Stepping Into The New, Abandoning The Old (1)

I didn’t want to touch my feet to the soil. It had burned me, stung me, tainted my innards with an offensive taste and smell.

I was poisoned by love. Ran from the call. Would have rather served in China or Guatamala, or the barren lands of Africa…

Before believing God might call us here.

But how…

The very direction we might be running from, could actually be the positioning He wants for us. The dest.ination we distain and draw offense from can be the very thing, God calls us to come have victory over.

And why is it, fear often comes in the direction of our God-given call and destinations?

Yet, it was not me, running towards it. It was me laying abandoned and not closing my ears to that still, small voice. Coming to reconcile His plans and purposes…

So long, so clear…that I knew I would be in disobedience if I shut my heart to what He was asking.

And we have been taught well in our culture to think smarter, be stronger, a thousand times a million lessons about how we can create purpose just by pressing in, doing “what’s in OUR hearts”…

Stepping into that place of our passion and vision.

Yet, why have we forgotten, hearts can be selfish, deceiving, and deceptive above all else. It’s His voice only, leading us in right directions.

And, I wonder sometimes, just sometimes, could the very place we think we detest most, the people we are resistant to, the cultures we aren’t most drawn, be the very people aand places He calls us to place our feet….

Mix in the soil and remove the dirt from our very own hearts?

And if obedience was only about feelings, we all would be faithful, the saints would gush blessings, and the church would spread like wildfire amongst every region, far to every nation.

And the best and most used and most fruitful of all His children are those that He says “Go”, and they respond immediately, “Yes, Lord.”

He says, “come” and they are willing. The recognition and desperation for Him drowning out every selfish-want.

And I can become an expert at avoiding His presence, running from His goodness, justifying my own goodness in light of my own selfishness.

“Go”, an echo of a message He spoke long ago reverberates through my soul. The wave of a continual motion He set in stage since being a child.

And I hear Him on the back porch…In the quiet and comfortable, in the grand and wide open and safe and least suspecting places…

In the unexpected we frequently find Him.

And I wonder if He does this because we know it’s not us; our fasting, our lamenting, our labor and waiting and pressing and pursuing.

Just like a Good Father approaches His children to give them good gifts. It’s not payment, but solely out of love He gives.

How much better the present unearned or undeserved….When just given, without strings, demanding repayment, compensation or good works.

When the child’s hands aren’t openly begging, when they are going about their day and a voice from heaven peirces the sky between this world and that.

It was our Twenty-fifth wedding Anniversary. I had an unlimited supply of where I wanted to go and why.

Yet, the ancient Inca ruins seemed to call me. The country of my husband’s origin. The earth of the ancestories of those who fougth the Spaniards for gold and supplies, for territory rightful given the to them…

And oh, the lies. The lies that everything we touch is rightfully ours. That sickness of sin that says we get to attain and possess and are never accountable to anyone.

Yet, we serve a God who gave; gave His son, gave His life, experienced death…so we could walk in freedom from sin and selfishness.

Yet, Spaniards demanded the humble Incan land…in promise of getting something for themselves.

And what do we ever have left when we squash another man, step upon his head, to make our ownselves higher?

So, we went. Three planes, walking cobblestone streets in Cusco. To the land of awe and wonder. The place they say is so heigh, it robs you from breathe…

And that it did…in the most fearful, yet incredible way…

(More on our last trip to Peru to come)

My husband is leaving again to the small village of Carahuasi. If you feel called to help us buy shoes for kids in need, click HERE)