Hello blog world! God has been doing crazy things in my heart. Crazy GOOD things! So let’s just jump in!
Recently, I’ve really wanted to get a tattoo, I had a few ideas of what I wanted but I wasn’t completely set on one thing and so I was talking to my best friend, the Lord, and I was like, “God, I really want to get a tattoo, but I don’t know what I want, so you have to design it for me Okay? Good.” so I sat and I waited. I was listening to this song, “House on a Hill” by Amanda Lindsey Cook (go listen to it as you read this blog, it will wreck you, oh, it’s so good it’s all I listen to right now) and in the chorus she repeats the phrase “I am” and that phrase has always been so important to me because of how simple I think my faith is. I’m one of those people that are satisfied with the answer “because God said so” so I flip to where Jesus is teaching in John chapter 8 verse 48-59 and He uses the phrase “I am” to prove to the Jews that He is the God of Abraham. He says in verse 58, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58 ESV) What I love about this passage is that Jesus knows these people so well, because He meets us where we’re at He knew exactly what to say to them in that moment because he knew them. Another thing I have been noticing as I am continuing to study the life of Jesus (currently in Matthew, but it’s the same Jesus in John so it still applies) is how well He knows the Old Testament. Throughout His life He continually pulls out scripture to back up everything He teaches, even though as far as anybody knows, He’s just a normal carpenter. Not a Rabbi, not a scholar, just a normal person like you and I. “Perfect,” I said to God, “I’ll get “I am” in a pretty font tattooed on my arm it’ll be beautiful, thanks God!’ done and done. But then I continued to think about it and I was like, “man, I wish I had some artwork or like an image to go with it, I want like a design or something.” and at this point I’m still in John chapter 8 searching for some image to jump out at me, and I’m reading the footnotes and the passage of scripture Jesus is quoting when He says “I am” is Exodus chapter 3. So I flip to Exodus 3:14 and read where God says “I am who I am” and for some reason I thought God was talking to Abraham, so I go back to John and think, “okay, yeah that’s cool, but God, I want an image!” and then I hear a voice, “Makayla, go back to Exodus 3 and read the whole story.” and I said, “Okay, God let’s do this” so I flip back to Exodus 3 starting in verse 1, and it’s the story of Moses and the burning bush. Immediate excitement rushes over me. I have always loved the story of Moses. He’s a character in The Bible that we all can relate to. There have been so many days already on my race where I have felt incapable of what God has called me to do. In this moment I remember another tattoo that I had tabled and the meanings were so similar. I knew in that moment that this was the perfect tattoo for this season. Thanks God!
So I received this divine design on a Monday morning, flash forward to Thursday at Activation (will my blogs ever not mention Activation for the duration of my stay in Guatemala? Probably not) one of our leaders was talking about how some of us are only christians to be blessed by God, but never transformed by Him. How when bad things happen we always pray, “God I’m uncomfortable, get me out!” I immediately got offended. “I don’t do that!” I said to myself. I paused. Then the Holy Spirit said, “yes you do,” I got more offended. Our leader continues with the story of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, and how they were thrown into the fire and that’s where Jesus showed up. That in the fire is where our hearts are made stronger, and better equipped for the things of this world that will oppose us. So instead of praying that God gets us out of the fire, that we continue to press further into the fire and then that’s where Jesus shows up and we come out without a single hair singed. That really hit me. All my life I have let fear control what I did. I’m a runner. When I’m uncomfortable I just want to run home and be comfortable again, and honestly that week I had considered going home more than once. In that moment I decided that I was done asking God to pull me out of the fire. I was tired of getting frustrated with my teammates, I was tired of the lack of grace with myself, I was tired of being selfish. And I needed to do something that physically represented me truly dying to myself. So I got baptized. If you’ve known me for a while you’re probably thinking, “Makayla, didn’t you already get baptized?” Yes, when I was 16 I made a public declaration that I was a follower of Christ, but at 19 and 4 days I died to myself, stopped living a life that was never mine to live, and started being the vessel that God has called me to be. So like the bush, Father allow me to burn, but to not be consumed.
So, all of this happened about 3 weeks ago, since then I have gotten the tattoo and God has been doing really great things in my heart. another word that I have been given this month is “bold” and I really believe God is calling me to a place of boldness in my faith, within my team, and for myself. so I got the tattoo in plain sight in order to step out in boldness. All my plans for tattoos were to have them hidden, but God is teaching me a lot and encouraging to take leaps of faith, and to trust Him for the landing place
