Die To Self

"God I just want to live again!" I screamed through the ink on the page of my journal and softly but strongly I heard the reply, "Then first you have to die."

Death #1

Looking at the time I had left in Adelaide and the pack of seeds I had left to use, I decided to staff the DTS. My intention for months has been that I would go home in May and it was understood, when I signed on to staff, that I would miss the last month of the DTS but meet them in London. Challenges from people around me started coming directed at me laying down and sacrificing my trip home in May; I thought they must be crazy until I realized my unwillingness to lay it down was the very reason why I probably needed to do it. Further examination led me to realize that I would be the only one benefiting from my trip in May, but the it would really affect the students negatively. Death #1: Trip in May

Death #2

Sometimes I get to do what I want to do and say no to the things I don't. I had a nice teaser session of this when I was able to turn down doing the Certificate 4 in Missions course, here on the base, because my visa did not require me to take it and nothing in me wanted to do it. Freedom short lived. 'I have bad news. Your visa states that you can only work in one place for 6 months and then you have to move' (tempting) 'or you can study in the same place for 4 more months. So I'm sorry but you have to take the course.' I'm still trying to figure out in what universe YWAM is considered work since I don't receive a paycheck, but pay to volunteer.....but in order to finish what God wants me to finish - Death #2: Certificate 4 in Missions course.

Death #3

What was God going to ask me to do next? I was almost fearful of what He would ask me to do and I was completely unwilling to ask Him about it because I was completely unwilling to hear it. Things were coming up around the base, people being asked to pray about certain things and all the while fear is building up in my heart that God was going to ask me to be an answer to things that I felt were beyond my ability or desire to handle. But that's not God. Weeks went by and I found that things were getting harder; almost unbearable. In God's perfect timing, one of my leaders of YWAM in New Zealand came to the base and we got to talk and I got to process all that happened with the base falling apart in Auckland. This man gave me some questions to take to God and I gave God a question of my own, "What's been hindering me Lord?" "Jealousy. You are jealous for New Zealand, for what you could've had and hope to have... How can I take you to the promised land I have for you if you are still clinging to your own?" Death #3 New Zealand. I was publically released from my commitment to Auckland by this man and to symbolize my release, I gave him the shells from New Zealand that I have always kept in my wallet and asked him to take them back home.

Death #4???

It's been a couple of months since I heard God tell me that in order to live I needed to die and in between these 3 deaths, there have been so many little daily deaths that have needed to take place. I don't know how much more God is going to show me that I need to throw on the altar, but what I do know is that after the altar comes the bronze laver where we are washed and we are able to enter into the inner court with confidence. "It's Friday but Sunday's coming."

I don't know where you're at, if you're at an altar yourself, but I would encourage you that death is only the beginning; that there may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning; that there's a laver up ahead and the altar is only one part of the tabernacle, hold on for the Holy of Holies...I know I am.