It’s been exactly a year since I was in Nicaragua, month 8, of my race, and I am just now writing about this.
Where do I begin?
Nicaragua was absolutely the most challenging month for me. My team was in the bush with two other teams, all girls. When I say in the bush, I mean a bus went by about 5 times a day which was our only way of transportation into town, an hour away, where food and water were. There were no taxis around or cell service. It was 110 degrees outside with no shade and no breeze. The water in our canteens was like drinking hot tea. No a/c. No fans. Sleeping in tents and praying for a breeze, so we wouldn’t sweat through our sleeping pads. The dirt was our couch. Scorpions, chickens, starving dogs, and wild pigs were our pets. Buckets were our showers. Dead trees were our shade. Pumping water was our exercise. There was just no way of getting clean and staying clean when the sweat was constant and the dirt would stick to that sweat.
But not only was the physical tough. My team was broken. And we all, besides my leader, just sort of gave up on it, because team changes were coming up at the end of the month.
“It was rough” would be an understatement.
To top it off, the entire month I could hardly sleep. I was paralyzed with fear in its entirety. Our tents were out in the open, exposed and vulnerable. There was a fence made of sticks that anyone could jump over, and there we would be with all of our valuables. The whole town knew of the missionaries and where they were staying. Nights tormented me. I feared the night, waking up every hour from the slightest of noises and thinking of escape plans should danger ensue. I even bought a sling shot and kept it in my tent as protection.
I couldn’t wait to get out of the “armpit of Satan” which was what we named the town. I can’t actually remember the real name now.
I’m not complaining. I overcame with Christ. And I praise Him for everything. The sweat, dirt, heat, pain, and all. Looking back, I see it as God leading me to this defining moment:
I hardly got any sleep, waiting for day to break, and that morning Jasmine, my teammate, was up as well. She came to me and said,
“TJ, you can’t fight a spirit of fear with a spirit of fear.”
It was like something lifted off of me. The truth and power of those words hit me with a realization that I had never known. I immediately jumped up with a quickness in my step, because I knew how to fight now. I needed to stand in the power of Christ, and not in my own strength and feeble prayers.
Grabbing my head phones and Ipod, I began worshipping…like I never had before. I stood in the power of Christ and prayed fervently knowing that God had the power to break the fear. I was no longer fighting a spirit of fear with a spirit of fear; I was fighting with the power of Christ that lives in me. It was the most powerful two hour prayer and worship time. Ever. God told me two things so very clearly:
I alone your God has saved you.
AND
You are my child of the light.
God was speaking into my identity. And that was just the beginning.
All my life, there was a line I straddled. I went back and forth jumping over the line as though it were a game of hopscotch. The line split right down the middle separating the light on one side and the dark on the other. Good and evil. Black and white. But God told me I was a child of the light. Therefore, I walked in the light. I didn’t have to straddle that line anymore. I could come at my sin with the power of Christ. I didn’t have to stand in the dark floundering around waiting to jump back over the line into the light. I was already in the light! The whole time. But I never realized this. How did I miss this? I think back to all the times I struggled with sin, and if I had just realized the power that I had in me, I would have understood that Christ forgives me, that I am His, and that I can stand in His word and truth to overcome sin. I didn’t have to endure it forever. I didn’t have to call it mine. I could overcome it with the power of Christ. This is good news indeed! There is hope. You don’t have to stay there in your sin. There’s a way out, and it’s Jesus. It’s knowing your identity in Christ and the power that lives within you. The same power that raised people from the dead. The same power that parted the Red Sea. That heals the sick. That makes manna fall from the sky and water from a rock. This power lives in you. And He can help you overcome.
After a year, I confidently know that I live in that light, I live as a daughter of Christ. And God keeps growing me more and more in my identity. It’s a learning process. And I’m still learning. I still have sin, but I know the One that saves, and that with Him, He can restore me and help me to overcome. I don’t have to stay there. He can purify me. I still have days where I don’t feel joyful. But I stand on His scripture that says in Nehemiah that “the joy of the Lord is my strength.” My days are pretty normal. I work. I sleep. I eat. Like today I sit here writing a blog. I didn’t raise anyone from the dead, and I had a hard time getting out of bed. But Jesus is with me in all of that. I know. When he saved me, I became His. He had already won the battle for me. He had already won the battle for my sin. I don’t have to straddle the line anymore, because I’m not in the dark. I live in the light with Christ.
My whole life is transformed by this one powerful realization of my identity in Christ. And it is something that I long to help others truly understand. So that they know the victory that they have in Jesus, and because they are a child of God, then they have power over sin, because Christ lives within, and He can overcome anything! Yes, anything. There is no sin too great for God’s power to overcome. He had the victory. He has the victory. And He will always be victorious.
Now I see.
Do you see?
Do you know the power that lives within?
Do you know that yours is the victory in Christ?
When God says you are a son or a daughter that means you inherit His kingdom. When He says you are made in His image that means you belong to Him. And with that, child, you are set free. And as it says in Romans, “Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.”
The next time you pray, pray from a kingdom perspective. With the mindset that you are a daughter of a King. A powerful King. The next time you are depressed, and you wanna stay there; choose Jesus. Find scripture that pertains to whatever you are dealing with and speak it over and over and over again declaring those truths for yourself or for someone else. Scripture is our sword.
Even as I write this blog, I talk about my own personal realization, but it’s not just for me. This is for you. This is for everyone. You need to know the identity, the true identity that you walk in daily. You need to know the power of Christ that lives in you.
Ever since I began walking with Christ, I knew there had to be something more. There had to be something more to my relationship with Him. I came to this question several times with Jesus, “If God can heal, and do miracles, and His word says that the same power lives within me, then what does that mean?”
It means just that. That same power lives inside of you.
Maybe I had to go all over Latin America to discover this, but I want to share this truth with others. So that maybe they can understand the power of their identity in Christ without having to go around the world. This is for you. If you are a Christian, then you are His child of the light. God the only one that can save, has saved you, and you are now His always and forever. You don’t have to straddle the line anymore. Step into the light. Walk in the light and freedom of Jesus.
There is something more. Run after it.
Until the next adventure,
Teej
