those surreal times in life where you step back and realize that who you are is
amazingly different than who you were? I mean if pre-world race Tricia knew who
I am right now- I honestly would’ve thought I’m crazy. There are things I say
and do these days that seriously leave me stunned. For example, I might be
talking about the Philippines and refer to the day we tried to raise a lady
from the dead or refer to the time Satan attacked me in a dream and I spiked a
crazy high fever in real life. And those crazy stories spur me on in my faith. Sometimes
it is crazy stories, or funny ways that we have experienced God, or it has been
when I’ve heard directly from Him. That is something new. I feel like I’ve
heard from God before the World Race, but it has never been this consistent and
this accurate. The other day I was telling someone a story and I said, “Yah,
whenever God told me that Andrew was going to be squad leader…” and kept going
on without even realizing the craziness of that statement. And then it hits me…
the Creator of the Universe is speaking to me.
That the Almighty God is taking time out to
speak things into me.
The Spirit inside of me is testifying and
guiding me- just like Jesus promised.
One of the most
amazing things I’ve learned so far on the race: if you are in Christ, you have
access to all the things He promised. The Spirit is in you and is fully
developed. No matter what stage of your walk with Christ you are in, you have
access to the fullness of the Holy Spirit. You don’t have to know everything,
or be super-spiritual, you just have to be willing to go for it and obey the
Spirit’s leading.
He speaks, you obey,
He delivers. That’s how it works.
It is so
incredible to follow a sovereign God that delivers.
So rather than
continue on in my sermon, I’ll just give a good example. Andrew and I were a little
overwhelmed with taking over the squad and knowing how to set the tone for this
new season. One day in Thailand I was sitting around making cards with
ex-prostitutes and I felt the Lord say He needed to say something to me.
So I go upstairs
with my Bible and journal. I start praying. Lest you think I am super-spiritual,
I have to be honest-I fell asleep. I woke up, prayed a little, and fell back
asleep. I woke up thinking I must not have heard from God…but just to be
careful, I open to chapter 4 in the book of Joshua that was my reading for the
day. It was all about how after the Israelites had crossed into the Promised
Land, God told them to pick up stones from the middle of the Jordan and make a
pile of them as a reminder of what God had done. Why? Verses 6-7 say, “Let this
be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, ‘What do
these stones mean to you?’ then you shall say to them, ‘Because the waters of
the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it
crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.’ So those stones
shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.”
I heard God say that
I needed to think on that. I was thinking that was a pretty random thought, so
I wrote it down and went back downstairs. Later I talked with Tiffany and
Andrew about these things and how this could be used with the squad. I didn’t
want people carrying around stones, and I didn’t love the idea of making stone
towers wherever we went. But God started speaking again. He reminded me of all
of His faithfulness stories in the Bible. Whenever Israel faltered, David, the
prophets, pretty much every OT author would go back and testify about what God
had done for the Israelites in the past. They would say, “Look at what God has
done in the past…let that be a reminder of what He is capable of now and in the
future.”
And
then it hit me, we need to be testifying about what God has done, that is what
gives us the faith and the hope we need to count on Him today and tomorrow.
In talking with
Andrew, we developed this thought and decided to make this a new squad norm. We
were going to make our “pile of stones” (a list) to remind us of how God has
delivered for us in the past. We prayed into it and God confirmed the idea to
us. We were a little nervous to present the idea to the squad-not being sure
that they would completely run with the idea. We were wrong. It was an
incredible time of sharing for the whole squad. We went for about 2 ½ hours of giving testimony of how God
has been showing off to us both corporately and individually.
Here are just a
few:
“I prayed for a
woman with appendicitis and she was healed…”
“I finally have a
voice after feeling like I wasn’t heard for years.”
“I’m not walking
in fear like I have for years.”
“God gave me a
song and our band played it in a bar in the worst red light district in the
world.”
“I’m finally
living in freedom and have gotten victory over Satan’s lies.”
“My brother is
returning to Christ because of what I have written in my blogs.”
“I prayed over a
man with depression. He accepted Christ and ate something after not eating for
days.”
“God spoke to me…”
I was just sitting
there so humbled to serve a God that speaks to us and works in such amazing
ways.
So we will be
keeping this up. Each week, team leaders will send Andrew and me a summary of
ways that God has shown up for their team and we will compile a list to read to
the whole squad at debriefs. At the end of our race we want to have a massive list
declaring God’s faithfulness that everyone can take home with them. So yah, that’s what giving testimony is all
about- walking in confidence today and having hope for tomorrow as a direct
result of how He has extraordinarily delivered in the past.
“Our capacity
to remember what God has done and said in our lives and throughout history-the
testimony-is one of the primary things that determine our success or failure in
sustaining a kingdom lifestyle of power for miracles.” -Bill Johnson
“Behold, God
is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; for the LORD God is my
strength and song, and He has become my salvation. Therefore you will joyously
draw water from the springs of salvation. And in that day you will say, ‘Give
thanks to the LORD, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples;
make them remember His name is exalted.’ Praise the LORD in song, for He has
done excellent things. Let this be known throughout the earth. Cry aloud and
shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of
Israel. “
Isaiah 12:2-6
