At your lowest..

... the abundance of God's mercy, grace and love can show up so abundantly because it's not based on you, but HIM!!! Amazing too how often He reveals Himself when people need to know His love & feel His touch the most. God loves that but that's not where He wants to leave things. HE is giving us a taste of how good He is & how's it based on Him, not us!

I was living in the UK and struggling exceedingly one night with old thought patterns, lies & feelings of hopelessness (an old battles that still rears it's ugly head, though less so now thankfully :) I played Jason Upton's Fly song (above) all night long to try to feel God & sleep better. I tossed & turned through yet awesomely the next morning, the Holy Spirit had given three friends, even one in a different continent, a dream about me that night! They were such encouraging dreams about my true identity and great freedom!

It also turned out that one of theses friends was unable to attend a conference she had signed up for so in the spur of that moment, she felt I was to go in her place! Suddenly my friends gave me all that was needed so I could attend. Holy Spirit blessed me with not only those dreams from others that night but through the practical help of these friends, everything I needed to go to a conference that only further encouraged & blessed me. God revealed Himself so awesomely when I felt so low!

In my university years, I was often living in a place between God and the bars. When school ended, I was in very difficult place (will blog about this in more detail another time). To recover, I tried every remedy imagined, but to no avail, nothing really helped! I knew God was the answer but felt this would take too long. After several months, I attended a church worship meeting that went on for so long that there was no escaping the awareness God's presence and goodness. In one definitive moment, the wall in me broke down. I was repenting (which I know now is turning in a new direction) and tearfully asking God's forgiveness. ALL I felt in response was the outpouring of unconditional love. This was before I had much physical experience with God's unconditional love. My faith walk had been mostly head knowledge and not often feeling Him or always knowing His love. Amazingly the awareness of God's love and grace was so strong that I wept. This was not what I was expected! I cried because I felt so much love in the midst of having walked my own way and at times, embraced sin. Oh, the goodness of God, so amazing, especially in the midst of feeling so low!

In Ireland, our Ministry team went to a place where youth congregated. One of the teens announced he was an atheist and was very skeptical regarding everything about us. He had a broken arm and eventually he relented and let our team pray, perhaps as a challenge! God healed his arm in a snap.. literally, it snapped into place in a moment! He was so freaked out and startled that his response was to swear in disbelief. If I remember correctly, his girlfriend immediately came to faith. God’s abundant love extends to even those who reject Him. I often find among those who struggle to believe or even blatantly reject God, the most amazing Signs and Wonders. This reminds me of the Lost Son story where the Father runs to embrace and welcome His son. He gives him the best of everything even though this son had squandered everything and didn't deserve it.

Here's a brief clip of the testimony filmed by the team during the IDestiny UK ministry trip:

What an amazing God we have!!

When you are feeling the lowest, do not be discouraged! You are in good company & God's love and capacity far exceeds any negative feelings or experience you might have had. Holy Spirit works in unique ways in different situation but the fact of His love for you doesn't change. I hope we can all experience greater depths of Christ's rich love that He paid so dear a price to win back His family. If you find yourself under a lie or repeatedly sinning, remember, great is His grace for you, so great is His love for you! Jesus even said, He that sins much, loves much. This is not an encouragement to sin but rather a testimony of God's great love pouring out for all sinners. How amazing the feeling of love and gratitude a person has in their heart for God when they know they have been forgiven everything, it is really beyond comprehension!

God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me". (2 Corinthians 12:9). I don’t think this is about sin but rather, reveals how God's power works exceedingly well to save & work through us, even when we feel weakest. We are not sons and daughters because we work hard to obtain it. It is Jesus Christ’s work on the cross, destroying sin in His flesh, our brother giving us this gift! He restored our view of God, removing every obstacle, so our identity, strength and success is based on His strength, not ours.

God is so eager to have His children come boldly before Him in whatever place they might be. Don't clean yourself up (I'm thinking of John Crowder’s words here)- it was Jesus who did that. He is more than sufficient to reveal our true identity through His incredible love for us! Only then will we have the power to overcome, not independent of Him, but entirely dependent and submitted to Him.

Blessing you today brothers and sisters. That we may all lean on Christ and see His great love and power live through us. He is well able to touch any part of us that is under a lie or in pain, and show us His loving embrace in that place.

You are INCREDIBLY LOVED!