My thoughts on Feb 25

*Somehow this didn't post when I first tried to post this on February 25.*

I learned a HUGE lesson this week (one that I feel like I have to learn over and over). It definitely is one of my biggest struggles in my faith walk. I love to have plans and I make plans constantly. And then I hold on to my plans with everything I have. God seriously has to pry them out of my hand. It's a painful but necessary process. It would be so much easier if I would just learn to trust in the plans that God has for me. I need to willingly let go of my plans and make it easier for God to take me where His Will for my life is.

Again I realized today that my life is a thrilling adventure. God has me living a Set Apart life. It the kind of life he calls us all to live. But oh I am only at the beginning. I have so many lessons to learn, ways to grow, and lives to impact and change eternally. My prayer to God this past month has been: Lord, Make me into a beautiful warrior, waging war on poverty, injustice, and the darkness of this world.

Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.~Matthew 10:34

With God by my side I will go to the wolves (read Matthew 10). I will love radically, speak boldly, and live fearlessly. I will keep fighting till the day I die. I cannot sit here in my world of comfort and safety while BILLIONS of people are on the road to eternal hell, people are dying from hunger, powerless children and women are being continually raped and beaten, there are 147 million orphans in the world who are in dying need of love, people treated unjustly, and a world and church that cannot see its own darkness and lukewarm-ness.

But God called to me in the night..."on earth as it is in heaven...Heaven on earth" Can my sinful, weak, little self leave earth a little more like heaven? I believe anything is possible with God who gives me strength.

The call is dangerous. The call is overwhelming. The call is a fight to the death of our fleshly bodies. Everything is at stake. But Jesus said, "Do not be afraid, for I have overcome the world."

This is where the Love of my life is. This is where He wants to go. This is what He wants to do. And I will follow. I will follow Christ through the sunshines, raindrops, and full on storms. He is the air I breathe. I CAN NOT survive without being where He is.

I know what this means. I know the cost. I have spent far to much time debating and weighing the cost. Here is what I know: I am deeply, fully, crazy in love with Jesus Christ. He has changed me, transformed me, and saved me. I will go with Him wherever. I know it will lead me down a narrow road bloodstained, with tears, hardships, and persecution. However, it is also a road of victory, joy, and a forever love story with Christ.

It is an adventure and journey not many people are willing to take. To be honest, I would have never chosen this path for myself. Even now I have doubts and uncertainties. I do know that Jesus is walking down this path and that's all that matters. End of Story. If Jesus is walking down this narrow path…I will too. He is my Love, my Everything, my Treasure--I have to be where He is.

The first step is the hardest. I need to take the first step today, right now, there is no time to waste. God has given me a radical compassion for these broken people that has put a extreme urgency on my heart. My time to fight has begun. I am about to begin fighting a war that has been waging for centuries. Luckily for me, I know the outcome of this war and you better believe I am going to fight and serve the winning side.

My eyes have been opened; I can no longer live in my life of comfort and abundance. I will go. I will fight. With God I will turn the world upside down to defend those who are helpless. His people, His children; they are crying out for the followers of Christ to save them…to help them…to love them.

When I die I want to be able to say my Savior, my Lord, the Love of my life, used me (I know it's crazy) to make earth a little more like Heaven.