November 25, 2015: Ask The Lord
“If we talked to you about leading a group earlier, would you please stand up.”
*7-8 people stand*
“Everyone else go find a leader. Each group should have no more than six people.”
*I walk over to Lauren Mitchell, accompanied by Chandler Martin, Katie Mastropaolo, and Hannah Menzies*
“Take about 10-15 minutes to pray with your group, then go out into the city.”
Lauren asks if we’ve ever done this before. We all shake our heads no. She was thrilled. This was right up her ally. This was her thing. Her niche. Her perfect idea of an incredible day spent with the Lord. Me on the other hand? I’d rather stick to tangible concepts.
Read your Bible? Check.
Pray throughout the day? Check.
Journal about your experiences, frustrations, praises, etc? Check. Check. Check.
Go out into a foreign city looking for colors, numbers, people, or anything God revealed to you in your prayer? Didn’t exactly make the cut for a fun and exciting day.
Why?
I like giving God the steering wheel of my life and letting Him show me His power, His love, and His ability to make beautiful things out of dust, but I don’t like failure. I don’t like the idea of having to trust my imagination to come up with some sort of clues for some sort of scavenger hunt to find some sort of testimony that’s cool enough, powerful enough, and exciting enough to share.
Here’s how He proved me wrong.
I tried my best to pray. To really see what He was trying to show me. After we prayed, we shared.
“Peyton, what did you see?”
- I saw a male, wearing something orange, and he had long hair.
- I saw the number 8.
- I saw a woman, who had blonde hair that was loose over her shoulders.
Off we went into the great unknown with a list of ideas we claimed God was revealing to us. Everyone was excited, but I continued my skepticism about the whole idea. Really, I was just there to follow the rules. I had done my part, now it was time to sit back into the shadows, like I’m good at.
We walked around the corner and immediately saw water, as Lauren had told us she saw in her prayer. That was cool and all, but in a city like Bangkok, water is everywhere and I wasn’t convinced.
We continued walking and an old man stopped us. He began to ask where we were going. He pulled out a map and started to mark out where we needed to visit. He instructed his friend to bring us there. Before we left, he wrote down the word “blue,” which was a color God had revealed to Hannah as she prayed. Okay, that was kind of cool, but I’m a pessimistic person by nature. I need more than that.
Despite my predisposition on the ludicrous idea of this whole outing, I was still becoming disheartened by the fact that my so called “visions” probably wouldn’t become reality. The 3 things I brought to the group were super specific. If this whole thing was real. If you really could just send up a prayer, jot some words down, and go out looking for whatever it was you wrote and find it..I would only believe it if my prayer was answered in its entirety. Just like our faith with God, it was all or nothing to me.
We road around for awhile, stopped a few times, and then our driver showed us a note.
We broke out into hysterics. He pulled up to a tailer shop and instructed us to get out. We went inside and did as the note said. We looked at the product, asked about the prices, tried on some items, and really had a blast. An hour or so went by, we were purchasing some of the beautiful dresses we had been told to try on, and just as my mind was straying from any form of emotion toward our “Ask The Lord” requirements..just as I was letting go of my anxieties over the matter..just as I was beginning to just enjoy being with these girls regardless of whether or not we saw the things we wrote down..a woman walked in accompanied by her boyfriend. What did her boyfriend look like, you ask?
- Very much male.
- Bright as day orange tank top.
- Perfectly mastered man bun. (i.e. LONG HAIR)
If ever my heart has stopped for any extended amount of time, it was right then and there. Just as I began to regain consciousness of the real world and my surroundings..God whispered in my ear, “Do you trust me now?”
We briefly talked with the man and his girlfriend. Chandler more than myself, mainly because I was still blown away that this really happened. The conversation was short and mainly with the girlfriend because the man didn’t speak much English, but that wasn’t the point. That never is the point.
See, the cool thing about God is it’s not always about the miraculous healings, the deep gospel messages that bring X amount of people to Christ, or feeding 5000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. Sometimes it’s just about hearing His voice, trusting the words and visions He brings to your mind, having the confidence to speak them out, and loving and praising Him through it. Sometimes it’s not about doing much of anything with that information. Sometimes God reveals things to you just to show you that He can.
No tangible things came from these occurrences, but we’ve got to stop thinking with a worldly mindset. It’s not always about the tangible things. It’s not always about who saved the most souls, who casted out the most demons, or who healed the most people. As much as it pains the former athlete in me to say..life isn’t about competition. If your life is truly based on glorifying God, there is no competition in that.
We don’t have to win His approval.
We don’t have to outperform others for His acceptance.
The way to Heaven has nothing to do with your works because in the end, no amount of good deeds can settle the debt we owe God. Sin outweighs each and every good thing we do for His kingdom..but Jesus’ blood trumps it all. Sin lost its power thousands of years ago when Jesus lived a perfect life. Death lost its sting when Jesus was nailed to the cross and rose from the grave victoriously.
“November 25, 2015: Ask The Lord” day became one of my favorite days on the race thus far. Not because we performed miracles, but because God showed me how to take Him out of the box I’ve been keeping Him locked up in.
We saw the number 8 on a street sign later that day. We never saw the woman with blonde, loose hanging hair and that’s okay. That’s okay because I put myself out there and God showed up. I was willing to fail in order to see God succeed.
