Draw the Circle Prayer Challenge Week 5 Update:

Today is a very special day for me.  

It is the 5th anniversary of the day I decided to leave religion and instead pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ.  I will never forget the sermon on that Sunday.  The preacher said:

The Purpose of a church is to RESTORE people, not to DESTROY them.

This was completely different from anything I had ever witnessed or heard from the pulpit.

It has been a marvelous 5 years.  More than outside circumstances being dramatically different, it's the inside that has seen the most change.  True, I'm still dealing with the remnants of that thinking, but I am no longer hopeless, depressed, and feeling that my life is destined to be lived in fear and misery.

To celebrate I am doing a sunup to sundown fast.  This is my first time ever fasting and it has been interesting.  I've never done it before because it seems to uncomfortable, but it seems appropriate that I kick off this new season of my life being uncomfortable because I am going to be pushed way out of my comfort zone in this new season.

The Power of the Testimony

This week in Draw the Circle, Mark Batterson wrote that churches who let members share testimonies tend to have radically saved people in them because radically saved people like to share what God has done for them.

This morning at the other church we've started attending we heard a fantastic testimony of God's provision with health and economics.  I loved the testimony, but I just loved the people who gave the testimony.  Judging purely on a surface level they seemed like a pretty unlikely married couple, but after listening to their testimony you could tell they were meant to be together and loved each other very much.

This week I asked God to make me brave enough to share the whole story of my testimony with people.  I want to share the ugly parts.  The parts where I was angry, bitter, and envious.  I want to be able to share the part of my testimony where I felt inferior, rejected, and unwanted.  I want other people to hear the WHOLE of my story because I know if I can make it through, others can.

GO IN AND POSSESS THE LAND

If there has been one recurring theme this week it has been that I have dwelt on this mountain long enough, and it is time to go in and possess the territory God is giving me.  It is already mine.

In my previous blog post I wrote about how after my experience with the new job, that I decided that when God gives me a vision I'm going to go in when he says instead of trying to figure it out.  The truth is you're going to end up where God wants you.  It is up to you how long it is going to take you to get there.  

I have LEARNED that when you go GOD'S WAY, the journey is much shorter.  I start my new job soon and I couldn't be happier.

It's time for me to move forward in my destiny in the secular realm and in the spiritual realm.

Time for the Love Connection

Forget Chuck Woolery.  Yeah I know Valentine's Day is coming, but I'm not talking about that either.

If I have learned anything in this last 5 weeks, is that I don't need a husband.  What I need is to be functional and understand what love is.

Today at church the sermon was about the Love Connection between us and God.  The truth is:  We can't love anyone until we understand loving God.  This is a foreign concept to most of us.  Most of the love we've experienced has been conditional.

I'll love you if _________, When you're good I'll love you, I can't love you if _______

Heck I was even taught in church for many years that's how God loves us.  Thank God I know better than that now.

Breakthrough: I don't need a husband

I can honestly say after these past 5 weeks, I have learned so much about myself.  I tell you I feel like I'm on the accelerated refiners fire program.  

The biggest breakthrough I've had is: I don't need a husband.  I need to be fully functioning as a human being.  I also need to be present and connected in my relationship with God so I can be present and connected with my family.

The husband wasn't the big need.  The big need was to know God loves me and that apart from him I cannot find fulfillment.  Getting married and looking normal in the eyes of the world will not fulfill me.  
What does fulfill and sustain me?  The love of God.  That love is in me and needs to be in overflow.

What did I need to learn in this season?

• I needed to know that I wasn't inferior
• I needed to know that I wasn't rejected 
• I needed to know that I had no reason to be angry with God because he has a plan for my life
• I needed to know that there was no room for bitterness and envy in my heart because God isn't withholding my blessing.  He's preparing me for it
• I needed to know that I had to learn to not just seek out titles and positions, but seek to FUNCTION in the roles that I want to undertake
• I needed to know that when God says to Go...I need to go!

So am I giving up the idea of being married?

Absolutely NOT!  What I am giving up is the idea that because I've never had any success in this area, this means I'm somehow unlovable and inferior.  None of that is true.  

What is true is that I needed to have a solid foundation and be fully functioning before anything resembling marriage happens.  If I focus on that, then my circumstances will change.  I have no doubt about that.  As Mark Batterson said:  if I focus on the footnotes, then God will write the headlines.

Battle Ready

God has spoken loudly and clearly that it is time to go in and take the land, but I have to be ready because there's going to be a fight.  There's going to be tremendous opposition!

Before this time, I would not have been ready.  I would have given up at the first sign of trouble.  As the Pastor said it's when trouble comes that God manifests himself to us.

I have felt for the longest that I am in spiritual training, but I am determined to follow God's command because he said that if I love him, then I will keep his commandments.  He also has given another promise.

God's Promise

“Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter. 9If you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the LORDswore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey! 1

To God be the Glory