“Here's a secret about the “where are you headed” question: most people asking aren't sure either”
says John Richmond. So often, I think we allow our lives to be so much more complicated than we need them to be, simply because we feel like we have to have it all figured out. We think that having that five year plan is what is going to make or break our futures, when really, God just wants us to trust that He'll guide us where we need to be.
I remember as a young kid trying to figure out everything in advance. While it seemed like all of the other kids were thinking about what toy they would ask for Christmas next, I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to pay for college. Even at 12 years old, I was trying to come up with this five year plan for my life. It wasn't a plan that was going to ultimately set me up for a great future, but a plan that honestly just stressed me out because I wasn't sure how everything was going to line up.
This plan I tried to come up with when I was 12 concerning college faded away because God's ways are better.
As much time as I spent researching and trying to come up with my own plan, God had something bigger than I expected.
When I finally learned to take a step back from my own dreams and allow God to use me how He wanted, I was able to see and embrace the things that He had for me, even though they seemed scary and I had no idea how I would explain to others where I felt God was calling me to go next.
As I have grown in my relationship with God, I have come to find that planning out my life is often a waste of time. The more time I spent trying to find all of the answers, the more my life seemed to take detours. Just like a roller coaster, there are moments in life that may scare you to death and make you wonder why you got on the roller coaster in the first place, but (if you like roller coasters) there is this part of you that still wants to stay on because you want to go down the long awaited, anticipated drop. Sure, there are twists, turns, and bumps along the way, but when you get off, you're ready to go all over again.
Still, in the midst of these twists, turns, and bumps, God has been teaching me to enjoy the little moments in the season of life that He has me in currently because everything I am going through now is all in preparation for what He has next.
I may not know what next looks like, but I do know that God is preparing me to walk in faith through the doors and opportunities that He opens. As scary as it may seem sometimes, I'm just trying to enjoy the ride, anticipating that next big drop on the roller coaster.
The entire book of Acts has had a massive impact on my life and my experience with the power of the Holy Spirit in ministry, life, and work. The second chapter of the book of Acts especially gives a direct inspirational account of what a first encounter of the Holy Spirit looks like and how it completely flips people’s lives around for God’s glory. As we can see from the very start of this specific chapter of Acts, an entire body of people encountered the Holy Spirit and were devoted to following Jesus Christ while he was on earth.
“ When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. “
Acts 2:1
In the NIV, the translation says that they were in one place together, but some translations say that they were in one accord or in unity with one another. These people were all here with the exact same mindset and purpose, which was to continue in the work Jesus had for them, but to start by praying for power from God. Jesus had said to His disciples before His ascension, that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they would be His witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. He had also commanded that they wait in Jerusalem and not leave until they had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which was the gift that God has promised them. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ appearance to His disciples, he writes that Jesus commanded them to stay in the city until they were “clothed with heavenly power” (Luke 24:49).
When this chapter of Acts talks about such a unity and desperation for power from on high, it motivates me and challenges me with the question “What am I going to equip and empower the ones I influence with? Will it be myself, or will it be by the power of the Spirit of God alone that they are equipped?” If I am to be a leader of any sort, I cannot in any regards lead people to myself. When I think about this account, I can’t help but to think of how uncomfortable it must have been having 120 people in the same room.
We are so concerned with comfort, whereas these people were so desperate for the Spirit that comfort was not even on their minds. When I think about the future church I am going to be a part of I think about how desperately I want the people I’m influencing to have the same mindset and heart as I do: to become fully devoted disciples and followers of Christ. To be people who are not led by comfort, entertainment, convenience, or anything else pertaining to any human standards or goals, but desire a spiritual power from Heaven to fill the Church with awe of who God is so that we can be effective witnesses.
The other day while I was reflecting on my devotions, I kept stumbling across journal entries and writings I had previously noted in my time at GZMC. I could not help but remember my struggle with wanting to learn more about the Holy Spirit and to be filled with His power regardless of my doubt. At that time, doubt was a huge part of my struggle with the Holy Spirit. I continually came up with excuses for why it was unnecessary to be filled with the power of the Spirit. I was saved and believed in Christ as my Lord, yet the Spirit was always a struggle.
The reality is that the Holy Spirit was the only reason that the church became such a successful influence in that society. Without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, it would have been impossible for any of the 120 followers to have brought to Christ the thousands at a time they did. This is impactful for me today. If the Holy Spirit was the driving force and power that so successfully brought so many devoted followers to Christ’s kingdom in that time, He can do the exact same for us today. We need the Spirit just as much now as they did then. Jesus’ command to spread the Gospel never expired. It is still in effect today. This is why I willingly started to receive the Spirit’s power in my life for the salvation of others' souls. Since then, God has been using me in powerful ways to reveal Himself to other people.
We hear so often in the Church that people like Peter had been timid and lacked boldness in sharing the Gospel and their beliefs. Yet we also hear about how the Holy Spirit transformed these unconfident and timid men into bold, fearless, and powerful witnesses of God’s power, love, and grace. One of the most well-known of these accounts is Peter. Peter had been a fearful and selfish man who had nothing but his potential to wave around in the air. Potential is a great thing, but it cannot be reached without the one who gave it to us in the first place. In fact, potential could be defined as “what God could do in and through us if we let Him.” Peter constantly battled with this while Christ was on earth and even after His death. It wasn't until the power of the Holy Spirit completely rested upon him that he became bold and fearless to the extent that God had in mind.
The same can happen for me and for others. God sees how greatly He can use us if we let Him. We may be stuck in pride, fear, timidity, selfishness, greed, lust, or any other chain that can hold us down, but when the Spirit comes upon us, our potential for bringing God glory far outweighs our struggles.
A couple of weeks before I left to come to Groundzero, a woman from my home church was praying with me during a Sunday service. I remember her telling me over and over that God wanted me to surrender. At the time, I was like, “Uh...surrender what?” But looking back over the last year at Master's, it now makes a lot of sense. To surrender means to cease resistance, to give up or hand over, or to abandon oneself entirely to someone or something. All year, God has been asking me to do this in different ways. He's asked me to stop shutting out the people around me, to stop shutting out my feelings, and to give him the control I hold on to so tightly. To give all of myself.
I think sometimes we romanticize surrendering to God.
We make it into this moment where we float down to the altar, sink to our knees, and tell God to take everything while the perfect worship song plays in the background. Then everything is miraculously fixed. That's just not reality. There is something profoundly beautiful about surrendering to God, and those “altar moments” can be really powerful. However, what I've seen is that so much of surrender plays out in the little day to day things. Submitting to someone else instead of just saying, “God, take my pride!” or setting aside your own insecurities to welcome a stranger to youth group. Choices like that put you in a position for God to do something in your heart, and that's a wonderful thing. But as beautiful as surrender may be, it also kind of sucks. Is it worth it? Absolutely. But it's difficult. It's painful.
For me, surrender has always been very much tied to brokenness. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that the most broken parts of me are the ones I don't want to surrender. We as humans tend to do this thing where we take our weaknesses, shove them in a corner somewhere, and cover them up with all of our walls and masks. We deny their existence or we try to pass them off as something else (i.e. “I'm not controlling, I just like to be on top of things”). And I mean, that seems like a great idea. If no one can see your weaknesses, no one can use them against you. Fantastic. But there's a problem with that. You can't hide from people without hiding from God too.
We go to God with all of our struggles—all of our hurt, all of our fear, all of our selfishness, lust, anger, pride, and other assorted sin—and we ask him to fix these things, but then we're not willing to face any of it in our day to day lives. So we put up all of these walls to keep ourselves safe. I made this my #1 hobby in life. I put walls around my past, my fears, my insecurities, my failures; walls between me and my family, between me and friends, between me and God. And then I came to Master's, and guess what. More walls! But the thing about walls is that no matter how intricate and convoluted your maze, stuff still finds its way out. Your sin still finds its way out. You, however, stay isolated. So this is an all around bad setup.
Do you know what else has walls? A fortress. What we're essentially doing when we put up walls is trying to become our own refuge. And that's something we were never meant to be. All over the Bible, it's declared that God is our refuge. Psalm 18:12: “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliver.” Jeremiah 16:19: “O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress.” Psalm 46:1: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” It's very clear that this role is meant to be filled by God. Yet,
So often I've found myself trying to do God's job for him.
I've spent my entire life facing very serious issues. I grew up in a broken, non-Christian family, grew up with abuse, mental illness, alcohol, drugs, and a dozen other things. I got so used to having to hide things and having to carry the weight of everything on my own that I didn't know how to stop doing that after I came to Christ. That was all I knew. I didn't know how to let other people in and to trust that people truly love and accept me; to trust that God truly loves and accepts me. So for most of the first year after I got saved, I put so much energy into hiding my weaknesses and hiding my sin so that people would think I was strong. I tried to justify myself so that I could feel like I belonged. But the thing is that we're only justified by grace. And it's really hard to accept grace when you can't even admit how much you need it. So I pushed away the grace, held onto my walls, and kept trying to carry all of the weight by myself. And I was miserable. I couldn't live up to the standards I set for myself, so I lived in this constant cycle of striving and condemnation. I had to get to a point where I just couldn't do it anymore.
I ended up at this sort of fork in the road where it became clear to me that the way I was doing things couldn't take me any further.
I couldn't do it on my own strength.
I couldn't be good enough, because without God's grace, no one is good enough. My only choices were to keep doing what I was doing and stay stuck, or to change what I was doing and move forward. So I asked God to break me; break my pride, break my selfishness, break my need to be validated by other people. He took me up on that offer. All year, God has been stripping away layers, but after I prayed that, things went to a whole new level. And it didn't happen exactly as I expected.
God started bringing up things from my past that I'd never dealt with, whether because I wanted to avoid them or because I'd buried them so deeply that I didn't even realize they needed dealing with. Every time something came up, I had the choice to either bury it again or to face it. I kept choosing to face it. And each time I made that decision, it brought with it a new element of brokenness: shame, fear, bitterness, anger. I had to choose to let myself feel these things and to bring them to God without trying to dictate the outcome.
In order to let myself walk through this process, I've had to surrender my need to appear strong, surrender my need to be in control, and surrender my fear of trusting people. I've had to stop trying to protect myself and let God be my refuge, trusting that he meant it when he said “'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'” (2 Cor. 12:9). And when I really started letting people see how broken and imperfect I am, this crazy thing happened. They stayed. They loved me anyway. And they're still fighting for me to this day. Seeing the people around me respond like that has had this really powerful effect: it's been helping me understand and believe that God actually does love me despite all of my baggage. Because really, it's the Jesus in people around me that has caused them to love me through this. And even more important than the fact that they've stayed is the fact that God has stayed. No matter how much ugly comes out, God doesn't leave. He restores. Seeing that for myself is worth facing all of the brokenness. That's the beauty of surrender.
Every decision you have made in your life is like a carefully chosen move in a game of blackjack.
You’ve decided financial decisions, educational decisions, and even matter of the church. All of a sudden it hits you.
In this game of cards you’ve been playing against life, it seems like life’s about to win.
A lot of times, especially as the (school) year seems to be coming to an end, there’s a lot of thoughts we have to make about what to do next. It seems as if we’re are at a fork in the road or even just a standstill. Questions race our minds: What do I do next? What are my opportunities? Do I even have opportunities? Have I not planned accordingly for this next season?
Before we get any further, let me put your mind at ease with this:
You’ll never figure out the rest of your life;
at least not in its entirety. So many times – especially in the church world – we want to know what our next steps are. We want to know what God wants us to do next in our lives. Our thoughts often go to this question: “What is God’s will for my life?” An author, Sean Smith poses this thought:
The question isn’t, “What is God’s will for my life,” but rather, “What is God’s will?”
Now this question can be answered in a lot of different ways, but if we look through Scripture, one verse that stands out is this: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification […]” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). The thing that we have to remember as we try to discern where God might what us to be is that He is much more concerned with our hearts than what we can produce.
Don’t get me wrong, God wants us to be able to work hard and well (Colossians 3:17). He also wants us to bring other people to know Him (Mathew 28:19-20). But God is infinitely more concerned with the position of our hearts than He is with what we are capable of producing. This “God first” perspective shift has to be in the forefront of our minds so we do not tie what we’re doing to who we are.
That being said, when it comes down to what we’re doing in our lives, we have to remember this: in any occupation God can be glorified. And the opposite is true. In any occupation, we can leave God out. It can be broken down to the idea that wherever I go, I can bring God glory and if that is our priority, we can be in a position to learn from God.
One of our GZMC students came to me with three or four different internship options he wanted to pursue this summer, and he didn’t know what to choose. All of them gave him opportunities to deepen his relationship with God, learn from good leaders, and pour into other people. I told him that anyone of these opportunities would be great for him to do as long as He was trying to honor God in them. As long as he was keeping in mind that God first and foremost was to glorified in what he did, any circumstance he walks into can be a chance to learn and grow.
It can be really scary to jump out of a plane if we don’t know where we’re going to land. It’s hard to try to figure out the next step is when we can’t seem to figure out what to do next. But above all else,
We can’t be afraid to be wrong.
Even if it doesn’t work out “perfectly” – whatever that means – with the right motive, we can honor God with what we’re trying to do.
I recently listened to this podcast by Christine Cain and it was titled “The Dark Room”. I was interested in the title and was super excited to see what it could mean. As I listened to the sermon, Christine spoke about this exact thing I’ve been going through at Groundzero. She elaborated on The Dark Room and explained that back in the old days, to develop pictures you would bring the roll of film to a drug store and they would let the film sit in a dark room where the images could be produced; in order for the picture to be seen, it has to go through the process of being developed in that dark room. This is what I’m walking through currently:
I’m walking through this process of getting my film developed. And it hurts.
She also took time to focus on the story of David’s anointing and how it took twenty years for his appointing. She touched on the fact that God brought David into the palace to not to do anything but serve, and she said “some of you want the pulpit, but God says ‘I want you in the nursery’”. I feel like all year I’ve been battling with this. I was never okay with being where God has me right now. It bothered me that I was playing the background. Like most of my generation, I dislike processes – big time. I want what I want when I want it. I understand that this is not a good attitude to have, especially in my walk with Christ. Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord”. Waiting for Him has been one of the hardest things that I have had to learn throughout the years. It took David twenty years from being a shepherd boy to becoming king. I’ve been telling myself that I just need to enjoy the journey instead of wishing for the end result. How un-beneficial would it be if God allowed me to skip over the process?
Last month, our team went on a Mission Trip to Guatemala, and we asked our students and staff to write about the amazing things God did during their time there.
“I didn’t begin to fully understand or appreciate what God had done while I was in Guatemala until after I left. I’d never been on a mission trip before this, but I’d heard stories from people who had: Mass conversions, exorcisms, miraculous healings, awesome manifestations of God; people who had never heard the name of Jesus being touched and transformed by the love of God, and people coming back with their lives completely changed. So I kind of had this idea that was the standard - that’s what it’s supposed to look like. And that’s not what the Guatemala trip looked like for me at all. People weren’t getting saved left and right everywhere we went, there was no crazy supernatural event, and I didn’t have some life-altering revelation. In all honesty, I felt like I’d missed it. I felt like I was doing something wrong.
All week, people on our team kept sharing what God was doing in them and the kids we ministered to on the trip. Everyone seemed to be having these really intense God moments. I wasn’t. So I started getting insecure.
Have you ever felt like you’re just not spiritual enough?
Because I sure did. And this funny thing happened where I put so much pressure on myself to experience God that I started to miss what he was doing. I was too focused on what people thought of me that I couldn’t fully appreciate what was right in front of me. Even on our way back to the states, I kept worrying about giving people good answers when the endless tide of “How was Guatemala?!” started; like I had to prove that I didn’t fail. Prove this, justify that, present your case; trying to impress people is exhausting. So once my brilliant tactic of stress and self-condemnation failed, I gave up and decided to move on.
And something interesting happened once I stopped dissecting the mission trip. I started to find myself thinking about the people out of nowhere - wondering how someone’s day was or what a kid learned in school, wondering what God is doing in them right now; praying for them and for the ministries down there throughout the day. And then different events started coming to mind - the school assemblies we did, the street ministry - and I was able to take another look at them without the filter of “did I fall short?”
When I looked past myself, a common thread started to appear: Love.
Love doesn’t always look the same, and it took a lot of forms in Guatemala. One of the most God-saturated moments of the entire trip was at a funeral. We were supposed to do a church service, but a man from the congregation passed away suddenly. We walked into the memorial service and his wife was standing next to the casket weeping. The moment I saw her, I felt drawn to her. I felt this overwhelming love for her; and I’d never seen her before in my life. And the closer I got to her, the stronger it became. I felt her pain so intensely, but there was such an assurance underneath it all. I think God was giving me a glimpse of her through His eyes. I felt His heart break with hers, but I wasn’t afraid for her because I knew God had her. I just hugged her and told her I was sorry and let her cry on me. After I left, I sat down and cried and prayed for her. There was the strangest mix of heaviness and gratefulness, grief and peace. But eventually the weight lifted and the only thing left was this strong awareness of God’s love for people.
That’s what all of this is really about; that’s what it’s always been about. We as the church, and I personally, get so caught up in all of these programs and methods and details and perfectionism and striving and ambition; and those things aren’t inherently wrong. If flashy technology is going to help draw people in so that they have the chance to hear the gospel, use it. Light shows, fog machines, do it up. If following a strictly outlined approach to sharing your testimony is going to help you keep the focus on Christ, follow it. If practicing the same thing over and over a hundred times and striving for excellence in everything you do is going to help eliminate distractions so that people can more easily see God’s heart, then do it. Give God excellence in everything. But I think it’s so easy to get so caught up in the preparation and the details and making sure our end of things is covered that we quickly lose sight of the reason we’re doing it. And more importantly, that we’re not the ones who do anything at all.
It’s God.
The reason for all of this is that He loves people and wants to reach them and bring them into a relationship with Himself. For God so loved the world, right? That’s the driving force behind every message, every drama, every prayer, every conversion. The driving is not “I’m a good speaker,” or “I’m really prepared,” or even “I care a lot.” My priorities and my focus get messed up a lot. I easily become more concerned with whether or not I’m good enough - smart enough, strong enough, talented enough, spiritual enough - to do something. I take it upon myself to judge when, where, and how God can use me. And then if He doesn’t use me in the way that I’ve determined in my own mind to be acceptable and good enough, I condemn myself. Looking back on that time with the mourning widow, I probably could have done a dozen things “better.” And it’s tempting to attack myself with, “Why didn’t you talk to her and reassure her? Why didn’t you pray with her right then and there? Why didn’t you do more?”
But you know what? Maybe she didn’t need a sermon in that moment. If God wanted to use me as just a small piece of the puzzle to show His love through a hug, I need to be okay with that. Because when it comes down to it, it isn’t about what I do, it’s about what God does. And if I’m so focused on myself and on my own shortcomings, I’m going to miss what He’s doing, and I’m going to miss what He wants to do through me.”
Last month, our team went on a Mission Trip to Guatemala, and we asked our students and staff to write about the amazing things God did during their time there.
This trip to Guatemala was my third missions trip there. Every time I go, there is something about being out of my comfort zone, out of my normal day-to-day environment that stretches me. This trip specifically was in Guatemala City, and the Groundzero team went down to meet with one of our alumni, who is a full-time missionary down there, to help enhance the vision for ministry God has placed in his heart. We had the privilege to attend Peter’s home church in Guatemala, Sembradores De Vida (which literally translates to “Sowers of Life”). I had attended the church on a previous trip, and both times that I was there, God spoke through their pastor directly to me. In 2012, I remember being challenged not only in my discipleship with others but in my personal pursuit of Christ, God used that Sunday service to begin to shape a lot of what my current relationship with Christ looks like. This year, what was said that Sunday service by the Pastor was not only the major theme of what God was doing that week, but was a culmination of what God had been stirring in my heart for weeks. The Pastor spoke from Genesis 32:22-32
The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok...And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day...Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”...So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
The Pastor said one line that immediately convicted and challenged me; he said “When Jacob crossed the ford of the Jabbok and encountered God, it wasn’t Jacob that came back, it was Israel. Jacob stayed on the other side of the Jabbok.” Jacob had this encounter with God and Jacob left that encounter walking in the new identity God had given him, not the old. He left that encounter with God a new person, his old self stayed on the other side of the river, in Peniel. Peniel means “the face of God”. So
When Jacob saw God face to face, everything that made up who he used to be stayed behind
in the place He encountered God. It was Israel, the one who struggles with God, who left that encounter.
I immediately realized Guatemala was my “Peniel.” The entire week I had felt the Holy Spirit stirring something in my heart, and felt Him daily impressing things on my heart, and in that moment it made sense. God was going to do something in me that week. Was I going to leave it in Guatemala or take it with me? Jacob’s Peniel changed the course of his life entirely.
Sometimes it’s easy to be comfortable with where I’m at,
with how far I’ve come, especially in the areas I’ve seen God develop. It’s the areas I’ve seen God develop that I want to check off and say “I’m good,” when in some of those same areas God wants to do a deeper work than what He has already done.
There were certain things I was praying through, certain doubts I was feeling about my future and about my calling heading into that week, but that Peniel moment with God challenged my doubts; it challenged everything in me. Was I going to settle for what I had and where I was before Guatemala? Or was I going to leave the “Pre-Guatemala” Danny in Guatemala and not only embrace but also confidently walk in what He spoke to me? Was I going to stay the same? Every moment a person encountered the presence of God in scripture they were changed. You can’t encounter God and be the exact same person you were before that encounter. That encounter with God in Guatemala changed me. Not that I wasn’t saved before that encounter or anything like that, I just can’t look at my relationship with God or my life the same way I used to again.
Thinking back to the mission’s trip and that moment, it’s so easy to make that moment with God something I’d want to recreate. We’ve all had a Peniel. The moment you felt conviction for your sins, believed in your heart and confessed with your mouth Christ as Lord, that was a Peniel. If you haven’t had a recognizable encounter with God, a Peniel, eventually you will. And at least for me, it’s so easy to live for the Peniels, to live looking for God to speak to me in these big moments, when
Most of the time God is already speaking to me in the small everyday things.
Almost like instead of shouting every now and then in the big moments, He whispers daily in the small moments. He speaks in my alone time with Him, while I’m working, while I’m listening to music, while I’m driving, while I’m hanging out with friends, while I’m shopping, but am I listening to Him? Or am I so focused on having this huge “Burning Bush” type moment with God that I miss Him speaking to me? It’s a process to learn to listen to Him in the daily things we do, but the whispers, the daily exchanges with God, are just as valuable and just as much of a necessity as the big moments. At least for me, every Peniel, every big moment with God came after a series of daily exchanges with God.
Last month, our team went on a Mission Trip to Guatemala, and we asked our students to write about the amazing things God did during their time there.
“For about a week long, the week before we took our trip to Guatemala, I was asking God to fill me more with His Spirit. I’ve never been baptized in the Spirit, and I’ve been seeing that - as well as more of Him in my life on a daily basis. On our first day in Guatemala, our Co-Director read our team a quote that spoke of emptying ourselves before the Spirit fills us. It spoke of how we can get in the way, and I truly believe that what she spoke was for me. During the week I told God that I wanted Him to empty me of “me.” He did that multiple ways, but near the end of the week He showed me an area I was holding back from Him: He showed me that I was willing to let Him move in my present and my future, but I wasn’t letting Him move in my past. I feel so insecure because of my past, and I don’t even want to acknowledge that it exists anymore or ever happened. Although it sounds silly, there is a physical wall that I put up around those insecurities: makeup. I put on makeup when I feel insecure from the past or when I simply don’t feel pretty. I put on makeup as a mask so that no one can get inside.
God showed me that I was blocking Him out from moving in that area of my life.
I spoke to our co-director’s mom, who took the missions trip with us, and she encouraged me to do a makeup fast. She told me to give my makeup to Christine, and that’s exactly what I am going to do. From now through May 21st, I am surrendering makeup as a physical way to show God that I am allowing Him to move in my past. I want Him to spiritually heal me of my past and all the insecurities that go along with that. And on graduation day, May 22nd, I’m allowing myself to wear it in celebration of all the things God is going to do over the next three months.
I’ve been so scared to give God my past because, strangely, it’s a form of comfort zone for me.
It’s something that I hold on to, and I still don’t realize why. I’ve been scared that if I give God absolutely everything, He will change me. I know that’s something that we should see as a good thing, but it scares me; because it means that I’m no longer in control of my life. It means I am saying “yes” to His plan for my life, for the rest of my life. It’s this strange connection between giving Him my past and my future at the same time. But I’ve decided that I am giving Him everything. I’m giving Him my past, my present, and my future. I am giving Him my future relationship, my insecurities, the way I look, my career, and anything else He wants. I’m deciding to give Him everything.”
Last month, our team went on a Mission Trip to Guatemala, and we asked our students to write about the amazing things God did during their time there.
“In the midst of the mission trip, I honestly didn’t feel like God was really doing anything in me. Looking back, I see just how faithful He is even when my focus isn’t where it should be. I became more focused on getting through the ministry we were doing and making sure I was doing everything on my end to make it run smoothly. I was looking at the smaller pieces of the bigger picture and allowed my fear and desire for perfection get in the way. Yes, my heart was to minister to the kids, but my focus wasn’t on the bigger picture; my focus was on myself and on how God was going to change me and use me. And even though I placed all these expectations on this trip, of it being a great life changing experience for me, God used me, even when my focus was off like that, to step out and put my insecurities aside for a short time to show the love of God.
So, what if that life changing moment wasn’t in me, but through me to the kids we ministered to? Isn’t that enough?
Isn’t that what the trip was about anyway? I realized on this trip just how easy it is for me to get lost in my insecurities and use that as an excuse not to step up and lead because “I’m just a first year and I don’t know what I am doing.” I realized how small-minded I can be. I focus more on the little pieces and stress out about doing them all right rather than why I am doing what I am doing and waiting for the results God is going to bring.
Another thing God began to do is work in my heart concerning the death of my mom. There were two days that we did one of our dramas, “Strip me Away,” (which is a cardboard testimony drama, where we write down our fears and failures on cardboard signs, along with the victory we have in God on the other side), and I picked the sign “Death of my mom.” And each time we did the drama I went back to the times of her sickness and I felt angry. I wish that God didn’t allow her to be sick because she had so much potential. She had so much going for her. Each time we did that drama, I bawled my eyes out; each time that the name Carol was mentioned I began to cry. But I was so focused on my own expectation of this huge, life changing experience, that in the moment I was missing what God really wanted to do in my life. I had allowed myself to bury all of my feelings, and now God is bringing up these moments of emotions and I was wanting and waiting for Him to do something greater; missing out on what he wanted to do.
Again, I am forgetting that there’s a greater picture. Each and every small moment has a greater place in the bigger picture. It’s so easy for me to get lost in myself and my own feelings. As I wait in expectation for God to do great things in me and through me, I realize that I am the one getting in the way.”
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