Thursday, August 18, 2011

(day fifty) hurricane of love and miracles

I hope you don't mind another Ywam adventure story, but as I was reading today it came to mind. I'm gonna take you back to 2009 for this one... imagine yourself in the northernmost parts of India with me. Pretend for a second that you had been traveling for a few days to get there. Your modes of transportation included several airplane rides, a 10 hour "heated" train ride, and a few bumpy jeep rides another 6 or so hours up the mountain. By the time we reached the top we were pretty much ready to see the Lord in person... but He had other, not so attractive, plans in mind. As soon as we got out of our jeep (and kissed the ground) we were told we had to walk another mile or so- with ALL of our stuff. This included our 50 lb bags! (Oh my gosh... I'm getting tired just thinking about this again.) After winding down a very steep crooked staircase for another good bit, we FINALLY arrived!

The team crashed, but my co-leader and I began our duties. We were relieved to meet our laid back contact who was crazy about Jesus, but not so excited about what he was about to tell us. Something He forgot to mention ahead of time was that He was taking our team, the next day mind you, on another bumpy jeep ride another 7 hours or so to the boarder of Bhutan. I almost lost it. My very wise co-leader and I saw his heart for these people (through our exhaustion somehow) and knew that if we could make it there alive that God must certainly have BIG plans in store for us. And He sure did. Way bigger than we ever could have imagined.

On our way He told us that there were about 30 or so brand new Christians that didn't know anything about God other than His love and they needed us to teach them about His truth. We were basically running a typical 3 month discipleship school in 3 days. Crazy? Maybe. Possible? Always. Marcus, our contact, kept encouraging our team to ask God for more. He had seen a lot of miracles in this area and knew that something very awesome could happen.

So, one of the nights he decided to do a "game night." That particular evening my co-leader and I decided to stay back at the house for a little down time. We also had some details to work out for the next leg of our journey. Dinner time rolled around and we began to wonder where our team was. I went down to the church, heard some loud praying... and returned to the house. Still, hours went by and nothing. Finally at about midnight they came back full of energy and excitement! Not exactly what I expected to see. They were talking ninety to nothing about all of the miracles they just witnessed!! They saw a paraplegic man walk again, they saw people healed of sicknesses and diseases...everything! Their stories were simply amazing! This is something every missionary dreams of..... but wait, I was 500 feet away and missed the whole thing. Are you kidding me??? I came all this way around the world to see people healed and missed it!!!!!! In my head I was screaming, but on the outside I was trying to keep my cool and be happy for my team.

I quietly grabbed my co-leader and we went for a little walk. As soon as we got far enough away from the house we started to become angry at God for letting us miss such an opportunity like that! The more we selfishly huffed and puffed, the more our rotten attitude became quite evident. All the sudden God patiently said..."so you think this whole thing is about you?" Ouch. Then I felt Him ask me why I couldn't rejoice with my team for what HE did that night. Ouch again. To make a long story longer I learned several valuable lessons that night. One- it REALLY is all about Him. Two- it doesn't matter if you are actually there or not, we can still rejoice in what God is doing globally in and through people's lives! Three- it doesn't matter if I ever saw an actually healing because God is always healing things that we don't see, like the heart (which is way more valuable and eternal than our physical bodies anyhow).

As we sat there.... learning, we looked up into the sky and repented for our ugly pride. It was one of those "fear of God" moments when you suddenly see how small you are in comparison to how massive and amazing God actually is. We simply asked God to reveal His love again to us... so that we could continue to pour it out to our team and others that we would encounter on this trip. It was almost as if we had just been spanked and needed a big ole hug from our daddy to know He still loved us. Of course we knew He did, but just as we were finished praying it started thundering off in the distance. The storm seemed to be moving pretty fast so we got a move on. Right as we stepped onto the porch the sky opened up. I believe that we witnessed something close to a hurricane that night. As we were standing on our rickety little porch watching the palm trees bend completely over almost touching the ground, one of our favorite songs came to mind. A song by John Mark Mcmillan called "How He loves".

We sat there belting out the song with tears streaming down our face and the rain and wind circling us. I knew in that beautiful moment His fierce undying love for me.... for all of us. I knew that it wasn't about me at all... but that He took pleasure in using us and letting us be part of the blessing. I was overwhelmed by His love in this moment, I knew I would never be the same. Perfect love does not exist on this earth... but it does exist in Him. He is this love that we so desperately long for. Imagine for a minute what perfect love would look like and then times it by infinity. Know that in this moment... right now (even if you don't feel it) He loves YOU that much. He can't possibly love you any more than He does because He already loves you to the highest degree of love. Just sit and rest in this for a moment while you let these lyrics speak revelation into your heart.

Verse 1:
He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

Pre-Chorus:
And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Chorus :
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.

Verse 2:
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

Chorus

The next day revival broke out in this village and hundreds of people were saved and healed. I've never seen anything like it in my entire life. We prayed for so many... and saw their lives completely changed. It was the coolest miracle shindig ever! The most humbling miracle of them all was this small boy that was deaf in both ears. I held my hands over his ears and began praying. As I did something strange started to happen. I told God to give him my hearing. I knew that at the very least God was healing something in this boy's heart (which was awesome) but I REALLY wanted him to hear. After a few minutes of praying I leaned over and whispered into the boy's ear, "Jesus loves you." The boy looked at me a little funny at first... and then repeated the words I had just told him the best way He could!!! Oh my goodness, I was amazed!!! I knew that God had not only healed those people that night, but He had truly healed me from my own pride and selfishness. What I would've missed out on if we had decided not to come on this trip! God is so so so good.

Today I experienced another miracle of my own I'd like to share with you. I received an email today from my travel agent telling me that I need to buy my ticket to new zealand tomorrow or the price would go dramatically up! As I began praying for a miracle, I told the Lord that it would have to be Him... because there was no possible way for me to come up with the money in one day. A few emails, phone calls and texts later... God provided every single penny I needed for that ticket through some unbelievably generous friends. I'm amazed, humbled, and honored to be apart of such a wonderful family in this kingdom of heaven on earth with such a good Dad who loves His kids like a hurricane.

B90: (Isaiah 10:14-25:12) "He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation."" Is. 25:8-9


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