The Journey

I find myself at this place in life.... a crossroads where everything has been laid out on the table. I've pushed my chips to the center and have declared, "ALL IN." I wonder if everyone comes to this point in life. Anyone else out there in my shoes? I have gone this far in life, and now that I'm here, I can't go any farther. I have gone around the mountain and now I am finally getting the picture. It's not that I am physically unable to move foward. (Although sometimes I think that even if I tried, my feet would fail me at this point) I can move foward on my own accord, but I have seen where that has gotten me. Around the mountain and back to square one. Back to this place. I was in this place in August of 2010. Moving out of my hometown of 14 years for the first time ever, I knew God was sending me on an adventure. I had a picture in my mind of what it would look like. After landing in my new city, Kansas City, I realized that things looked different than what I thought they were going to look like. Instead of stopping and asking the Lord what He was doing admist it all, I just took things into my own hands. And here I am... 4 months later... with the stark reality that I CANNOT MOVE FORWARD WITHOUT HIS HEART. It's a beautiful reality actually, once embraced. Towards the middle to end of December, I realized I was kind of feeling a bit lost, and like I was falling apart. Which if you know me, that is a rarity. I am the strong one. I have it together. I have a plan. I have an answer. I have.... yeah..... nothin' this time.

Through some processing and some advice from a mentor, I realized I MUST, MUST, MUST set my heart on him. I made a commitment at the beginning of the year to take these next three months (or more) to focus on Him. Learn about Him. Get to know Him. And attain His heart for my life. And I can proudly say that I have successfully done so. Three weeks have passed by and I am already waking up thanking Him and adoring Him. Sometimes I wonder... am I weird because I wake up and I am already excited to spend time with Him? Do any other 24 year olds do this? And then I think about how I MELT when my niece wants to spend time with me. When SHE actually comes to me and wants to sit in my lap. I am not a mother, but being an auntie gives me enough perspective to know that there is no greater joy than when a child wants to spend time with his/her parent. JUST IMAGINE HOW PLEASED HE IS.

That's all that matters.

I remember the first day in the prayer room after making my 3 month (or more) committment. I told God I had no idea how to navigate this season of my life. I had no idea what the rhyme or reason was to "getting closer to Him" or "going deeper". Christianese. What are the practical steps people!? How do I get closer to God in a 10 step program!? Ha. Step One. Be honest and admit to God you have no clue what the heck you are getting yourself into, and what you're supposed to do next. It works.... promise. Through this brutal honesty on my part, the Lord has returned the favor with showing me what I have to go after in this next season. I feel like He has told me that I am a little bit in the red zone... the danger zone... of never recovering from self preservation. Love is patient, Love is kind, Love... can be tricky. ;-)

I have so gotten into a place where I have safe guarded my heart so that I can neither feel heart broken or sadly, feel love at all. A worship leader at IHOP-KC has a chorus that explains this dilemna perfectly, "Self preservation steals the joy of sweet adoration." I believe that falls under many categories of love. Friendship, marriage, and even with God. I have felt the Lord nudging me to get free of this because I AM coming close to no recovery. And my heart LONGS to love. To love God. To love people. To love myself. To love my husband and children one day. I want to take care of whatever I need to now so that I can end up holding my husband's hand in fifty years.

So I took a break and went to sleep and now it is Sunday afternoon. I love God's timing. This morning, Dana Candler spoke at church on EVERYTHING I have been writing about. She put language to what my heart has been feeling. She talked about self preservation blocking us from the Lord going deeper. She gave a few perspectives to have when going into a season of whole heartedness. I basically felt like the congregation had dissapeared and Dana and I were having a conversation in my living room. One point I really loved that she made was her second perspective on understanding the role of hunger. A lie that is very prevalent to people in the prayer movement is feeling like God has not met you in your hunger. When you have put 8 hours in the prayer room and fall into the trap of not believing He has met you in your hunger. Dana brought up the point that it was God who put the hunger in you in the first place. The more we taste of the Lord, the more we want. So from the very first hunger pain we have, we really need to thank Him for it. Because without him placing a hunger in us, we would be unaware.

Hunger is a gift from God. It is not a sign of His absense, but of His presence.

So here I am, at the beginning of my journey, having never felt so fulfilled and excited before in my life. Now having realized that although I may have gone around the mountain, I still attained a level of maturity and hunger through it. Therefore it was not in vain. God is the GOD of redemption. As soon as I say yes, He is on the other end pouring out more, restoring and redeeming. Through this journey of breaking down walls of self preservation, I will learn to love Him and receive love from Him. The rest falls in to place. My one concern must be that I love Him and know Him more. To seek the face of God. To seek the knowledge of God. To seek the heart of God. To love Jesus with all my heart, my soul, and my strength. To yield to the Holy Spirit. What an incredible journey.

THANKS GOD.