Lets roll the time back to 2011 when I was sitting on the couch in America looking at the world race. It looked so exciting, exhilarating, and absolutely incredible. Now its 2013, and I have been on this journey for almost 10 months. Honestly, I’m exhausted, stretched, flesh falling away, being filled with the Spirit, and feeling more alive than ever before. God has absolutely flipped my world upside down. All of this did not come easy, and the path in front of me is not perfect, but it’s the only path I will take. So why was this not easy? Well, I ran into many walls along the way, and the most dangerous one was complacency. Complacency means: a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements. I became comfortable with where I was, and I became stagnant. In all I was working off of my own strength for a lot of the ministry. Yes, I now fully understand that we cannot do this with out God. I know you have heard your pastor say that you cannot do ministry on your strength. There is also a verse that talks about yoking yourself to Christ so that He can pull you through. Textually all of these things made sense, but I needed the experience to fully understand that I could not do it on my own.
That experience began in Africa, which is known for the most hardcore ministry. Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania love door-to-door ministry, and I was using my own strength to get me through. After my second month in Africa I realized that I was having trouble staying focused. We would go to 20 houses in one day, and after the tenth house I was finished. The flesh cannot handle TRUE ministry, but the Spirit is more than prepared. God decided to show me this through ministry with my Dad. Yep, we had a parent’s ministry week on the race while we were in Kenya. It was incredible because I started the week in complacency, and walked away in expectancy. For parents week we did 8 hours of ministry everyday, and by the third day I was drained. God stepped in on the third day to show me His Kingdom by yoking me to Christ. We started off early in the morning to do door-to-door evangelism. I was in a group with my Dad, another racer, and her mom for the entire day. For the first couple of houses our parents did all the talking while we just sat back. The next house was the translator’s 80-year-old grandmother, who could hardly walk. While listening to the grandmother talk about her life I almost fell asleep because of complete exhaustion. Then, we were asked to pray healing over her leg so that she could walk without a cane. As I got down on my knees I felt expectancy flow over my complacent body. God was about move not because of my compassion, but because He had crazy compassion for His daughter. After praying the grandmother got up, and started kicking her leg back and fourth. She praised God because she was healed!!
We need experience because for far to long we have lived off of others experiences. In churches we continually talk about the healings in the bible, and all the miracles. Jesus said that we would do even greater things than He did! So stop living off of past experiences, and build up His Kingdom with the experiences that He has for you! I have been going to church since I was a baby, but I did not truly believe in healings until I experienced the Father move in real time not past time. Lets get off the spiritual milk so that Kingdom can be brought, and His Will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
