First, I am sorry for not updating this very much in the past 3 weeks. My schedule here is crazy busy. But I am alive and well:) Emotionally and physically tired sometimes, but so good. The weather here is constant every day. 85 degrees, blue skies, sunny with volcano fog covering the island from about 1 to 3pm. Needless to say, I sweat pretty much all day, everyday. It’s really annoying☺ Campus is still crazy with about 400 of us running around here. There are a little over 100 in my school, and I can honestly tell you that these people feel like family to me already. I feel like I have known them forever. I’m honored and so blessed to be running with the group that I am with. Each one has a story about how they got here, how the Lord has provided for them, given them provision, and literally hand picked each one to be here.
It's been a whirlwind of the past few weeks and it is incredibly hard to describe what has been going on in my heart and what I am learning the past few weeks.
This past week on Thursday, all of our lecture fees were due. Lecture phase cost us 3,900 dollars each. The founder of ywam, Loren Cunningham was our speaker last week with his wife Darlene (yes it was phenomenal. This couple is amazing) and he asked the 7 students who needed money still to come forward. With all that these students needed by the next day, it was 16,000 dollars. Yep, that’s the right number. Loren told us to ask the Lord how much He wanted us to give these students and we were going to take an offering right there. The students went on stage, they turned on some music, and we started praying and quickly giving. Picture about 100 students, missionaries, close to broke if not already broke, going up to this stage and pouring out whatever they have for their brothers and sisters. Putting their needs before their own and trusting that God will continue to provide. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I sat in the back row just crying- looking at this beautiful bunch of people who were giving literally all they had. I kid you not, in 30 minutes 16,000 dollars was taken care of. Lecture phase was paid for.
He is provider. So many students came here with literally zero dollars. Almost everyone has been raising money since being here, and it’s normal if you come here with no money because they believe God will work. And He most certainly does. If any of you want to come to ywam (which literally every one of you should come- there is a DTS that starts in September- supposed to be incredible- just saying!) but don’t doubt for one second about finances. Not one minute. That will not be something that holds you back from anything.
It's been a huge blessing getting to know my Nepal team. Last weekend we decided to rent a truck and drive to the other side of the island to watch the sunrise on the top of Mauna Kea, a volcano. We left campus around 8pm and 9 of us piled into a truck with blankets and snacks ready for a trip across the island. I sat in the back of the truck with four others and gazed at the stars painted across the sky as we drove. I have never seen stars like this in my life, I felt like I was in the midst of the Milky Way. Starring at a pitch black sky with millions of glowing white specks painted among the darkness was a sight I will never forget. Then I started to think and remember that God has named and placed each and every one. And those are just the stars visible to me, which means there are beyond millions more that my human eyes are blind to. I started to think about how big He is. How small I am. He is bigger than my life, He is bigger than my circumstances, my hopes, dreams, my problems, my town, my school, this nation, and this world. He’s bigger than all of it. This God that I have put into a box over and over again in my Christian walk is literally pushing away every wall and breaking it down. Hard and fast.
We got to a pancake house and sat for a few hours talking and drinking coffee. We left and started the freezing cold and long drive to the top of the volcano. As we drove up the windy road, piled together, I kept thinking about all of this and how crazy it is that I got here, and am here in Kona, seeking Jesus and letting Him show me more and more of who He is and who I am.
As I sat wrapped up in blankets in the back of a red truck, at the top of this ginormous volcano, above a layer of puffy white clouds, the glowing orange sky pierced the darkness slowly and started to rise and the depth of these bright colors was incredible; some yellow, pink, and purple mixed in. How beautiful that the Lord paints this sky for us? That we get to look at a picture like this? And finally the darkness was gone, the sun had risen fully and the light was overwhelming. We sat in the back of the truck speechless, in awe at the picture we were starring at. Looking out into this infinite sky and picture that goes on and on. Just like His love. And that’s what my heart has been realizing here friends. yes, we are small- we are so small- but He wants us. He is after our hearts. Radically and FURIOUSLY after our hearts. and He will never stop chasing them.
One thing I have really been hit with since being here is the reality that being a Christian is not about performance; it’s not about doing the right things, or the “Christian” things. I feel like so much of my walk and relationship with God has been based on performance in order to prove that He should love me, that He should care and bless me and pour out favor on my life. That I am ‘good enough’ for Him, that I’m living the ‘right way’ He wants me to live. So I went to a Christian college and I joined a bible study, even led a few, I went to church every Sunday, went to chapel during the week, mission trips, led mission trips- all good things. All great things. But when your motive for these things is to ‘please’ God so he will love you more, or bless you more, that’s not what His desire is. Why?
BECAUSE HE ALREADY LOVES YOU. He already died for you. He already sent His son to suffer the most painful death- so we could have the PLEASURE of relationship with Him. There is absolutely NOTHING you can or can’t do to make Him love you more. The love is already there. It’s deep. Radical. Fierce. Strong. Compassionate. Gentle. Close. Infinite. And not for one second based on or dependent on works we do. And it’s constant. You cannot earn it friends. You have it☺ He’s just saying, “look at me. Look at my face. Because I am RADICALLY IN LOVE WITH YOU.”
It's so easy to make this checklist of things to do that says, ‘my job is to love God’- so we pray, read Bible, know a lot about the Bible, put on a garment of good deeds, trying to earn salvation. And we don’t realize that it’s a free gift that we certainly do not deserve but that he freely gave us. The NATURAL OUTFLOW OF HIS LOVE FOR ME IS MY LOVE FOR HIM. Our love for Him is a response. and out of our intimacy with Jesus in this relationship will FLOW all of those things, naturally.
I am done performing, done going through motions, done striving- I just want to know Him.
You guys, I am realizing that He is more committed to me than I ever will be to Him. He is more committed to EVERY future plan I have, to the spouse I will have, to every worry and circumstance. He is FAR MORE committed to my calling, my destiny, than I will ever be. So I can actually REST. He is our Father, who only knows how to give good gifts to His children. If He is our shepherd, we don’t need to worry or want. A life free of fear is possible friends. It actually is enough at the end of the day to just love Him. A life free of fear and insecurity has to be real or the gospel is not real. To the degree we believe in the gospel is the degree we will walk in liberty. It is possible to have no wants.
Zephaniah 3:17 says that “He is in your midst”- the Hebrew word for midst actually means closer than skin.
It also says “He rejoices over you with singing”. Do you actually believe that? In Hebrew the word rejoice means to spin around under violent emotion for His people. Uncontrollably. Our God is a wildly emotional expressive lover. Singing in Hebrew means to scream with loud voice over sons and daughters. Friends, He has emotion for you.
Another verse that has given me revelation is Song of Solomon 4:9. We can read this book under different viewpoints, one being God, the groom- speaking to His bride (us). Here is a beautiful, perfect God who is running after and wooing an insecure and broken bride, me and you. He is undone by us.
It says, “you have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride, you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace”.
I have spent SO much time trying to convince God why He shouldn’t love me, trying to talk Him out of loving me because of this or that- and He’s saying that with ONE GLANCE of my eye, I’ve ravished his heart. So if I can give him one glance and capture him, how much more will I be ravished when I LOCK EYES with Him and stare at Him? He’s raising up a generation that will look at Him and choose Him over our own agendas and comforts. One that is convinced of His love and returns it. It’s the reason He sent His son. And sent him to hell and brought him back. Because WE were worth going to the cross for. So HE would have a people that wanted Eden again.
I have been so convicted of how much I want and need to be rooted in spirit and truth. He has given me complete access to Him, who He is, and what’s He is about through His word. How can I fall in love with God if I don’t know His word and His character? How do I step into a nation with the gospel if I don't know it? How cool is it that the Bible is the only book with an Author that will never die.
How can you fall in love with someone you don't know? When you glance at Jesus, just glance at Him with a passing look, His heart skips a beat for you. Jesus can’t wait until you lock eyes with Him and commune with Him. He could have chosen anywhere in the world to live, and He said “I’m going to dwell in the hearts of men”. Not a building or a program or idea or material or school- but I am choosing to dwell in MAN. That’s you and me. You carry Him inside of you. The same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. He gave us DOMINION over this earth. We are His plan friends.
"The degree that we are aware of His extravagant love is the degree to which we will extravagantly love Him back."
With the revelation of the extravagant love of God comes an extravagant response. It’s not about living a ‘good enough’ life or performance.
Our time on earth is the only time in all of eternity that we have the PLEASURE of saying no to the world and yes to Jesus? We have the privilege of saying, “I am sick, but He is good”, “my circumstance is hard, but He is good” . Our lives compared to eternity are nothing. This is the only time in ALL of eternity we have the choice to say no to these things. We actually have the honor to choose Him while surrounded by sin. We will never have the privilege of worshiping Him without seeing Him ever again. We will never have a difficult circumstance in Heaven and here we get the chance to say “you are good and I will worship you” in the midst of those.
God moved violently from heaven to earth and He’s waiting for us to respond. He is the most exciting human being and asking us to join in the greatest adventure.
Our speaker today said, “the most heart breaking thing is a Christian who thinks God is boring”. He went to every extreme to win my heart, why do I question if He’s worth it?
He is asking for my joy filled surrender. He’s not a dictator. He is a loving and kind King who cares about our decision to love Him. He refuses to violate our free will to make us love Him, but He longs that we would look at the world and choose Him. Think about it, unless we had the option to not love God, we couldn’t choose to love Him.
I’m realizing how easy it is to let selfishness decide how we feel about God. My emotions make me question God and who He is. It holds me back from all He has. But it doesn’t really matter how I feel, because He is good. No matter what. What if I understood that it wasn’t about my emotion? That I don’t rule my heart, but He does. When if when I woke up I could say, “thank you for…” because in reality, I have a million things to be thankful for. But I choose to focus on the bad ones.
He offers us the most exciting, beautiful, intimate filled life with Him. This complacent life of going through the Christians motions is being struck down. This life where the Bible was read because it’s just supposed to be what we do but then we fall asleep. It’s an up and down journey and were not finding sustainability. We try and try and try and then fail, so we feel shame and failure, and then we feel His love, and then it’s this cycle over and over again.
I’m realizing how easy it is to find our identity in earthly things. Entertainment, relationships, money, our own plans, comfort, etc. These things are all temporary. These things are all going to bring temporary satisfaction. The human heart was created to give itself away to something more. Something bigger. And when you think about it, we all are giving our hearts away. But to what? Humans were created to sacrifice greatly. Think about books and movies and stories in our culture- they are all about someone sacrificing something for a greater cause. We were created to give ourselves up for something bigger- we just don’t know it’s Jesus.
Jesus went on a fast for 33 years. For 33 years He stepped out of the glory of Heaven, the splendor, the trinity, the presence of the Father. He had never been outside of revelation 4 (the throne room) and the noise of the angels and creatures. He said, “I’m leaving it all and taking the form of a human”. The God of the universe takes on the weakest and most incapable creature on earth, a human baby. By speaking He created the world, and here he lies and cries as a baby because He is tired and hungry. He becomes His own creation. This was the most costly act of love in human history. God’s own creation nailed Him to a cross and He let us do it. He endured costly devotion- and we are created to reciprocate costly love.
He is good. The promises he has for us. He sees our desires. Friends- He’s after your hearts. God is on the move in this world. And He is raising up a generation that will take one look at Him and understand how much He loves them and are willing to partner with Him to change this world. Because changing the world is not a cliché statement. That’s a reality and His destiny for His people. And this ‘radical life’ is not just for the few. No, it’s for all.
I’m Hungry for the word like never before and learning how to study the word.
Learning how to preach the gospel.
The simplicity of the gospel.
The power in the gospel.
Today I heard a message on marriage that brought me SO much revelation about this it’s ridiculous. I can’t type it out because you probably will think I am crazy for making this blogpost so long, but seriously, if you want to talk about marriage I WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT I LEARNED TODAY. It radically opened my eyes and changed thoughts I’ve been stuck in about marriage.
I would seriously love to talk about this though and read you my notes and share thoughts on this.
This is literally a scratch of the surface of my heart. There is so much more. I am coming alive in ways I never thought possible. I miss you all so much. Thanks for reading my heart. I hope the revelations I am having are opening your hearts and minds also more and more to this beautiful God.
