus’ response to Peter
was as straight-forward as it could possibly get: “If I want John to live and
you to die, what is that to you? Your part is to follow Me. My part is to lead
the way.” (John 21:22)
