I can't believe it has been a week since I posted. I should have posted something each day as I have gone through this journey (yes, in one week I have been on a journey!). It has been truly amazing! I can't even find the right words to describe it!
Before I began this study, I would always ask "How do you know it was God?" "No, seriously, what made you know without a doubt that what you heard was God? Did you hear "the voice'"? I was at a loss - truly. This study has taught me more in 6 weeks then I ever dreamed was possible. First - you CAN have a love relationship with God that is real and personal. I've always heard that - well maybe not in those words - exactly. MY church does a fantastic job of preaching a relationship with Christ. I just didn't get it until now. Maybe it takes me longer to understand things - I don't know. I truly don't, but what I do know is that over the last 6 weeks I know that God loves me more than I ever dreamed possible. Why? I don't think we will ever know why God chose us specifically, but he did and that is all that matters.
I am going to try really hard to convey my journey for you as I have experienced it over the last week - it may be long, but it is amazing!
Over the last couple of weeks, I have had this overwhelming sensation that God was telling me - Come to me, Learn who I really am, Learn that you can trust me, just come...At the end of one of the previous weeks I felt God tell me - Get Ready! I knew something was up because I would never ever in a million years tell my self to "Get Ready". I am EXTREMELY impatient. I am type A and I need to know right now! As my boss says - Instant gratification takes too long. Get ready? Seriously? Come on!
Rob and I share the same workbook and we both get up at 5 am. We were supposed to alternate - excise, study. Well....that was the plan anyway. You know how that goes! So, anyway, it was his turn to do the study and God had already impressed upon me, "Just because he is doing the study it doesn't mean you can't spend time in my Word." Ok, so I started reading 2 Corinthians....and these verses seared into my being like nothing before them:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sin against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us..." 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (emphasis mine)
When I read that - WHOA! If I am saved, which I am, then the God of the universe has committed to me personally his message. Christ resides in me so that I may share it with others. I am an ambassador for Christ. WHOA AGAIN! I never ever got this. NEVER. It still affects me the same way as it did last week....It's like these verses have affected my soul...
Yesterday everything started to come together. I was home sick from work so I decided to catch up on the study from what I did not do over the weekend. The study brought up Jeremiah 1:5:
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
I read this verse and I was like, huh - interesting. I picked up the book I am ready, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and what do I read? Francis Chan going into the woods for a 4 day retreat - what does he open his Bible to? Jeremiah 1! SAME VERSE!!!! At this point I am freaking out! Ok, God what are telling me? (Lots of freaking out and wondering and reading past journal "stuff" and applying it to now) I thought, ok, he is confirming my desire to go to Honduras on a mission trip in September. GREAT! Rob gets home....we start talking while the kids are outside. At this point, I am thinking, maybe God is calling me for something bigger than this one mission trip - well, I know it really. Rob and I are talking about it and us being missionaries (??????) and he says - I think you need to go to Brazil. Brazil? That trip is only one month away! I'm going to Honduras, not Brazil. Brazil is expensive - like - expensive. He said, I think you should at least pray about it. Ok, honey...I'll do that.
This morning, I am praying and writing in my journal as I have found that is a good way to focus my mind and not wander....I'm thinking in my head, Lord do you want me to go to Brazil because...and then I hear it (not "the voice") clearly - What about both? WHAT???? Both? How is that possible? BOTH? REALLY?
I sent an e-mail to our pastor - would you believe it? Someone backed out and there is room for me on this trip? I'm FREAKING OUT! (Can you see and hear the type A through this post? LOL)
I shared with my Experiencing God class after my hour long talk with my pastor....so, I am going to BRAZIL! On May 7th.....33 days from now.
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