I just want so bad for her to ________!

After taking a leadership role in a ministry, my full time focus was the wellness and spiritual growth of others. Ministering and encouraging younger women who are in ministry training. Fruit didn’t come without its challenges, but I still see it as the greatest way to spend my life and gifting. For now, the Lord is pleased to let me continue serving in this way.

Part of my role in Central Asia is to disciple and to encourage the ladies on the team toward who they are in Christ – as they minister His message to the lost. Seeing what God was doing in these women’s lives made me fall in love with Jesus all over again. Sometimes people asked, what was my favorite part of my job? While I’d be tempted to answer, THE PIZZA! my real answer went something like this: I get to see The Gospel lived out in these girls. Jesus not only saved them from being judged for their sins, but He saved them from condemnation, shame and the attacks of the enemy. They’re getting the inheritance of a new heart, authority in Jesus, and freedom. The Gospel benefits, this side of heaven.

In the hard times, when I didn’t see the indications of any fruit, I would think, “I just want so bad for her to ___!” Fill the blank… make peace with God about that hurt in her heart, to see through the lies she’s believing, to believe that she can be transparent without worrying about being rejected, to believe she was made well and is not “spoiled goods”, to stop blaming the Lord for the sinful decisions of the fallen people around her that rebelled against God’s purpose for the role they could have played in her life, to walk with dignity and assurance of her worth as a survivor of x, y, z.

Praise God, on many occasions I saw their hearts receive God’s compassion, grace, and healing.

You might be thinking, “Whoa Nellie! Those girls had issues!” And I wouldn’t deny it. But I would ask you, who of us doesn’t have issues? Who of us has never had our hearts hurt by someone we should have been able to trust? Who of us has never felt shame about who we are when no one’s looking, our imperfections, our gender, our past? Coming into agreement with God is no small thing. It’s like being a bass, swimming upstream while hooks are tethering us back, so not only do we have to fight the currents, but we are in agreement with and have cuts from things in the past that still hang on to us. In a fallen race, no one is immune to sin’s affects. Not even those who are called to be on the mission field. By God’s grace these girls, in keeping with the bass analogy, began to see that the hooks weren’t from God, the hooks (while agony to remove) were not permanent, that their cuts could be healed, and that the current could be overcome.

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I see a whole lot of work ahead of me. I’m feeling pretty inadequate…that’s nothing new. I find God’s grace to do more that I imagine in times like these. But it can get tiring and lonely.

During the worship service on Friday night I responded to the invitation for prayer. While praying I realized Jesus’ heart for me wasn’t a cold list of unaccomplished requirements, and future requirements. I felt Him saying, “I just want so bad for Yvonne to ___!” Fill the blank… At first the thought struck me as silly. No one comes directly alongside me exhorting and encouraging me to grow closer to God and to seek Christlikeness. I’ve got to exhort myself and seek. Alone. No one dreams of what God can yet do in my heart, I have to dream and hope and work for maturity in those areas. No one thinks of me that way anymore, I’ve got to “go for” things on my own, and pray for strength to get anywhere.

While I believed I needed to seek God for these things, I wasn’t really aware that He WANTS ME to seek… God, the Almighty Holy Transcendent Enthroned Perfect One, dreams deep and heart-transforming dreams for me and my relationship with Him. When I’m in a funk, He’s not indifferent and disengaged from me, He knows. He knows. And He wants me back to “normal” and even better than that, He wants me to be “better” and to shape me to be just like His Son. When I'm losing steam, He's no twiddling His uncreated thumbs, shrugging it off as just another trial, just another valley we all have to go through. He is a consuming fire. He is The One who demonstrated the clearest purest most "no holds barred" example of "love", "dedicated", and "desire".

Catching on to this has made me feel less alone. It’s helped me get a more accurate understanding of Jesus, and a better sense of the movements of His heart. Jesus is The One who prayed for nearness, and for us to see His glory: Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

John 17:24 (New American Standard Bible)

Normally I have a really clear idea of what I want to say in a post, and have no trouble closing it. Today I don’t have any idea how to conclude!

I hope this makes some sense and perhaps casts a refreshing light on the God of Compassion whom we serve.
yc