[so this is the sermon recap I wrote for the first message of the year at my church. It was entitled "of a different spirit". You can check out the message here. I didn't know/ think at the time that I would be applying for the WR- just knew that it was time to start a new season of my life. Then at training camp God showed me even more vividly the pictures of the promised land and the reminder to step out and not to run from what He has for me. So as a new year, and as the race is right around the corner I wanted to share this old recap.]
As written on January 1, 2012:
I feel like I have a lot of “standing on a precipice” moments in my life.
One of the clearest is when at the end of my junior year in college I got elected to be the president of my fifty member University Women’s choir.
I don’t think I have ever been so afraid in my life. I was racked with doubt for the entirety of the summer. There was no possible way I should have been put in that position. I wasn’t a leader, I wasn’t perfect, I didn’t know how to lead a team of officers.
I was so wrong for the job.
When the time came to start I somehow got through Music camp, giving my devotion. Leading a team of wild and crazy freshman. But after the first rehearsal of our choir I went and cried.
It was too much for me. I couldn’t be an example. I couldn’t fight battles for these women in my choir. I couldn’t do it.
The giants were just to big for me. Just like they were for the Israelite leaders who went to look at the Promised land. They saw the milk, the honey. But they saw the giants that were smack-dab in this land that God had given them.
And that was all they really saw. Sure, they brought back the fruit, they told of the amazing land.
Then there was a really big BUT. They spoke of the giants. Of the fact that there was no possible way they could take the land.
Even though it was theirs for the taking because God had ordained it to be so.
They in that moment forgot they had a God bigger than the giants. They had a God bigger than absolutely anything and He had PROMISED them this land.
They had a God that had done so many miracles just to get them to the place where they were.
But one look at giants and all was forgotten. One word spoken of failure, loss and the people wanted to turn around and run back to Egypt.
This is the God that brought them OUT of Egypt and they were choosing to run back instead of jumping into this adventure, this life that God had given them. The Israelites didn’t stop to listen to Caleb and Joshua. These two men standing together REMEMBERING that God brought them out of Egypt. The people were choosing to run back to Egypt
How often to we choose to run back to Egypt?
How often do I choose to run back to Egypt?
Too many times to count.
In those moments when looking forward is like looking into a mine field. I was positive I was going to step on EVERY single mine. I had forgotten what God had already brought me through. Even in those first 3 years in college He had brought me through a close friend dying, through living away from home for the first time, through my first season of depression. He had made me stronger.
I promptly forgot that when I saw the giants.
But God stopped to show me I was stronger. He caused me to look down at my feet and make the move to stand with those who remembered that He would be there always. No matter what. That He would jump with us because He knew better.
I was still terrified most of the year. I was afraid most of the time that I wasn’t being a good influence to the 25 freshman girls in my choir. That I wasn’t leading the amazing friends I had in that group well. But looking back I know it was all ok because God was there each time to jump with me.
That ended up being one the most growing, amazing, refreshing, terrifying times of my life.
And now as this new year comes to being I need to remember that year. I need to remember how God brought me through that. I need to remember how God brought me out of Egypt.
Because I am on a precipice again and need to jump.
And I am terrified of those giants in the Promised Land.
But I am choosing to stand with Caleb and Joshua. To remember that our God can do anything. That He is telling me to jump.
I am choosing to live this year of a different spirit.
I am choosing to jump out and face the giants.
