Today I stood in a place that felt familiar, and yet was so incredibly different. I was on top of High Castle in Lviv, Ukraine. It is the highest point in the surrounding area, and one can see the entire city from there. It’s beautiful, and yet I kept thinking back to a different day, two years ago, in a different city. This other city has been drawing my mind and heart more often each month of the Race: Istanbul, Turkey.
As I was walking up the path at High Castle, I was thinking about a similar walk up the highest hill in Istanbul. I was on the streets of Lviv, yet I could see the streets of Istanbul, too. As I walked up the last steps at High Castle Hill, I was seeing the vendors on that last stretch of road before the top of the hill in Istanbul. When I turned to walk around the flat top of High Castle, my mind swarmed with the image of Istanbul spread out in every direction. I saw the green hills and trees of Lviv, and yet I was seeing the sheet of terra cotta house tops of Istanbul.
Tears came to my eyes as I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I sat down on one of the benches and simply stared out at the horizon, trying to distinguish between what I was physically seeing, and what I was envisioning in my mind.
For the last several months, when even Istanbul has come up, I always figured I was excited to talk about my trips there (two one-week trips a few years apart) was because I know people who live there and I wanted to visit them. Today, my heart stirred with a completely different thought: “I love that city.”
This thought floored me. I wasn’t sure how to think about it. I finally was realizing that, although I have barely spent any time in Istanbul, God is slowly drawing me there. Not for the tourist attractions, not for the friends I already have there, not for the sights, the language, the music, the culture.
I am being drawn (well, pushed at some points) by the love for the people, individuals that need agape love. They have no idea what that is.
Part of me is scolding my mind and heart for moving away from the Race and the present situations and circumstances. I still have five more months, and a lot of time to think and have God change things. I’m not even in that country, and will not be going there on this trip!
But I don’t care right now. I have the love and longing for a reason. I will be talking with Father so much more about this in the weeks and months to come, but right now I am seeing the people. The hunger of a nation that needs the King to take their land and their hearts. The vast, unending see of people with almost possibility to talk to one Christian, let alone see the life changing love of Jesus.
My heart has been stirred. I cannot ignore it. Father, please guide my thoughts and steps as I search farther in the direction you are slowly showing me!
#GodIsInControl #redefiningdisciple
#THIRD
