Back Here Again

God's led me through valleys in the last 6 months. I've come face to face with the desires of my heart, the idols of my heart and soul. To say that my faith has been tested is a big understatement. I have much more to say about all this, but for now I'm looking back at my old writings. I'm reflecting on what the Spirit has taught me and what he's teaching me again. I'm asking myself how do I walk in these truths and not just look away...


June 6, 2009
We’re so apt to think that sorrow and pain are not of God. We run, medicate, ignore and avoid the deep obscured things hurting us on the inside. The message at the Village really spoke to me yesterday. I finally understood the last part of John where Jesus tells Peter,
“I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “follow me!” John 21:18-19

Surrendering to God may mean that it feels like crucifixion as he leads us down paths and sacrifices we rather not walk or give. How vividly I remember the examples of Brother Randle and Ms. Joyce. I remember the last day we had in the Philippines together as we took communion as a group. If there is anything I will walk away from this trip possessing, it is a spiritual awareness of what it means to be humble. It was lived out before me for 21 days by Miss Joyce and Brother Randle. When I heard them talk about their daughter Hannah, I mused and my heart broke.

His words were, “the night before, I was praying and God told me to lay Hannah on the altar. The next day, She died.” (In a tragic car accident the day before her wedding)
The average person would question, would cry out in rage against God, “How could you do this to me?!” “What a selfish God.” But her life rooted and established a church in the Philippines that otherwise would have not existed. Her life, her death, saved souls. Her testimony and the faith of her parents continues to bear kingdom and seeds.

And I had a sense of peace that only comes through the Spirit. Its’ all about Jesus. It’s all about his kingdom. And if the little that I ‘have,’ that he gave me to begin with—if my suffering can produce an abundant of souls saved until God, then so be it? (is it even worthy, how can my suffering be worthy of kingdom cause?) Blessed am I. May His will be done and not mine. In the great span of things, it was never about me, about what I could gather and heap under a roof for my own. Hold everything with a loose grip, he’s told me.
While the flesh, the very real hurting, mournful side of us suffers and hurts, our Spirit somehow gives us peace—as we lay down our lives, all possessions, all positions without regard, without having to be twisted of or wrung loose. This is the beautiful picture, the beauty of surrender.

If my pain and confusion
Can somehow show the world the peace that
Passes all understanding
Let it be done

If a death can bring many the light of life, of glory,
Then I count it worthy to follow directly in my Savior’s
Own footsteps
Sacrifice, death
And certain resurrection