A Relentless Pursuit

Every Friday night from 10pm to 2 in the morning during the summer, my church does what we call "Flippin' Fridays". We set up our BBQ outside an old mall/business centre and give out hundreds of hamburgers and hotdogs to all kinds of people for free. Why? We love our city and want to bless the people in our city. We want to meet the felt needs (e.g. hunger, value, honor, etc.) of people. We believe (and have seen) that the kindness of God leads people to repentance. 

I enjoy serving at these nights. For a long time I felt very awkward and out of place - these BBQ's were definitely out of my comfort zone. A few weeks ago, though, I began to have some very meaningful conversations with people. Yes, inevitably, there have been encounters with some extremely intoxicated men who stand uncomfortably too close to you and literally talk in your face, but I have also had some incredible exchanges with people who just needed someone to talk to. Just last week, I was able to pray with my friend for this lady who had extremely bad back pain. The pain didn't go away immediately but we later learned that all the pain had left the next morning. So cool! So now I willingly embrace the awkward and am open to whatever may happen, whether it be silly or deep conversation, praying for people, goofing around, or being part of seeing lives be transformed. Tonight it was the latter. This is a story of redemption. This is a story of an ordinary person getting to be part of the bigger "God picture" of someone's life. This is a story of the relentless, pursuing love of God. 

A couple in their mid-20s walked up to the BBQ and the guy asked if there were any vegan options as he said that his girlfriend was vegan. I told him we actually did have a package of veggie dogs in the freezer (thank You Jesus for that random package of slightly expired veggie dogs we had sitting around in there). The girl, Liz, was delighted and offered to make a donation for her special BBQ request. When I told her we didn't take donations, she said the least she could do was go down with me to get them. I happily agreed to that, unaware of what was about to follow. She seemed very interested in what we were doing, and started asking me questions. We quickly got into questions about God, and then she started telling me her God story. She shared that she had asked Jesus into her heart, had been to church and Sunday School as a little girl but when some difficulties with her father came up, and when her mom turned away from God, she felt abandoned by God and also turned away. She kept saying, "I love Jesus, I really do!" and said that she used to talk to God and go into her closet and pray, but that she hadn't felt Him for many years. She was so genuine about it and I could see in her eyes that she still loved Jesus a lot. I told her that God had never given up on her and that He had never abandoned her. "In fact," I said, "God is still pursuing you! The amazing thing is that even when we turn and run away from Him, He still comes chasing after us. He doesn't stop pursuing us." I asked her if she wanted to pray and give her heart back to Him. She eagerly accepted and grabbed my hands. It was so awesome - as I was praying, she would interject with her own prayers. She said she felt bad for giving up on God when, all the while, He had never given up on her. I shared the wonderful news about the forgiveness of God. God was moving deeply in her heart; she was bawling, and I was close to it, too. I could sense that God was coming and filling her up, tangibly, just as I had prayed. I asked her if she had ever been filled with the Holy Spirit. She said she was feeling it now. I prayed for Holy Spirit to come and fill her more, and to come with peace and joy. The funny thing is, when I started praying this, I began to be filled with the Holy Spirit too, ha. She was feeling it. She kept saying, "This is so beautiful!" and "I can feel Him!"

I declared that this was going to be an unforgettable day; a turning point in her life; the day where she came back to God. She agreed, and said she thought it would be significant for both of us. I have never experienced such a divine encounter with a person who was so hungry and just ready to make a decision like that, so, yes, I knew this was going to be hugely significant for me, as well. I was also getting rocked by the Holy Spirit. I felt filled with so much joy and, between laughs, told her that God was dancing over her. She knew and could feel it too. She expressed over and over again that she felt such a connection to me. As she was spilling out her heart to me earlier, she shared that she had been feeling alone and disconnected for a long time. I told her that this walk wasn't meant to be done alone and that we need each other to lift us up when we are feeling down and to remind us of the truth when we forget or get overwhelmed. She kept hugging me and we kept thanking God for this beautiful exchange. It's amazing the kind of connection that happens when two souls share a moment where the Holy Spirit breaks in. I know that something really special is going to come out of this relationship; I already feel we are going to be close sisters in Christ. She said she wanted to worship beside me and said she was going to come to church on Sunday, and that she wanted to be here [at Flippin' Fridays] helping.

WOWWWWW!!! ISN'T GOD INCREDIBLE?!!

He loves to display His character through us, especially when we are weak and feeling inadequate, as I was that evening. I am so honored that God would choose to work through me and show His love through me to call one of His lost sheep home. I have never experienced such a divine encounter with another person as I did tonight. 

I am so undone by the love of God! 

He leaves the flock to go after the one. We started out the night with an hour of prayer and had a song called "Relentless Pursuit" by Kim Walker-Smith playing in the background. The lyrics kept going through my mind and heart as this encounter with Liz was happening: "It's a relentless pursuit, a passionate pursuit; I will not stop chasing after you, the love of My life." 

He relentlessly pursues hearts. His love chases us down, again and again, in the fiercest yet most tender way. I saw that tonight: Liz came in feeling abandoned and hurt by God, and she left feeling filled with the presence of God. And for that, my friends, I will gladly face and EMBRACE the awkward, the uncomfortable, the strange, and the wonderful of Friday nights. 

P.s. She never did end up eating that veggie dog!

Aloha from Kona, Hawaii!

Wow . . . it's so hard to believe that only about a week and a half ago I was back home in the Emirates. This has been the longest week and a half ever.
More than ever I feel that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be and exactly where God has brought me. I love the wide and spacious place He has brought me into (Psalm 18)! I cannot help but proclaim the goodness of God over and over again as I sit here surrounded by such beauty: coconut trees swaying slightly in the breeze, fluffy off-white clouds hanging low in the sky, and a blue, blue sky.
This is the perfect place for God to romance your heart. You cannot help but fall more madly in love with the Creator after seeing the expressions of His creativity and beauty in the nature here. And that's exactly what's happening to me here: I'm falling more in love with Jesus every single day.

I struggle to put into words what all has happened so far. When I look at the person I was before I came here and the person I am now, I can confidently say that I am not the same person I was. God has already covered so much ground and given me freedom in so many areas and we're only two weeks into the three months that I'll be here! They say that these three months of teaching will be like seven years of church teaching. Talk about majorly compressed!
From the first day, everyone, including the leaders, knew that God was going to go to new places with this Fire & Fragrance school that previous schools had never gone before. Andy Byrd (who was teaching day 1 and the rest of the first week) got to the first point of his notes which was to ask for the spirit of wisdom and revelation from Ephesians when the Holy Spirit's agenda took over. We spent the next two hours or so crying, singing in the spirit, and contending for God to break in with His freedom specifically in areas of unbelief, shame, and self-hatred in our lives.
It was intense.
We realized that God had answered our prayers of asking for the spirit of wisdom and revelation right then and there. When that very Spirit comes in, everything that's not of God (like our shame, self-hatred, unbelief, etc.) squirms, disliking being exposed.
The rest of the week was focused on laying the right foundation: the foundation of the love of God. Our cracked and weak foundation of us trying and striving to love God rightly must be replaced with the foundation of His love for us. It's all about Him. Jesus needs to be put back in His rightful place in the gospel at the center of it all and we need to learn to simply receive that love which He has lavished on us. It's not about us loving Him, but it's about Him loving us. We love because He first loved us. God's love has wrecked me this week. He has given me fresh revelation on exactly how much He really loves me. Zephaniah 3:17 is something very special that I absolutely must share with you. It says this:      

The LORD your God is with you, 

   the Mighty Warrior who saves. 

He will take great delight in you; 

   in his love he will no longer rebuke you, 

   but will rejoice over you with singing.

Andy broke it down into something quite spectacular. The Hebrew words (or something like that) for "rejoice" and "singing" mean two completely different concepts than we'd usually think or associate with those two particular words. To rejoice means to spin around with wild emotion and to sing means to scream with a shrill voice at the top of your lungs. 

Picture God rejoicing and singing over you like that and I can guarantee that you will get so wrecked by His love. He's wild about you! He's crazy with emotion over you! His heart is RAVISHED by just one glance of your eyes. 

Jonathan David Helser, an incredible prophetic worship leader who's with us this week, has this song that puts it perfectly. It goes like this:

You are an endless ocean, a bottomless sea...

There's no end to the affection that you have for me

The ocean of His love for us is so vast, so limitless that we'll still be swimming in it for all of eternity and still we will not find any shore or any bottom. I'm letting that love come and change who I think I am. God is redefining the way that I look at myself. He is releasing me into the fullness of what it means to be a daughter of the King of Kings. He is giving my rightful authority because of how He has seated me in heavenly places. I am a co-heir with Christ! He is restoring my dignity and royalty. He is showing me who I really am. He is giving me freedom to walk that out.

I am my Beloved's. 

I am my Beloved's. 

I am my Beloved's.

It's who I am and who I will forever be. 

That's just a little taste of what God's been speaking over me this past week and a half. So much has happened, and yet I still want more. Who knows what these next weeks will hold? 

Thank you so much for running with me on this journey God is taking me on! May you be rocked by a fresh revelation of how much the Father loves you.