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 :)