Wars raging, famine and disease spreading, heartache and depression the new normal! You can’t even turn on the tv without a commercial telling you your not enough or don’t have enough stuff or the news making you afraid to even leave your house! NO, that’s ENOUGH! We will not stand for this! The Lord didn’t entend for us to live like this; we were created for a purpose to be used by Him!
Or at least that should be our reaction to all the heartbreak that is taking place right outside our doors. But sadly our culture has turned our ears from the cries of our brothers and sisters in need so the only thing we hear is our phones reminding us of our next “big appointment”. We’ve filled our time so full that we couldn’t possibly fit God in. And we’ve packed our lives with so much stuff that of course we can’t see the needs of the world, we’ve built a mountain of excess and drowning in a sea of not enough! As a result Depression, Stress, and the feeling of why in the world am I here begin to fill our thoughts and actions.
This was me. You see after coming back from a year and a half long Christian internship in Colorado Springs I (21 at the time) had high expectation on what “I” could do for God after all, spending a year of serving Him surley I had earned my spot! Yes God, I’ll take a job in woman’s ministry with a nice corner office and nice polite ladies to serve. Isn’t this what ministry is suppose to look like? After all I am a bigshot (at least in my mind), ? WHATEVER! Please tell me I’m not the only one to have ever thought something this ridiculous!
Well needless to say over the next 3 years God saw fit to teach me some well needed humility! I got a job not in womans ministry but at the DMV, not exctly the ministry I had in mind. But He did allowed me to begin serving in my church youth group again! During this time God began to show me how when I turn to Friends, and stuff (retail Therapy ;), and filling my time with one project or another instead of simply surrendering to Him that’s when I become depressed, lonely, stressed to the max and hopelessly desperate for purpose. That’s when the focus in on me not Him!
I had had ENOUGH! I was so tired of just focusing on me when He has called us to so much more! I told the Lord ok this time you can have ALL of me not holding anything back! Well boy oh boy did He hear that Prayer! You see while I was in Colorado one of my friends found the World Race on Facebook and with a little chuckle she turned her laptop around a said “you know your carzy enough to do this!” little did she know that was way to radical for me but I would still pull the website up from time to time.
Well after reading a book called “In a pit with a lion on a snowy day” the phrases “If Your dreams don’t scare you they are not big enough!” and “what’s the thing that scares you the most because that’s probably what God is calling you to!” jumped off the page and needless to say I got the message! I knew God was calling me to this!
11 countries in 11 months! Giving up everything that makes me comfortable in turn for full reliance on God. Good-bye matress and warm house, hello sleeping bag and tent! Friends this is why we were created! To turn away from the lies that comfort will bring us fulfillment and open our eyes to the truth that only God can do that! And when we begain to surrender to Him and let Him use us to show a hurting world that there is hope, the sick that there is healing and the forgotten that they are LOVED that’s when we not only find but live out our destiny!
And that’s why I need you! None of us can change the would on our own, but when we join together and allow God to direct us, the darkness in this world has no choice but to flee! This looks different for all of us and for me it looks like leaving everything behind to take the gospel of Love to 11 different countries and I’m asking if you will partner with me in prayer and financial support so we can take Jesus into every corner of the world!
