Pre-India (TOMORROW!)

For ANM (Advancing Native Missions) I am supposed to write a brief synopsis of pre-India, while in India, and post-India paragraph.  I figured I'd post it on here since I have now given this blog to people who know I'm going to India.  

I am excited, I am nervous, I am still in the stage where it hasn't occurred to me that I'm going to India tomorrow.  I feel like when you're going on a big trip that you have been preparing for over a period of months, reality doesn't check in until you're on an airplane.  I am expecting big things for this trip.  How can I not when I have a big God?  I have been so beaten down by spiritual warfare lately that I know God has to move hardcore in the darkness of Mumbai.  I am stoked to speak life and love over people in India, whether they be Bombay Teen Challenge employees/volunteers, prostitutes, little children, AIDS victims, my own team members.  I am ready to be in India.  In 2009, knowing I would one day stand in India, I wrote this prayer:

Jesus have your way with India. My dreams belong wholly to you my King. I am Yours Beloved. You love your children in India and I love that I get to serve you. You Father, are going to change me in to such a new daughter after getting the opportunity to literally wash your feet, hold you, feed you, bathe you, massage your aching body, clean the pus from your wounds, love you Jesus.

I leave you, and the country with Matthew 25:34-40: “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father,inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

This book ...

... is completely changing my life, shattering my paradigms, crushing lies, proclaiming truth, giving me the keys to living a John 17:13 lifestyle.  

holyspirit, hitchhikers, & healing

Yesterday my friend gave me a word about how when she looks at me she sees me as bold, strong, confident, and assured.  I do not see myself as that usually.  I should because that is who I am in Christ, but I haven't been.  Today I was having a rough, self-loathing day.

As I left church, for some reason I went the long back way instead of the short way.  As I drove around a curve, there were two people walking in the lane I was driving in.  I was on a two lane road and a car was coming in the other lane, so I had to completely stop my car [mumbling angry remarks under my breath] before the lady noticed there was a car behind her.  As she and the man moved to the side off of the road, for some reason, I rolled down my window and asked them if they were okay or needed anything.  

You need to understand, I was alone.  I WOULD NEVER PICK UP HITCHHIKERS BY MYSELF.  Yet I found myself unlocking the doors and telling this man and woman to get in my car.  

Larry and Victoria.

They were probably in their 50s.  Engaged.  Had a lot of health problems.  Victoria had had a seizure that morning.  Larry had been in a car accident recently, which is why they were walking to town, not driving.  

I drove them to a gas station.  I asked them if I could pray for them.  They said, "Yes please!"  I turned around and grabbed Victoria's hand as she sat in the backseat of my Ford Focus and I began to pray.  Commanding healing, praying blessings, following the Holy Spirit.  After I said amen, Victoria looked at me with a tear-stained face and said, "Woah, you really have the Spirit in you. Everything you prayed...wow."  

She didn't get out of the car and jump up and down saying she had no pain in her knees.  But I believe the Lord healed her.  

I know her and Larry both had a love encounter with the Holy Spirit.  Her tears made that very apparent. 

I got majorly encouraged and edified.  The word was true, I am bold, strong, confident, and assured.  I am that, because I have Holy Spirit inside me.  Without Holy Spirit, I got nothin' but with Him, wow...  

Holiness & Love

Under the Old Covenant, only certain people could touch “holy things.”  Whoever the priests (who were holy) touched, would become holy.  I’m reading through the Old Testament and am currently in Numbers.  I just read a passage that said, “Kohath shall come to carry these, but they must not touch the holy things, lest they die.” (Numbers 4:15). Reading the OT has really shown me the magnitude of Jesus’ death and resurrection and how it literally changed everything.  Under the Old Covenant, most people, even among the Israelites, where not seen by God as holy.  However, under the New Covenant, in Christ we are always seen as holy because Christ is holy and we are in Him.  

There is a shelf above where my head rests on my pillow when I am laying in bed.  On the bottom of this shelf, the last time I was home from college, I wrote “There is nothing you can do to make God love you anymore than He already does.  There is also nothing you can do to make Him love you any less.”  This may seem confusing or not like a big deal, but think about it.  He isn’t going to love me more because already loves me perfectly. He isn’t going to love me less because Jesus died to take away my sins once and for all and Love counts no record of wrong.  So no matter how many times I tell Jesus I love Him, but then spit in His face, He still loves me just as much as when I read the entire books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs in one night.  No matter if I pray for 24 hours and do a 40 day liquid only fast, He’s not going to love me any more than when I said mean things to my mom.  He loves me perfectly and there is nothing I can do to change that.