Sunday 15 August 2010

Immeasureably more

This is a story of love. God’s love for Kirstie Randall. It’s only a snippet of the journey, but it’s been so incredible, I feel like I have to write it down. 

A couple of years back, I was waltzing along thinking everything was tippety top… verging on the prideful perhaps… and that’s precisely when I fell. I found myself tumbling down a deep and dark pit… full of ugly temptation that wanted to separate me from God. I could never imagine life without God… but I had become so dry from so much giving out and not enough pouring in, that my spirit no longer had the drive or passion or umph to even communicate with God. Following Him seemed so hard and quite frankly, unfair. Surely... oh surely, God would give me what I wanted and what I thought He wanted too. But no husband ever came. It fed my insecurities and gave life to the lies… ‘I’m not good enough’. And so I lived my life. Carefully negotiating and subconsciously avoiding any potential relationship; much easier to keep myself from potential rejection than to take the risk of finding love. And so the enemy carried on, weaving a web of lies and ugly destruction. I have honestly never felt so low in the last couple of years. And never felt so sad inside… never felt so utterly empty and alone… and as I left the ship, never felt such grief and loss of people and experiences so much… never so tired of my own pretence that, ‘everything was ok’ to the faces of people I loved. But what else could I do? To share seemed to equate with admitting defeat. I didn’t want to do that. My God of love was calling – and even though I could hear Him, I just couldn’t muster up the energy to climb out of the pit of rebellion and chose to stay there. I felt like I had no purpose, no passion, no energy… it was an ugly despair. But my God of love kept calling. And I decided, I guess… that it must be the only way.

You’d have thought such disregard for God, such disobedience, such denial, such arrogance and eyes taken off God to the lesser Gods, such longing for the instant satisfiers, you would have thought it would be a one way ticket, a point of no return, a smack in the face… a sentence to the pit of Hell forever. But no, not my God of mercy who is full of grace. Not my God who goes to the ends of the earth to tell His story. Nope, instead he turned it all around and upside down. He took me to the hidden pain and healed it, He took me to the deeply entrenched lies I had learned through life and destroyed them, He took me from the pit of despair and breathed life into me. He breathed LIFE into me! My little shattered, squashed, wounded, fragile spirit was made whole again and I began to find joy once more. That’s how it is with God you see, He turns things upside down and inside out.

Ephesians 3 :20-21 Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]-- To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it).
And now my heart is so full of thanks and praise… it fuels a passion to be His voice of love like never before. My heart has a new compassion, my eyes are learning to see people and circumstance, and even myself, through the eyes of the one who sees it all – who doesn’t see the sin, but the acts of brokenness… and who doesn’t come to condemn but to restore and redeem. How incredible is that!! God, you are simply beautiful. And as if that isn’t enough, He blesses me – totally, abundantly more than I could ask or imagine. There’s lots of parts of the journey that I feel like are incomplete – but I wait less and less anxiously, as I fix my eyes on my God who will always do superabundantly more than I ask or imagine. God of the impossible I trust you with all that I am and all that I will be.
But there’s a hitch. Did you notice in that verse it says. ‘…superabundantly more… according to the power at work in us’. I feel like the power is at work in me more now  - but at one point it really wasn’t and I’m pretty sure that’s why I wasn’t seeing the ‘abundantly more’. At work I have seen some patients miraculously get better, on the streets I have prayed for people whose lives I just know God is in the process of invading… I can feel the power rising up in me. I know that getting rid of those lies and confessing where I’d messed up and being filled with more truth has made way for a new wave of God’s power in my life and I am excited and expectant for what’s next.
You see, what the enemy meant for evil, God has taken and is using as a weapon for His Glory – where I was SO dry, I feel SO alive!
There’s all sorts of dreams in my heart right now… all sorts of wonderings and ifs and buts. But I know I have to be faithful with what God has put in my hands for now. So as I look to the miracle of Regina, I am simply in awe. What an incredible story of love and mercy. He goes to the ends of the earth to show His extravagant love doesn’t He? Awesome. It brings me to tears and sends shivers down my spine, because it is exactly what He has done for me. I love you God… I love you so much.

So to God be the glory. Wherever you may be at… may God go to your depths, clean you out, heal your pain, make you new, fan your flames and fill your life with purpose… with love always, kww xx