looking up... and waiting

I am so thankful that God doesn't get impatient with me. His love is perfect and His patience is never-ending... and I forget so easily. Why do I have such a short memory of God's faithfulness? I don't know, but last night I think He was laughing as He gently but powerfully opened my eyes. It felt like he was shaking me awake, saying, "Look UP!"
I was sharing my confusion about what God is doing in my life with my friend Samantha, and she said she read something that made her think of me, so I read it. I love when God sends encouragement and direction through my sisters in Christ... that's why Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to give up meeting together. I just want to share the passage from a little book called His Princess by Sheri Rose Shepherd:

Wait on me, My princess. My timing is always perfect. I know you're anxious about many things, and I see your passion for the plans I have put in your heart. I know that you long to fly, and I see your enthusiasm. However, just as a vinedresser nurtures the vine and waits patiently for the right moment to harvest the grapes, so too am I working tirelessly to prepare you to bear much fruit. Don't run ahead of Me or try to fly before My plans are complete. Your strength will fail you, and your dreams will wither away. Trust Me that My dreams for you are far greater than you can dream on your own. You will run farther and soar higher if you will patiently wait for the season of My blessing. Draw close to Me now, and I promise that this season of waiting will bring you the sweetest of rewards.

Love,

Your King and Lord of perfect timings

"But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

This was a much needed reminder. My Father is faithful. He is working everything out. I don't have to worry, or try to run with this dream on my own... I just need to wait patiently... listening and drawing close to Him in the process. It's not about the destination... it's not about what I end up doing with my summer... it's about the journey. It's about what I learn and how I let God mold me along the way.

After reading this sweet confirmation that I am right where He wants me... waiting (still), He proceeded to shower His majesty on me and prove just How in control He is.

I was reading throught the material for the DNow I will be leading in a couple weeks, and God decided to wake me up. The first verse for the lesson that I read? John 14:1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God..." God has no need of shouting when His written Word can shake you to your very core. This verse... this is what God convicted me of and set me free from! Had I forgotten so quickly in Whom my trust rests? Apparently so. No, I wasn't taking back control, but a small part of me was trying to figure things out on my own and I do not have the ability to figure out anything. He holds the plan for my life. A troubled heart is one focused on self instead of God. Then, I read the biblical commentary that StudentLife provided with the lesson and God spoke. Loudly. The reason He said "do not let your hearts be troubled" is because He knew that mine was. Jesus knows that I have limited understanding about what is to come, and He is offering comfort. He doesn't just say "Oh, don't worry about it," He offers a clear alternative: believe in Him. "The remedy to pain, worry, and doubt in this life is faith in Christ." BAM. okay, God, you have my full attention. There is significance that Jesus refers to our hearts, because I am responsible for my heart, but I have entrusted it to Jesus. He will continue to prove trustworthy, just as He did for the disciples in John 14. "Through this trust their sorrow and confusion could be relieved, and they would be sustained in the trials to come." He IS our Sustainer.

God wasn't done...verse 2, the commentary says "Christ also reminded His disciples that even if they did not understand, they could always trust Him. 'If that were not so, would I have told you?' Jesus is not setting them up for failure or even for blind faith. He assured them that He only speaks the truth and has revealed to them all they need to know at this point in their lives." Throughout His ministry, Jesus called people to "follow Him" and called them out for having "little faith" because the only way to truth and life is by trusting Him. He called me out. I am so humbled, and so very thankful that He woke me up and did not leave me wandering in my confusion!

One last word He showed me in the study was Hebrews 10:19-25. I could just feel Him smiling on me and saying,"Oh my silly little daughter, do you not remember how I moved before? Have you already forgotten that I speak and I guide, even if you don't see Me?" Because these verses are the ones that He used to bring healing and freedom to my life at Passion:

"Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another- and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

He has proven His faithfulness so many times, and I will trust him always.

Songs on my heart:

"I won't move until You move me, I will wait... as long as it takes.

You're the Sustainer, so be enough for me.

You are my Father, and your love for me is where I find my rest."

As Long As It Takes -Meredith Andrews

India

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
He said, "Go and tell this people..." (Isaiah 6:8-9)
What people? Go and tell what people, God? I'm going. I know you called me, and I said I'd go. But where???????
For so long that has been my question. Not anymore. Sometimes, when God makes His will known, I get this odd feeling... It's a mix between wanting to jump up and down and spin in circles then fall down at His feet in adoration... and getting on my knees, bent low because it feels like my heart is breaking -hurting with the pain of a nation.

I'm going to India.

I don't know where, I don't know how, and I don't know for how long. I do know that God has put this nation so indelibly on my heart that I will never be the same again.
The excitement and happiness is from knowing. Knowing that vague feeling "I should go to India" is replaced by a definite "I'm going to India." Knowing that every step leading up to this point was preparing my heart to love a nation. Knowing that God has put these people on my heart and will use me to touch one. Knowing that if I can touch one, it will all be worth it. Knowing that I haven't barely tasted love for this country yet, and I won't until I set foot on that foreign soil. Knowing that I am called and set apart to be a light to India. Knowing that my mission starts now, not when I get there.

With this direction and excitement for the future also come glimpses of pain and suffering, and my heart hurts for India. God has broken my heart for these people. I just spent hours researching India, and I want to share a little of what I found. So you can understand why I'm so excited, yet so burdened for this country.
There are 2,223 unreached people groups in India. That's over 5 times more than those in China, the next most unreached nation.
412 million Indians have never heard the name of Jesus.
India has the largest number of orphans in the world.
33o million objects of worship in India- they're looking anywhere and everywhere for salvation... and so many are missing it
70% of the population is illiterate.
86% of the population lives on less than $2.50 a day. (stats from Mission India)

Dalits are those beneath the caste system. Considered "untouchable" by everyone, they are worse than poor- they're outcasts. They are not viewed as humans, rather people see them as a shame upon the earth and polluted. After accidentally coming in contact with one, a person of higher caste has to purify himself. They are undesirable and expendable. 40 million of these Dalits are slaves or live in slave-like conditions. They are in bondage to pay off inherited debts and live on less than $1 a day, making freedom impossible. The women are frequently the victims of rape and sex trafficking, because they are seen as "good for nothing else." This broke my heart and I simultaneously cried, "Lord send me to them. Those people are the 'least of these'."
But as I researched further, I discovered something amazing. For hundreds of years India has been closed to God and Christianity. However, recently there have been movements of Christianity and people are coming to know Christ like no other time in India's history. The awesome part? This movement to Christianity is coming from the bottom rung of the social ladder- from the Dalites. The least of these, the untouchables, the forsaken are finding freedom and LIFE in Christ. Truly the last will be first in the kingdom of God! (Matthew 20:16) These people, rejected by men, are finding it easy to trust in God because their eyes are not blinded by social standing or wealth or fear of popular opinion. These people are willing to give their lives for Christ because He truly is the only reason to live. They are shaking the social order, and the news of Christ is moving up the ladder of the caste system... from the very outcasts Jesus would have befriended in His day. It is obvious God is doing something big in India, and I desperately want to be a part of it!

There is a reason "Send me!" has an exclamation point after it. Once you have heard the call of God and felt His hand open your heart to love... you just want to GO! I want to go. Right now. But I don't want to rush ahead of God and end up drowning in my enthusiasm, so I am praying and waiting for His direction. I appreciate your prayers as well, because there are possibilites for me to go this summer, but if that's God's will then it will require some major trust... because it's expensive and I definitely don't have the money. So here I am. Waiting to be sent, but also praying for this country that has captured my heart.

More later, but for now... goodnight. Praise Him. My heart rejoices in the Lord!

Verse for tonight sent via text as an encouragement from Lucy Beth (thanks, love): 1 Samuel 2:6-10

Fearless

May this be my prayer:
"Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should." Ephesians 6:19-20
Paul didn't pray for his chains to be removed, but that every word from His mouth would magnify Christ. He prayed to be fearless, even in the middle of trial and suffering.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1
Christ has overcome. Live in freedom, and help others do the same.

Freedom.

Where to begin? I'm sitting down to write about Passion, with the knowledge that this will not be a short post to write or read... However, I ask whoever reads this to bear with me- I promise it's worth your time. This is the story of a heart set free, and for you to understand, I should start with some background...

This last semester has been really tough for me. The whole time I felt like I was wandering through life so dreadfully alone, and I couldn't hold onto the elusive joy- and I knew I was failing at following Christ. Why was it so hard for me to be satisfied in Him? Finally I realized it was because I didn't trust Him. I trusted that He saved me from my sin, but I didn't trust Him with the day to day decisions in my life or with my future. The awful thing is that I knew this was wrong, and it was a constant struggle between my will and His. I wanted to give in and let Him lead but I didn't want to give up all my control. This led to a battle. He would show me my lack of trust, I would repent, and I would have peace. A few days later I would fall right back into the habit of not trusting and trying to run my own life. I stayed stressed out and overwhelmed... and since I wasn't trusting Him I had a void in my heart, a small peice of me had died. So I tried to fill that void with other friendships... but that didn't work either because I wasn't finding my identity in Him. This led to a whole lot of issues that I won't get into now, but it basically affected every area of my life.


Fast forward to Passion. I knew I had this issue but I didn't think there was a way out of it. Then, Beth Moore spoke on healing. She spoke from Luke 8:43-48, a holy interruption, and said the biggest reason we hide our need is fear of what it will do to us socially. I saw the truth of this in my own life. I had been pushing aside God's conviction about my lack of trust because I knew dealing with it required admitting to others that I had a problem. Then she said something I think we all overlook: You don't have to wait for Him to touch you, you can reach out. Do you have the faith to reach out and take hold of the hem of his robe to get healing? He makes himself available. Then Beth said, "Some of you believe you're so broken you keep going back to the mud because you think you can't be cleansed." This was me. I thought I was destined to live shackled to my fear and lack of trust, always wondering what God's will was but never having the courage or direction to do anything about it. Then in Hebrews 10:22-23 God showed me how I could break the chains holding me captive: "Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful." My cry as I left that session? Father, CLEAN ME!


The next session Christine Cain spoke on slavery and suffering, and how we need to do something now. We were put here for a purpose and what is so important in this temporal world to keep us from living for that purpose? One line has stuck with me and echoed through the inactive and complacent areas of my life "As if the purpose of life is to arrive at death safely?" NO. We are to be fearless followers of Christ, because we do not have to fear what he has already overcome! I left the session with my brain awhirl... My lack of trust, being ineffective in my fear, all the darkness of the world and we hold the light...


I knew I wasn't going to be able to think straight until I spent some time with God to work out what this meant for my own life. I went to the prayer room and gave it ALL to God... I surrendered everything. He made me whole again and I knew my battle with trust was over because Christ overcame. However, it didn't end there. A journey of trusting God begins anew each day. Every day it's a conscious decision to trust Him with everything. A decision to give him control. A decision to follow His will with no fear of what may come. But I experienced healing in that room, and after that I could finally truthfully say, "It will be my joy to say: Your will! Your way!" He is faithful, and I know that those chains of control that held me for so long will not take me captive again. I experienced freedom at the foot of the cross, and ...well, I'm getting ahead of myself. That revelation came the next day...


So, this will seem unrelated, but bear with me. I am a very light sleeper, so that night I only got 2 hours of sleep... for various reasons. The next morning I woke up discouraged. How in the world was I going to make it through the day on 2 hours of sleep when it was a 30 minute walk to the dome and meals were grab and go? I knew I was going to crash. I asked a couple of friends to pray for me... that I would stay awake and that God would move in my life. Let's just say God definitely did more that I ever expected or imagined! The whole day I had so much energy and joy; it was unreal. I don't function off two hours of sleep. It wasn't until Piper spoke that night (I was wide awake- not a bit sleepy) that I realized the name of what I had been experiencing all day. FREEDOM.


John Piper's message was probably my favorite, if for no other reason than God showed me so much about my walk with Him that I was left speechless in awe. Piper's main point: Seeing and savoring the supremacy of Jesus Christ frees you from the bondage of sin for the sacrifices of love. (Seeing and savoring=being satisfied=trusting God) This rocked Amanda's world. The reason I couldn't see God? I wasn't trusting him. The reason I wasn't satisfied? I hadn't been trusting God. The reason I couldn't love others the way God called me to? I wasn't seeing and savoring Him, being satisfied in Him, or trusting Him. I realized that up until the day before, when God brought me healing, I had been in the bondage of sin. (Let's just say I took 6 pages of notes on Piper, but I won't get into all of that...I'll pull out the main points) "The more you trust Him, the more free you are." Whoa. This meant that since I hadn't been trusting him I hadn't been truly free. Suddenly my heart was crying for freedom. I had such an intense longing for God... and to figure out what this meant for my life. There was one thing I knew without a doubt: Part of me had been dead, but when God healed me He made that part of me alive again. I was confused, because I knew I accepted Christ as my Savior when I was 7... So how could part of me be dead? Part of me was dead because I had taken that part of myself out of God's hands and was holding it tightly in my own. When I let go, He brought me to life. Louie Giglio came up after Piper spoke and asked those who had been brought from death to life, who had given God everything, to stand. I didn't want to. I'm not one for big emotional moments. I started to worry what people would think. Then I realized... What does it matter? God has given me freedom! I have nothing to fear. So what if people think I'm a new Christian? I know what Christ did in my life. He did bring me to life, and in this freedom I stood.


Afterward Lucy Beth and I were so overwhelmed at what God had done, we knew we needed to talk about it and work through what this newfound freedom meant for our lives. A lot of prayer, some tears and digging into the Word led to me writing this in my journal: "I have been set free. Tonight, I stepped from the darkness of sin into light. Praise Him! I surrender. Everything I am no longer bound by the chains of my own making. Chains of mistrust, doubt, control, and selfish pride... are gone! For the first time in my life I am truly FREE! The darkness of sin has no hold on me. His LIFE fills me. Part of me was dead, but now all of me is alive. I know I asked Christ into my heart at VBS when I was 7, but as Piper said, living for His supreme renown is a desire not a decision. Now God has all of me, I'm holding nothing back. I have no fear because I am free. I desire Him with all I am because I trust Him with all I am..." I raise my white flag. I surrender all to you. All for You. I raise my white flag. The war is over, love has come. Love has won... I lay me down I'm not my own, I belong to you alone.


"If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." 2 Corinthians 5:13-15
I found this verse after Piper's message, and I love it because I felt like I was out of mind (still do)... but we are living for him so what does it matter? :)

The crazy part is Lucy Beth's idea. She's my best friend, and you'd have to know us and the awesomeness of our God to understand what happened next. Walking back to our hotels, we started talking about how we need to do something now. So many people are slaves to things like pride, anger, high expectations, control, selfishness... and we want everyone to experience the healing and freedom that God gave us! There's not a step by step process, it's a journey. So, Lucy said, "I want to write a book, and I want you to help me." "Ok, I'm in." And that's the beginning. We're going to tell people's stories, in their own words, about what they are slaves to and how they found freedom. If they haven't found freedom then we can share the wonderful neews that they can get out of the bondage of that sin! Yeah, it's crazy. But it's for Christ. I refuse to sit around and do nothing until "I grow up" when God has given me the opportunity to do something right now. Yeah it's scary, but I know He is with us. We went back to the hotel and had an awesome time of digging into the Word where He confirmed His will again and again. So, if you have a story... because most do... of bondage and freedom and Christ rocking your world, let me know :) Our goal is to bring healing and show the power of God over the evil one of the world. I'm excited!
I'm also excited about this hunger God has given me for his Word... I can't get enough of it!

Favorite verses right now:
"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. For in just a very little while, 'He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.' But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved." Hebrews 10:35-39 (emphasis added)

There's my heart :)

How GREAT is our God!

This was one of my favorite moments of Passion 2012... Voices of the nations joining together to worship God in adoration and uncontainable joy! Background, culture, nationality, language... these were not a source of division but a unity in song that revealed the beauty and power of our great, uncontainable, awesome God! It was a tiny glimpse of heaven... Surrounded by 42,000 believers from various nations, each lifting their song and heart to their Savior. How great is our God!

Then when Louie asked us to lift up the nations in prayer, to hear the voices of my brothers and sisters in Christ raised to intercede on behalf of the captives, the broken, the enslaved, and the believers around the world...God was there, and He moved in power. He heard the voices of His children, and heard their cry of FREEDOM for the 27 million chained in slavery. My voice was raised in prayer for India, the nation that has been on my heart for months... the majority of the money raised during Passion is going to organizations in India, to set captives free! So many who haven't heard... who need Him! Here I am, Lord send me! These are not statistics, these are not nobodys... these are people with names and faces and stories who desperately need the hope I have! Rise up. Raise your voices. Tell the world, so they may know the joy of worshipping our great God who gives LIFE.
"Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name;
make known among the nations what he has done,
and proclaim that His name is exalted.
Sing to the Lord, for He has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
for great is the Holy One of Israel among you." Isaiah 12:4-6
See the joy on the faces of the Ugandan children's choir? Worship Him in freedom. He has set us free! He deserves our all. How GREAT is our GOD!

*more about Passion 2012 soon!