Just a little bit of how God has been speaking to me and challenging me through our study of Acts this past week...
Acts 1.6-8 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” he said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
God has put out the invitation to be in relationship with each and everyone of us. He is waiting for us to answer that call and desires to transform and restore us. God’s desire is not to restore us in the way we think best, but in his own way. This is the truth and the challenge that I faced this week.
In Acts, we read about the Jews, who missed the call to relationship with Jesus Christ. They were looking for a spiritual restoration. When sent into exile their kingdom had been destroyed and as a result lost everything. In the days before the ascension when the Lord was revealing Himself to them, they were looking for, wanting, and expecting a restoration of their Jewish kingdom. They wanted a physical kingdom. Little did they understand that God was calling them into a relationship with him. God wanted to do something so much bigger and greater than restore to them a physical kingdom. He wanted to spiritually restore them, but they failed to see and understand this! They were so fixed on the physical blessing, and expectancy of what they thought this should look like that they missed the invitation to eternal life!
During the past couple years of my life, especially the last one, I have experienced a time of breaking down walls, or surrendering and being stripped of things that were not from God. It brought me to a place of desperation for God. Through this time God has done a lot of healing in me, and restoration, and is taking me further and deeper in my walk with him. I am learning to trust him as He is bringing me to places of discomfort and vulnerability. In this past week though I have felt incredibly challenged to surrender my expectations to God. My expectations of what this restoration in my life should look like. My expectations of what God’s blessings might look like. My expectation of what God should do for me in this physical world, according to myself when I have surrendered to him.
As I shared in my last blog entry I know that I’m exactly where I am supposed to be, in Costa Rica with YWAM studying his word. I gave up a comfortable life back home. I gave up securities, and answered the call of God and was brought to a place where I feel vulnerable, where I am challenged, and am faced with many of my insecurities. It’s a hard place, but also a great place to be. I have recognized in my life though, how just like the Jews expected the physical restoration of their kingdom for themselves, I also have put expectations on God. Some questions I had to ask myself...Am I walking in obedience to God in expectation that God will bless me physically here on earth. I recognize that God definitely blesses physically, but is the blessing my focus? When I walk in obedience to God do I expect a comfortable life? When I surrender the desire to be in a relationship, do I expect that God will bless me with a relationship? When I tithe, do I expect that God will one day bless me with earthly riches? Or am I willing to lose my life, be broken down, so that I may gain all that God has for me, and so that God may be glorified? Am I willing to allow my expectations to be transformed? It’s a scary, exhilarating, and very challenging place that I find myself in. As I continue to be challenged and wrestle with this thought though, we can see in the book of Acts that God’s heart is for his people. He desires to be in a living and active relationship with us I can trust that if I continue to say ‘yes’ to God, and truly surrender myself and my expectations to him he will transform me!
