What Breaks Your Heart?
Sometimes there is a desperate need for a time of waiting. Then other times there is a greater need for a season of enjoyment. Thankfully, both of these seasons enrich and fulfill us in more ways than we can fully imagine. God has been using my writing to help me realize His faithfulness and goodness.
Four years ago, God placed me in a wilderness experience. This wilderness was not an experience of spiritual temptation, but it was a time of spiritual nourishment. It was what I call a waiting season. Throughout this waiting season, I was seeking to grow deeper with God. This mainly involved me learning how to be quiet in His presence. Since I was willing to listen, I could hear God lead me to Thailand. My time in Thailand helped me understand how I wasn't meant to pursue full-time missions in the way I once believed. Even so, I was still being called to speak.
This season also taught me how to enter into a stronger prayer life. I committed myself to spiritual disciplines like journaling, meditation, and prayer. I also was challenged to devote my life to fully experience single life during this time. This meant that I was learning how to seek God first and keep my self entirely fixed on Him. My season of waiting led me into a deeper faith in God.
These past several months have been an exciting time because this is a time of God's faithfulness. When the idea of seminary came into the picture, I spent a lot of time thinking about whether that was really for me. I kept opening and closing that door until finally God pushed it open. It was like He was saying to me, "Why do you keep closing what I desire to keep open?" I realized that God wanted me to pursue seminary.
As I approached the last year of college, I was watching God lead me out of the waiting season into a season of anticipation. Even so, God was still speaking and moving in the midst of my waiting season in order for me to better appreciate the present anticipation.
Writing is my way of reflecting what God is doing in my life. In the fall, I read Esther. Esther 4:14
"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows
whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
I read this passage and I just feel like God has put me in this place for such a time as this. He has given me the waiting in order to prepare me for what is next. God places us to be the voice and action of His plan. He doesn't want us to be silent (or still). God needs us for such a time as this. He asks that we be His vessels and move to His call.
God has been calling me to something unique and different. I don't know about you, but when God asks me to do something a little different, I get terrified and my response isn't always "YES!" But rather, "Are you sure?" I felt I should remain silent because I can't explain what this looks like. Yet, God speaks to my heart, "For such a time as this, I need you to share what I have been up to."
In this time, I have asked myself two questions. Before I asked myself these questions, I knew, very broadly, the ministry that I would be pursuing. I thought I would start with youth ministry and gradually move into a pastoral position that would eventually lead to evangelism and missions. So...this question really wrecked me and where I thought God was leading. This first question is: "What breaks your heart?"
Brooklyn Lindsey, who works in the First Church of the Nazarene, spoke in chapel about an overwhelming message at a chapel service. I believed that her entire message was over this one question. But, when I watched this sermon again, she only said this question once and she hardly even said it then. It was then that I realized that in the midst of her message God had revealed this question to me. For her challenge was to have a breathtaking conversation with God. God just presented the question that would start the conversation. What breaks my heart? I could think of several things. But it wasn't just about what can break my heart. What was breaking my heart to the point of doing something about it. The question that came to my mind was: 'What is Christ sending me to do?' Honestly, I couldn't think of a single thing. This goes deeper than what is able to break my heart. But what is Christ sending me to do? I instantly knew I needed to pray this through. You should expect God to show up whenever you ask him to reveal.
As I was in the midst of praying this question, I was reading two different passages. These were Esther and Nehemiah. I already shared the passage of Esther up above.
And Nehemiah 1:6 says:
"Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants..."
The Lord tells us "You do not realize now what I am doing but later you will understand." The Spirit led me to write this down. I have never more assured of anything in my life.
In Nehemiah 4, it talks about how some will oppose the work we do in God. I needed this reminder in the back of my mind. I needed to be reminded that I will have opposition. I needed to know some will not like the work I do for God. This will most likely be those outside the church. But, I need to expect that it will not just be outsiders but it might be people in the church. Yet, He is not revealing this in order for me to be defeated. Nehemiah 4:20 says, "Our God will fight for us!" What a comfort is to know that My God will fight for me!
This past summer I was constantly reading Psalm 31 in the Message version. I don't often read in the Message version, but this particular Psalm spoke to me differently.
Psalm 31:3-5 says "I want to hide in you. I've put my life in your hands. You won't drop me, you'll never let me down."
What breaks my heart? What is Christ sending me to do?
After praying this through for some time, I felt like I could finally sense where God was leading. I felt like God wanted me to minister to the homosexual community. You know, I wasn't sure I heard something right. Have you ever had that feeling? There wasn't a particular instance or conversation that could have led to this revelation. This is exactly when that 'Are you sure question?' begins to pop in my head. Then I read this following passage and everything became so clear.
Acts 11:1-9
This hit my heart so hard. My conviction simply became 'All creatures are created by God for a special purpose.' I was convicted of seeing people the way that God sees people. I have been blown away by the way Jesus eats with sinners. These religious leaders could not accept what Jesus did. They questioned and criticized how the Son of God loved people. I have heard about some really nontraditional ministries. There is a ministry of people evangelizing in bars. They love on people just like Jesus. There is a woman who started a ministry in strip clubs. She builds relationships with these women by meeting with them, telling them that they are loved, and they matter. She also brings them gifts with no strings attached. Most importantly, they always share with these women how "God is crazy in love with them." I thought this fascinated me because of my wish to be able to do that. I just wished I could walk into the world like that. I hoped I could go into some of the broken places like that and be so bold and brave with my faith. But, I've realized it goes deeper. It is a deep passion within me.
I had been asking God to give me His eyes to see. I had been asking God to break my heart in the way His heart breaks. I just do not think I realized how much He would answer that request. God is calling me to lead ministry and to build outreach ministry solely about entering into these dark places. This includes entering into the world, the city culture, meeting people right where they are. This ministry could potentially build a church created with open doors. For nothing God created is impure. What breaks my heart and what Christ is sending me to do is to reach out into the world, befriending the sinner right where they are--loving them just like Jesus would.
Now it's your turn to ask these questions. I just need to warn you that asking these questions could possibly wreck you.
What breaks your heart?
What is Christ sending you to do?