Written Day one of GCM New Staff Training - Monday May 19, 2008
Where He calls
He will be there
He goes before me
And He walks with me now
He leads the way
Removes all the obstacles from the path
You assured me not to be afraid
That you’d be with me every step of the way.
The other night as I left a group of people hanging out after The Rock, there was a period of time where I was walking alone. They were all going to hang out but I had more stuff to finish before leaving for training the next day. As I started walking, I felt a peace washing over me. I kept feeling an intense tug on my heart and the words, Therefore go kept repeating over and over in my mind. The call you place on every Christ follower to therefore go and make you known, introducing people to this wonderful relationship they can have with you. Therefore, go, Mazvita, I heard you saying to me again and again as I kept moving forward away from the group. Being sent. And that is what our true identity is as children of God, the ones that Jesus loves and the ones who are sent.
The beginning of a separation of sorts, but an intense union with you.
I was going alone.
But I was not alone.
As I was walking there and walking past Middlebush, I could feel your presence like the cool breeze on the back of my neck. I could feel you there, moving me ahead as I walked through Middlebush one last time to go to the parking lot where my car was parked. I was saying goodbye, the end of an amazing chapter, a time that will never happen again, but a new chapter and a future that was awaiting me, full of promises from you, full of hope. I closed the doors behind me and had to keep walking when these words were nearly audible
“Put your hand in His [Jesus’] hand, and walk alone with Him. Walk ahead, because if you look back you will go back.”
I read that opening line of the private writings of Mother Teresa over a month ago yet the entire line was nearly spoken to me by God’s gentle whisper that night.
These parting words from her mother were engraved on the heart of eighteen-year-old Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu, the future Mother Teresa, as she left her home in Skopje to commence her life as a missionary. Her lifelong love relationship with Christ is one I desire to have. It doesn’t happen overnight, just as it didn’t for her, it’s in a series of steps, a series of “yes’s” to His voice.
“In the silence of the heart God speaks.”
The Lord asked me to simply walk with Him.
To simply trust Him.
And He has been so faithful.
I don’t even have words to describe it but faithful is the closest it gets.
My prayer is to know Him. To become more like Christ, to realize my life is not my own and to rejoice in all that He is and the fact He desires relationship with each and every one of us.
I could totally relate to these words:
“This my new vocation has been one prolonged “Yes” to God… my conviction that “the work is His”—is more than the reality… I know for certain He asked—“Will you do this for Me” Everything was His—Today His work has grown because it is He not I that do it through me.
Of this I am so convinced—that I would give my life gladly to prove it.” – Mother Teresa
I long to give my life gladly to the cross of Christ, but I know most of the time the battle is with myself. I need God’s help to live this long, joyful obedience. I need God’s help for me to step out of the way, and for Him to use me, fully, to fulfill His purpose for my life.
Our loving God is faithful, He is mighty to save.
photo courtesy of eric papp.
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