go.

GO.

SUNDAY, January 27^TH, 2013

Today started out fairly normal, I guess. I woke up when my alarm went off for church and honestly thought about sleeping a little while longer and watching the message online. I decided after last night’s emotionally charged activities, it would be best for me to get out of bed and worship at the actual church building this week. It was a cool, rainy morning this morning. Perfect sleeping in weather...

I pulled myself out of bed and jumped in the shower. My mind was wandering in a thousand different directions. Work. Family. House. Benin. Friendships that have fallen by the wayside. Feeling unsupported by a support system that I've had my whole life. If I had milk for my cereal. It was a long, quiet shower. And I stood in my closet, trying to figure out what to wear and my purple African skirt caught my eye. It looked ridiculously cold outside, but I pulled the skirt off the hanger and knew it just felt right to wear it today.

On my way to church I was praying about some things that have been heavy on my heart the past several weeks and especially over the past several hours and I pulled into my church’s parking lot with an anxious heart, knowing I was going to hear something I needed to hear…

I have been going to Life Church’s Broken Arrow campus basically since I came back to the States this past summer. This change was drastic and something that I prayed about often and felt such a peace about when I finally decided to leave the church I’d always called “home” and leave a support system I'd had my whole life. LifeChurch has been a breath of fresh air and has really renewed my faith in the body of Christ and what His body should look like, especially among people my age.  Without going into too much detail (because it’s not necessary) it became very clear to me during my time in Benin that my home church was no longer home and the Lord began stirring in me the decision to go somewhere else. I am thankful I found Life’s BA Campus and I was reminded of that gratitude this morning when I got out of my car…

I was talking with a family as I was walking in and the lady greeting me at the door smiled really big and said, “Good morning! Oh my word. I love that skirt!”  “Oh, thank you.”   “It’s so bold and the colors are beautiful, where did you find that?”   “Oh, well, funny you should ask. It’s actually from Africa.”    “What? Africa?”   By this time the other greeter lady was in on the conversation… “Yeah, I work with an orphanage in west Africa and this skirt was made during my last trip over there and I just felt like I needed to wear it today to make me smile!”   “That is the coolest thing ever!!” And I walked off. Or in, I walked into the church lobby. Found some friends. Found a seat.

There is this song by Hillsong that we sang this morning called Search My Heart and the first time I heard it was at Beavercreek Nazarene when I was in Ohio. I loved the words the very first time I heard it and it has been a prayer I have prayed over and over since that morning…

Shine Your light


And show Your face


In my life


Lord, have Your way

So with all my heart


And all my soul


With all I am


Lord, I will follow You

The next song we sang this morning, 10,000 Reasons, moved me to tears and I almost turned into a hot mess right in the middle of a crowded sanctuary with strangers all around me. I held it together, but I just kept thanking the Lord over and over for all the goodness He has shown me…especially these last 12 months…

Okay, onto Craig’s message from this morning. Today was the last sermon in a series titled “My Story: Living the story you want to tell”. The past weeks were entitled start, stop, stay and this week’s sermon was entitled go. I will give you the cliff notes version here, but as you can imagine, I had one thing on my mind throughout the entire message…

Craig began by talking about how each and every person on this earth has a story to tell. Will I look back on this chapter of my life and be proud by the story I’ve told? Because the decisions I make today determine the stories I will tell tomorrow. I sat there quietly, thinking about the past few months of my life…this time last year I could never have IMAGINED my life would look like it does right now. I don’t even remember who I was then, but the decisions I made this time last year, created this story today. And I love this story.

The main premise of today’s sermon was that sometimes the best decision that can be made is to GO when it would be easier to STAY. To take a step toward God and trust that He will take a massive step toward me. Craig took us to the story of Abram (before becoming Abraham) in Genesis 12. It is right when God calls Abram and in Genesis 12:1, the Lord said to him, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” For Abram to go somewhere new, he had to LEAVE where he was. He had to leave what he knew, what was comfortable, what was predictable and GO.

In the very next verse, the Lord goes on to say “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people on earth will be blessed through you.” So what did Abram do? He left. He did just what God told him to do. He didn’t have answers. But he took a step of faith and because of his faithfulness, he became the father of many nations.

What is the Lord asking me to do? It has become pretty obvious over recent days and moments that He is asking me to do one thing. To GO. And that is scary. And I do NOT have any answers, but I was reminded today by Pastor Craig that I do not need all the answers. I have to have faith that when He tells me to go, I will trust Him and go. I will leave the predictable, the comfortable, the known and I will take a step of faith into the unpredictable, the uncomfortable and the unknown and I don’t know what is waiting for me there, but I know one thing. I can trust that my every need will be taken care of. I can trust my unknown future to my known God because He is faithful.

If He calls me to do it, I have to do it. And this morning, sitting in that dark sanctuary, I made a resolve to the Lord and to myself, I will follow Him with all that I have. And I will GO where He is calling me to GO. And it may not be the easy way, and people may not understand, and I may be insanely scared about what all of this means…but I will take a step toward God believing fully that He will take a massive step toward me.

Craig ended his sermon with this, and I loved it…

I will tell one of two stories with my life: By faith, I went. Or by fear, I did nothing.

I don’t ever want to sit back and take the easy road and live the life everyone expects me to live. I want to live a life of complete abandon and I want to say “Yes! By faith, I went. And the Lord wrote a beautiful story with my life…”

So then I got in my car after church and called Ashley in Benin and decided that I am going to put my house on the market…