My admissions advisor, Austin, runs this very cool side business called “Keys for the Journey” in which you can ask for a key, or he can feel called to give you one, and he prays over you and receives prophetic word from the Lord about what word, verse, or phrase to engrave on your key. Sometimes when people receive their key they find the word fitting to what they had been experiencing or feeling, and other times the word is something they don’t think has anything to do with them and it is for them to search out meaning behind, like what it means to them, if it is a descriptive word of them later on, or what the Lord wants them to step into. Then, when they understand what it means enough to live it out, they give their key to someone who they feel called to.
A lot of people have had their key for some time, and it was cool to hear how fitting or mysterious they were to them and their stories of figuring out how the meaning pieced together. At launch, I thought it was too late to get one, but I finally received my key.
“Bold”
Not what I was expecting, not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. I was thinking on what bold means by definition, thinking about my interpretation of it, all of the thoughts. Would I be bold by the end of this journey? Am I bold? No? Okay. I’ll just pray about it.
A couple days pass and it’s the final day of launch, as I’ve mentioned before, I had asked God how to press into Him and how I will get the relationship I desire with Him, and He spoke to me through my mentor during worship, “This is not too good to be true, just keep seeking his love passionately. This is just the beginning”. And in that moment I felt gratitude for the prayer it answered, and also felt an enlightenment as I made a connection to something else He had spoken to me 7 weeks prior in Revelation 4:1-2 “Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in Heaven, and the same voice I had heard before spoke to me like a trumpet blast. The voice said “Come up here and I will show you what must happen after this.” And instantly I was in the spirit and I saw a throne in Heaven and someone sitting on it”.
When I put those two together, I was thinking “come boldly to the throne of the Lord”, which I had heard at points in my life but did not know what specific scripture that was. Even though I made that connection, I still wasn’t sure if that’s what it meant, so I continued to pray for confirmation over the meaning of the key to me.
Fast forward, I’m drinking my coffee in eSwatini and asking God what I should read that morning, I turned to Hebrews 11. I was reading, and it was good as I went on through the next chapters reading about faith, listening to God, and loving others until I made it to the end. Ending my read after just those last three chapters didn’t sit right, and I wanted to read the whole book from the beginning, so I turned to Hebrews 1. I’m reading and reading and writing and writing, soaking all the good stuff in, then I read Hebrews 4:16 “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God…” and in that moment I was thankful that He lead me to stumble across that verse, because although I knew it was in there somewhere, I got to read it in context which made the final connection and confirmation I needed. The verse continues, “There we will receive His mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
From that I took the understanding that when I seek His love passionately as I go boldly to the throne of the Lord, that what comes after is the relationship with Him that I desire where I will (continue to) receive His mercy and grace.
So now bold to me means being bold in seeking Him, and being bold for Christ.
Being a Christain growing up I didn’t do a good job of that. I would say that I was one, as many people do, and live a life that did not align with what faith I claimed to have. Now more than ever I understand the importance of a relationship with the Lord and following Him, beyond the box of religion. I recognize the importance of being bold in representing my faith and values as I grow closer to the Him, and I encourage others to do the same.
Philippians 1:20 “For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed but that I will continue to be bold for Christ…”
