Gutted [[States]]

If I had to label the past month I’ve been home it would be one of struggle and frustration. Much like what Jacob faced in Genesis, I’ve felt like I’ve been wrestling with God. Wrestling with why He would change me and give me a heart for the nations just to bring me right back to buffalo- where I struggle to keep afloat most. I’ve rocked orphans to sleep who have never had safe arms to fall asleep in, I’ve fed the poor living in literal garbage dumps, I’ve shared truth with women in forced prostitution, I’ve been part of leading a community of believers in Honduras back to wholeness and healing, and I’ve been able to speak life into my own generation as I watch God transform lives before my eyes- but to be home, to be home is a much different story and nothing like my new heart. I felt like I was being exiled by God and like He was taking back his promise of using me to reach the nations.

  

Straight up lies that the enemy was feeding me. 

So then why does God have me here for another season of life? Sometimes we need a literal representation of our state to see how far God wants to still bring us. This is one of those instances. You see, before I left for Thailand this summer a friend of mine let God speak through her to tell me I needed to be gutted. Gutted like a house that’s been destroyed by a flood- and I didn’t fully understand what God meant until the other day. As I was serving with some friends on the west side of buffalo- God began to wreck me. I stepped into an abandoned house that the ministry we were working with was beginning to renovate just to find that our first task was to gut the upstairs. As I grabbed a hammer and chisel and began to pry up the wood planks- it all began to click for me. An “ahaa” moment if you will, when you finally get what God has been telling you the whole time.  For every plank of wood I chiseled into and pried up I realized the things he still needed to pry out of my life. At one point after several hours of this tedious and exhausting work I began to ask God why not just build the parts that are beyond repair and leave the rest- but that’s not how he works and that’s not how you renovate a house that’s falling apart. Underneath the parts that even looked stable was rotting wood that the eye couldn’t see without taking it up. It’s a slow process and sometimes it is easy to want to pry up the pieces you know will come up whole even if its not the right time because you don’t want to spend the time or effort prying up the tougher pieces- but nonetheless you have to pry it up in a specific pattern, a very specific way. 

God has not given up the promises he has made me of reaching the nations. He hasn’t abandoned me into an exiled land how my blinded eyes were seeing. No, in fact he is right here, surrounding me with his presence as he lovingly chisels and pries away the parts of me that aren’t who he knows I am and strengthens every part of me as I’m being built up in Him.

God brought these verses to my attention the other day and reminded me of the truth in where he has me. 

“Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help. Love the LORD all you saints! The LORD preserves the faithful ..Be strong and let your hearts take courage all you who wait for the LORD.” Psalm 31:21-24

I am patiently waiting on you LORD, as you refine me, as you purge the places long devastated and build me up in you, in your love, and your truth. You are faithful abba-so I give it all to you LORD trusting that you’ll make something beautiful out of me.