Freedom's Fire.

Freedom’s Fire.

Freedom. We all desire it. The ability to not have to answer to anyone or explain your actions to others. We all want to live life freely, as do I. But the realization of wanting freedom and actually experiencing it, are two completely different things.

It wasn’t something I necessarily asked for, but when living in the plans of God, He allows us the freedom to live the life He so beautiful and masterfully crafted for each of us. This freedom, however, looks a bit different than what I expected. My freedom isn’t the world’s definition of freedom. I have to answer to God. I am allowed to live under His perfect grace and I have to trust His ways are good. This isn’t freedom where I live alone without rules, consequences, or guidelines. It is dependent freedom. I am quite certain I’ve never used those two words together in a sentence before, but there is so much beauty in the freedom God offers.

I have been in Italy for two and a half weeks, and God has spoken and breathed so much freedom into my life already.

 Freedom from myself.

Freedom from what “I” am supposed to look like.

Freedom from the “me” I created.

Freedom to live the way I was made.

This freedom has caused so many emotions. It is a beautiful picture of what God is doing in my life, but the most painful process I have experienced to date.

God grabbed hold of my heart a few years ago, and the journey we have been on since is indescribable. It is completely different to know about the journey you are on with God and to actually walk it out. I knew that God was preparing to strip away the parts of me that were holding me back from living fully alive. I knew that God wanted me all to Himself. I knew that His ways are so different than my ways. And, now, on my silver platter painted with a green, white, and red stripe of the Italian flag, this knowledge has become real life. He wants the grown-up version of me with a childlike faith. Oh, to balance this. He is stripping away the “me” I so desperately try to be (even though I didn’t have a clue what I was striving for!) and has placed me in the refining fire of His grace. For those of you who aren’t aware….fire burns. It hurts. It is painful. But it purifies. And eventually, after this process, He will be able to see His reflection in me! Be still, my soul. There IS benefit to living in freedom’s fire. Piece by piece, He is tearing away the “me” I knew, and allowing me the freedom to see Him more clearly.

“And I will put this third into the fire and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” Zechariah 13:9 

The Present.

I’m not a genius. No, according to a Facebook quiz my mental age is around 13 years old…you can say I have a long way to go (...but I also hope it was lying to me as well!) But, I’m just going to go ahead and state that it doesn't take a genus to know you can only be in one place at a time. In this moment, you and I are where we are, and unless I take a long flight back home, I will not be able to be where my heart longs to be.

I’ve realized the extreme intentionality of how God orchestrates our lives, even more so over the last 10 days. On August 5, 2013, I wrote a blog entitled FOMO – The Fear of Missing Out. In that moment, I did not recognize the life long lesson I was learning from a week vacation in Costa Rica. I was at the beautiful beaches and wanted to be home. Now, today I sit in beautiful Rome, Italy on the verge of tears because I want to be home. I battle between the reality of where I am in this moment and the urge to catch a plane to Georgia to go to Bible Study on Wednesday, Passion Conference this weekend, to see my friends and family…and my puppies! But, I’m not there. The more I continue to wrestle with my reality, the more weary I become. I’m living in a beautiful city with wonderful people and a language I have yet to master, but my heart leads me astray.

God calls His children to be present. He is good and therefore His plans are good. Why must I always question this? I second-guess my present state because it is uncomfortable, it is new, it is adventure, and when focused on my efforts I am more than a little bit afraid. I looked up the word “Present” in the dictionary only to find the following as synonyms: here, at hand, available, ready. When I am focused on being somewhere else than where God has me, I am saying to God, “I am unavailable to be used.” Wow. What a statement. When you put it that way, I don’t want to be that. Little by little he is unveiling the darkest fears from within me, bringing them to light so I may become fully available, ready, and present no matter where He may lead me.

I’ve realized my role now isn’t to be present but to pray. Though anyone who knows me knows that I love to be hands on, I love serving in anyway shape or form, but God has taken that away to place another task into my hands – not to be present physically but to be alive prayerfully. No matter where we in the world, the ears of God are always the same distance away. And in this time, God is allowing me the opportunity to purify my heart from one of doing to one of being still, praying, and waiting, whether or not I ever see the benefits in this lifetime. God is slowly stripping me of everything I know to be true about myself to reveal His reality of purpose for my life. He is transferring my longing of being “home” onto Himself. He has changed everything, so that I may know no gap to too big and everywhere is “home” when I’m walking with the Creator of the Universe. So, humbly from across the ocean deep, I will pray. Not with a heavy heart, but with one of great expectation for what God is doing around the world. Tomorrow, Atlanta will be wrecked for the gravity of the gospel. God is spreading out His people so all may see the glory of who He is and the beauty of His hands.  I pray that the ripple effects of grace with pour out on to broken hearts and lost souls. He is doing a great work! He will not be silenced! He alone is worthy! 

Living Fully Alive!

I've never truly been able to measure the strength of how God upholds me, until this moment. Not that I've never seen it, but many times I've seen it as an after effect of an experience or alone time with Him. He has quickly changed my perspective. I am mentally overexerted, I am challenged, yet, He alone in this present moment, is my constant. At times I feel like I have been thrown into the unknown waters of the ocean, but I've never been so at peace. I have asked why here, why now, and what am I doing with only one answer, "You don't need to know why, you just need to walk with Me." This. Is. Hard. Especially because before any walking, I like to plan where I am going so I don't get lost. This time is different. Today, I walked about 4 extra miles around Rome because I got lost. I tried to speak Italian to someone and failed miserably... as in I was trying to say "Good morning, have a nice day" and said "Thank you, bye." You could say I choked a little bit! But in what I see as failure God sees as change, little by little. God is constant because He is obviously perfect. I, on the other hand, fall devastatingly short of this perfection. He has me on this road to see change but to also see grace. I don't give myself enough sometimes - I wanted to show up the perfect little Mary Poppins, who speaks perfect Italian, and has all the right answers. Reality smacked me in the face to say, "You have none of the above." God speaks into my life saying," I'm preparing you to be something beyond the you you want to be." And all I can do is to give myself with open hands and speak, "But because you say so, I will."