Update

Hey guys!

So I have an update on my progress. I don’t even know where to start because so much has happened already since my last letter! The only place I know where to begin is in saying God is SO GOOD! The more I get to know him, the more I fall madly in love with him. He is so different than what I've always thought he looked like, and that only feels like a tiny drop of revelation. The head knowledge of him being good is finally turning into heart knowledge, and I can’t even begin to tell you the level of freedom that brings! The analogy of being lifted up on wings like eagles is coming alive in my life, and I long for not only God’s church to come into this freedom, but the whole world! This is my heart’s greatest desire now, to bring the world out of bondage of our enemy, glory be to God!

I’ll try to start where this all began. Tuesday was such a rough day for me. This week we’ve been talking about discipleship, and our teacher was doing the “break-down” part of discipleship before getting into the “build-up.” In a nutshell (perhaps walnut size =) ) everyone in Christ’s church is called into discipleship, EVERYONE! Jesus told his disciples to go and make more disciples, not Christians! Everyone person in the early church was a disciple of Christ, but that early, raw system of belief got watered down through the ages with false religions and philosophies being intertwined and “married” into it (maybe that’s how denominations got started?), so the original church of Christ lost its authenticity throughout the generations. So all this offspring, or every branch, of the early church got coined under the same label of Christianity. Ok, so anyhoo.. Christianity looks different in every person now, doesn’t it? Back to the point, we are all called to be Disciples of Christ, and in the beginning of this beautiful relationship, the process looks very similar in every person.

The breakdown of Discipleship that we were learning about on Tuesday was this: I am called to fully surrender my all to Christ. I am called to lose myself, to die to myself, to completely throw every aspect of who I am and every element that makes up my whole life to God. We are called to completely surrender all, that is our personalities, our gifts and talents, our every single relationship, our jobs, our careers or callings, our personal belongings, our money, our countries, our homes, our security and comfort, our hearts’ desires and longings, our decisions, our future, our now, our EVERYTHING, we are called to surrender everything to God. How is that even possible!? What does that even look like?? Tuesday I had to process all these emotions. I have to surrender my all, completely die to myself and who I am, give it all over to God, and fully trust this intangible being to build my life back up again? I am called to follow Jesus wherever it is he may take me? I am called to drop all my plans for myself and trust him to come through with a better plan? What STRESS CASE CITY!! Uh!!!! So on top of all of that, Jesus expects me to come to a place of losing all fear of man and do things like evangelism? To “fear” him more than other people? No thank you! Why isn’t that set aside for only special, overly-obsessed people like Paul, Peter, and John the Baptist? That’s not what I want for my life, that’s not who I am God, so thanks but no thanks! Why can’t I have a normal life, and go back to my family and friends? Why can’t I make decisions and plans for myself, and have a normal career with a normal family and just live a happy, normal, non overly-obsessive life. That was sounding so good; home sounded good, normalcy sounded real good.. so basically, God, leave me alone! YWAM, leave me alone! I’m ready to just start over on my own again.

Yeah, so that is what I was learning in school. That was the life that I was seeing in other people around me, in the speakers and such. That was the life that I knew God was calling me to, and all I could ask was, “Why God? Why me??” I didn’t want it. So, Tuesday was a hard day to say the least. I started to have daydreams of going home, back to my life that I was living, even though I knew I didn’t want that strangely enough.

I woke up Wednesday feeling renewed and refreshed. I thought it was odd, but I was thankful nonetheless. Going to lecture the speaker started out wanting to talk to us about how hard this all is. He said that every time he speaks about discipleship, God kicks his ass (butt =) ) all over the place. He promised that this life is not easy, that it is really hard, but that he wouldn’t choose to live life any other way even if he could. Now starts the rebuilding process of discipleship. Jeremy stated it like this, “God wants us to stop clinging to the pile of crap that is in our arms and instead discard of it so that he could refill our arms with treasure.” So basically, God wants us to trust him with our whole lives. He wants us to give everything up to him so that he can then filter back to us the things that are good, the things that are from him, and filter out the crap (sin) that we've brought into our own lives that are actually slowly killing us (there is also something to be said for personal responsibility that we take on, such as children, but that is another topic I’d love to talk about with anybody). At the end of lecture, Jeremy put on the nooma video Dust by Rob Bell, which is probably my favorite one by far. It’s about discipleship and it is soooooo good! God was just speaking to me throughout the whole video and I couldn’t help but weep in front of the whole class. In it God was saying, “Kellie, I’m not making you do this. I didn’t choose this life for you because it is the right thing to do. I didn’t choose this life for you because I’m controlling and you need to perform for me. I didn’t choose this life for you because I expect you to be obedient to my word. I called you into this life because I love you, I have faith in you, and I trust you. I know you can be just like me.” Oh man, how my heart leapt inside of my chest! See God chose the fools of the world to put to shame worldly wisdom. Jesus chose young men who were considered the least of the Jews to come follow him. The best, of the best, of the best became Pharisees and teachers of the law, and they were the only group that Jesus was constantly butting heads with. In the final work of the cross, Jesus’ disciples were the ones to step up and became like Christ, beginning the church and making followers of Christ. So you don’t have to be the most educated, you don’t have to be the most respected, you don’t have to have your whole life put together, and you don’t have to be perfect. Where does God get glory in any of those things? Why do you even need God if you are all put together, rich, powerful, and wise? God uses people in a humble state, those who need him, to do his work. That’s me! I’m the fool, and frankly, so are you! YAY!

A huge revelation that has come is that yes, I have made Christ my savior, but I never made him Lord. I think that is a problem at large in the American church today, a problem that I am totally guilty of. I do believe that I have been forgiven at salvation, but I didn’t trust him to be Lord of my life. See, now I like to look at my life as my kingdom, and I have been ruler of my kingdom sitting in power over all on the thrown. What has that looked like? Crap, my life has been crap. Everything I do with my own power and strength just turns to crap. So here comes Jesus trying to overthrow me. He has been trying to take over my throne and become the Lord of my life, and I have been resisting him, pushing him out of the seat because I don’t trust him in doing what is best for my kingdom; actually, I don’t trust him to bring me happiness and fulfillment, so I make my own plans. So as soon as Jesus entered my life as savior, there has been a power struggle for my kingdom, for my life, and that’s why nothing worked that I did. See, Christ being my savior without being my Lord has resulted in cheap grace. God’s not content with that.

So God wants me to come into intimate relationship with him and clearly hear his voice. God wants me to fully trust him and kick out all the crutches and plans that keep me from needing him. In turn he wants to give me a better life than the one I've made for myself. He wants to give me bigger dreams and more fulfillment than I could ever find on my own. Jesus wants me to know that I have what it takes to be just like him, by the power that lies within me from his finished work on the cross, and to even do greater things than what he even did. Read the gospel, it's all there. The gospel isn't some far fetched fairy tale. It's not just meant to be interpreted; it's meant to be lived out and experienced! He wants this for his whole church. Could you imagine what this world would look like if every "Christian" was truly dying to themselves and letting Jesus live through them? I don't think this dream is far off. God is speaking to his church right now, and it is all awakening from a deep slumber. The last thing this world needs is more counterfeit Christianity. Hasn't Christianity caused enough damage to the world? Don't we already have enough blood and judgment on our hands? Let's get out of being lukewarm and find truth!

I hope you know I'm preaching to myself here, and that everything I say is always aimed mostly at me! I really don't believe I'm over the top, crazy, or far off in some ditch. I think I'm just hopping on board with what God is already doing, I'm trying to move with him, and I can only hope this rings true in your soul. All I really know is that I don't want a mediocre life, I want an extravagant one, and trust me, God is not boring like most Christians and even non-Christians I know.. If anyone marches to the beat of a different drum, it's Him! He is unpredictable and enormous beyond measure!! I'm excited!!!

Seriously, this has been just scraping the tip of the iceberg of what’s been going on inside of me. I feel if I write any more it would just be too much, and too long. I’ve been scratching my head just trying to figure out what to say. I do want to say that I’m a work in progress right now, so I could only hope that any BS I’m putting out there will just fall through, and what is truth will stick with you. Please continue to pray for me, especially in the area of value. I know inside things getting better, but I’m still far, far away from where I want to be. Please if any of you have any questions or want to talk to me or challenge me about anything at all, I'm here. I probably won't have the right answer, but I will listen to your every word and give you my best. I love you guys so much!

Kell