T minus 4 days until our team heads to Nicaragua! I am ecstatic to be back with the kids that captured my heart last May. I have missed them so much over the past few months. No amount of Facebook chatting or Skype video calls can replace seeing loved ones face to face. God completely changed my life through the Nica trip last year. Since last May, He has been breaking me of my pride, selfishness, and self-righteousness and replacing my brokenness with His righteousness. God has been revealing so much about Himself to me over the last few months, and is shaping me into who I am in Him. Jesus is awakening my soul to know Him in a more intimate, personal way.
Last night at Revive at Red Tree Church, I was internally screaming to God. I was asking why I felt like I was falling, and why He seemed so distant. I pictured myself hanging off the side of a cliff, alone and gripping the ground above by my fingertips. I was asking God why He wasn't pulling me up- why was He allowing me to dangle on the edge of a massive cliff, with certain death at the bottom of the valley? Why wasn't He pulling me back up to the safety of solid ground? Where was He?? As I was screaming for help, God completely changed my perspective of this scenario. Like zooming out on a camera lens, God revealed more of the picture than I was seeing. The bottom of the deep valley was not death like I had thought. Jesus was standing there with arms open wide and ready to catch me. The "firm ground" that I was gripping was not safety; it was my
pride- which led to the certain death I had feared. He wasn't letting me fall from safety to my death; He was saving me from my pride and asking me to let go and fall into His presence. I instantly became overwhelmed with awe, comfort, and remorse for my own sin. My sin was widening the gap between myself and God, and was robbing Him the glory and worship He deserved. The only response to such a revelation from God is to collapse in worship of Him.
He is everything.
I am nothing.
He loves me.
I don't deserve it.
He sends me.
I go.
"For the
love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might
no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who
through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
