The Nations for an Inheritance

"Ask of Me, and I will give you The Nations for your inheritance. 

And the ends of the earth for your possession."

Psalm 8:2

This is my deepest hearts desire.  The nations for my inheritance.  We are on the final hour countdown, just over 24 hours and we will be leaving the place we know,  for a people, a city, a nation that we do not know.  A people and a nation in need of Christ, the HOPE of glory!  A people and a nation that is KNOWN by my Abba Daddy, whom He loves, He sent Jesus for them!  They hear His small still voice in Mandarin, just as we hear Him in English. 

I have asked the Father several things over the last months.  I have asked to speak Mandarin, to hear Him in Mandarin, to prophesy in Mandarin.  Yes, just like the day of Pentecost when everyone heard the gospel in their own language.  God is just as powerful now as He was then...so yes, I am asking for the tongue of Mandarin. 

I have also asked Abba Daddy, how is it that I am to pray for this place that I do not know, this culture I cannot even begin to fathom, and He has said time and again, ask for it for your inheritance.  So I ask, no, I must say I am on my face crying out for these who do not know him and yet I already love. How is that? How does HE desposit that kind of love in me?  But you see it is not me, it is HIM in me that loves a people I have never met and a country that I long to call my home. 

I have asked God for the rains to fall, for the harvest to be ready. 

"then I will give you the rain for your land in its season,

the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, your oil.

Deuteronomy 11:14

During worship Saturday night a very dear friend came up and said she was praying for rain to soften the land of China, that we would walk in power and plant seeds, see the white harvest.  Then she said something that was amazing and crazy...so like God, she said I am praying for rain in the natural on the day you arrive to prophesy the rain in the supernatural that will occur.  We have been checking the weather there and there was no rain in the forcast.  When I got up this morning to see, there is now a 40% chance...

Rain God, bring your rain!  Bring your power!  Bring your Hope of Glory!  Give me the nations for my inheritance and the tongue of Mandarin!  We want to work where you work, do what we see you doing, say what we see you saying!  We want more of you!

Peace

There is a scripture that I have always known and most of us can quote:

"and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:13

Our China journey has brought me to a place where I finally really understand the peace of God.  Sure, I have always thought I knew about it, but I still worried about this situation or that issue.  Never have I felt the peace that I feel sitting here 3 days before a trip that will change the course of the life of our family. 

It has been a busy, busy time for us.  We have made trips to see family, last planning for China, countless trips to Walmart (each time I say this will be the last time).  It is a challenge to prepare what to take to a place you have never been and don't know what's available. 

I had the honor of being a part of a most beautiful wedding ceremony for our dear friends' daughter.  I created the cake. 

Without a doubt it was my favorite.  It turned out exactly how the bride and her mother wanted.  I think it was my favorite because of the love I have for the family I got to serve.  The Stricklands are the picture of Christ--in their marriage, in their giving, and in their family, their parenting. Their lives reflect our Father in a georgeous way.  It is amazing.  They, like us, are called to "Go".  They are headed to Mozambique.  And, like us, love China.  Their 3 young sweeties are adopted from there.  The wedding was an amazing, blessed night! 

I had so many people leading up to the wedding ask me if I was "ok?"  And my only answer was a smile and a yes.  You see, God planned this week for me in the most spectaular of ways. I returned home from New Mexico in time to recieve a very special envelope that revealed to some very dear friends the gender of their upcoming baby.  I was to make the cake to reveal to them along with our small group.  

 

It is a BOY!!! Stephanie and Joseph have 2 other boys and have the honor of rasing these young men into warriors to take the kingdom of God to the nations!  To Bring Heaven to Earth!  We are so excited for them!! 

Then the wedding was next.  But God, in his mercy and grace, blessed me with a fun busy week that has flown by.  One that, in the midst of what some would deem as stressful, for me was full of joy, rest, and peace! 

My fleshly nature is one of control and planning, one that likes to know what is next.  And yet in the natural what is going on in this season of my family's life is full of questions and very few answers, where I have no control whatsoever.   However, I have more peace than I have ever had in my life.  It is supernatural, it is peace that can only come from my Abba Daddy.  I am confident that He knows the next step when we get off that plane in China.  He knows what the next month holds.  He KNOWS, so I don't have to know.  I just have to take the next step and trust, in faith that He will work it all out because he loves me and my family so very much.  We are the apple of His eye!  So, I have no stress...I am blogging instead of cleaning, doing  laundry and packing.  This peace that truly surpasses understanding is guarding my mind.  It is keeping out the fears.  It is fully allowing me to trust that my Daddy is NOT going to let us stumble or go astray.  I have learned that this kind of walking is the way I want to walk the rest of my life so that HE can work His good will in our life without my "help"- just my obedience to his every word. 

So I leave you with this scripture - Colossians 3:15:

"And let the PEACE of God rule in your hearts..."

And the challenge to really let that peace rule in your heart, nothing compares!! 

Now, stay tuned...the trip is literally, just around the cornor.

Homecoming

We all know the old saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."  I have to admit, I have thought it a cheesy saying from time to time.  But after a week of being my love being gone, I am not sure I will say that ever again.  It has been an amazing week for Him and the rest of the mission team, it has been an amazing week for me.  The Father has taught me so many things, one of the most important is that my husband and I, we are ONE.  I have missed him more than I thought possible, on several days, my heart hurt with the intensity of the longing.  I can hardly wait to see the joy in his eyes as he tells the stories and cry with him as he shares the deep emotions that he is bringing home. One thing is for certain, these 9 that left last Monday, are not returning the same.  I pray that I have the grace to handle the new heart that is returning to me.  For this week was ordained since the beginning of time and is really the beginning of an amazing journey that is going to take Kendall and I (and our children as well) a life time to live out.  I have never been more thankful for technology that kept us close...email, facebook, skype...I thank you.  While he was living an adventure, I got to live it thru the beautiful words he blogged and posted on facebook.  I have enjoyed good times with sweet, new friends, been totally attached to my computer as I did not want to miss a post or blog coming from Kendall or anyone who was with, I have had something special to do with my kids each day, stayed up too late watching the olympics, spent more time on facebook than I thought imaginable...I could not be more ready for my beloved to be home!  Although I don't believe life will ever return to normal after this trip, I can hardly wait for what is waiting around the next corner!  Isn't God good!!!  I love that His dreams are bigger than mine...I want your BIG dreams Abba Daddy, don't ever let Kendall and I settle for anything less !!

Welcome Home Beloved, I am Blessed to call you mine!

Leaving Home

As I sit in my cozy home and watch the snow falling outside my window, I am mindful of those who have no home.  How blessed I am to be warm, have good food to eat, a roof over my head.  My mind drifts to leaving this home, to the path that strecthes out before us, what the Father is calling us to do.  What will home look like this time next year?  Will it be the same, will it be different?  I remember Jesus saying that He had no place to lay his head and again I am struck how very blessed I am.  Yet there is a conflict in me because I am also ready to put a sign in the yard and GO; go to the place he called us, begin the journey.  Waiting is a hard thing, deciding when to sell and what the next step is always creates a tension that begs to hear clearly from the Father who sees it all, who plans the path of our life.  We long to walk the path HE is preparing, not going to the right or the left. 

Last night, after the children were tucked into bed and all was quiet, I picked up a book I had gotten at the library and there, on the front page was Hebrew 11:8.

It was by FAITH that Abraham obeyed

when God called him to leave home

and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. 

He went without knowing where he was going.

It was sweet manna for me.  Leaving requires a FAITH and an OBEDIENCE; A TRUST in the ONE who sees it all and has a plan.  Even if it is not clear in my natural abilities to understand.  He KNOWS.  How refreshing, how peaceful.  Isn't it amazing that we can walk with Faith and also walk in His PRESENCE.  When we do, we miss nothing--not the miracles or the intimate relationship!!  When Jesus called his disciples to come, the came not knowing what it would look like and yet they left ALL and followed.  I sometimes wonder...when we step onto the soil of that distant land, will I look around and say "how can I feel like I have come home, when I have never been here before?"

I'm ready Father, ready to leave home...I will go where you say, when you say.  I know that provision is already there, I know that the path is being laid out as the day draws near.  I praise you because you are the I AM!!

Meditating on the WORD

Psalm 1:1-3

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

But his delight is in the law of the LORD

And on HIS law he MEDITATES day and night.

He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatever he does shall prosper.

In Hebrew culture, meditating was to quietly repeat the Scriptures in a soft, droning sound, while utterly abandoning outside distractions.  I love the idea of utterly abandoning outside distraction.  How often do we choose to really do this?  For me, I must get up early while it is quiet and the demands of my day have not started.  As I began to read Psalm 1 this morning, I noticed there was a reward to delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on it.  The word says that we would be like a tree planted by streams of water, bringing forth seasonal fruit, no dead leafs, everything prospering.  That is what I want, I want to delight in the law of the Lord and become just like HIM.  I want to be so close to my Father that His will is my will, His thoughts my thoughts, where He is working, I will naturally be working.  

I am meditating on pursuing relationship with Father above all else, all other distractions, falling so much in love with him, that it would be natural for my life to grow and bloom.  What do I need to get rid of to take away distractions?  Where do I need to discipline myself that I get time to meditate on His word, to sit still in His presence? 

Oh Abba, that I would wake up and be like you, that I would long for the quiet still moments, listening, meditating, growing, blooming, looking like you...I want more and more of YOU!

Grace

Law demands.  Grace bestows. 

Law commands but gives no strength to obey.  Grace promises and performs, doing all we need to do. 

Law burdens and casts downs and condems.  Grace comforts and makes strong and glad. 

Law appeals to self to do its utmost.  Grace points to Christ to do all things. 

Law calls forth effort and strain and urges us toward a goal we can never reach. 

Grace works in us all of God's blessed will.  ~Andrew Murray

As 2009 ended I was continually pondering fasting:  its benefits, what the WORD says about it, Jesus did it and I want to be like him, so I should do it to.  They were great thoughts!  But everytime I tried, I failed.  I came across a great e-book and the author (Mike Bickle @ Internation House of Prayer in Kansas City) said something that turned my fasting world upside down.  Grace...Grace for fasting.  I know about the whole grace vs law issue, but I had never thought to pray for grace in the specific areas in my life I knew that my Abba daddy was calling me to walk in.  I just thought "I walk in grace."  Obviously, I did not or was not walking in the fullness of it, or maybe the specificness of grace. 

At the beginning of the year the Lord said to me, "Tithe to me the first 37 days of 2010 from sugar and begin a weekly fast for one 24 hour period.  BUT, ask for MY grace to do it.  I have a well of grace for you as you learn to walk in this discipline."  I am on day 15, and I have discovered that I am not fasting, when I fast it is a work, but HE is fasting thru me by the result of HIS grace, NOT my works!  Wow, that was great revelation. 

Last night I made a commitment, crazy probably considering all my daily responsibilites, but I made it none the less.  Kendall and I commited to get through the whole P90X (extreme homework out, for those of you who don't know what it is) before we leave for China in April.  As we began, one of his friends told him he had a blog called The Ultimate P90X Group and was challenging people to read the whole bible in that same 90 day period as you are doing P90X.  For our body it tempory but our soul is eternal.  Yes, we need to take care of our earthly temples but NOT at the expense of our spiritual health.  I woke this morning and as I was drinking my coffee, the Lord said, "Ask me for the grace for this as well, it is a good thing...when it is your works it becomes legalistic, but it is grace that sustains, it draws you into more intimacy with me."  I want to walk in specific grace, grace for the moment, grace for the day...abundant, vibrant grace.  Things, that with my natural eyes I have no ability to do, with GRACE I can do.  It is no longer a burden, an addition to my "to-do list," NO it becomes a JOY!  "Grace undertakes to work our whole life in us, and actually give us strength for every moment for whatever Father would have us be and do." ~Andrew Murray

A New Year!!

It is a new year!  I love new starts, there is such anticipation.  In our lives we have much anticipation this year.  We are excitedly looking forward to what God is going to do.  China awaits us in the spring.  Kendall is off to Nicaragua in February.  I am starting a new business on Etsy (a webstore that sells homemade items).  It will be fun to watch God bless the work that I enjoy doing and make a thriving business out of it!  So with much joy and excitement...

Welcome 2010!!

Come Abba Daddy and do YOUR work thru us this year!!