invitation

one of the most amazing things about the ransomed heart team is their willingness and desire to invite me - each one of us, really - into the vision and the message that the Lord has given to and entrusted them with. i have never felt so intimately welcome, cherished, valued and encouraged just because i am His daughter. i don't need any special skills, any particular life experience, anything to define me and to give me worth and value in their eyes except for my love for Jesus, and His for me. what an amazing balm to my heart!

Jesus invites us into the hard places, the hurting places, but He also invites us to dance with Him, to come aside, to be silent before Him, to sing and to cry and to just be still with Him. He invited me away for a walk with Him, showing me the beauty of His creation. He invited me to pray with women from all over the world - and He burdened many women to pray specifically for me - specifically hands on, praying down the Kingdom of Heaven prayer that speaks so directly to my heart... and He created an inescapable need in me to pray even more boldly and incessantly for the team and the women there... that, in and of itself, is a miracle. it's a heart shift away from myself and toward the needs of others. i'm not talking about being willing to serve in a shelter or muck out a flooded house after katrina, and i don't mean searching for a career in Jesus. i've seen many people with hearts to serve others that don't truly live daily for Him - myself included. i realize that you can't truly love Jesus and not have that permanent shift happen eventually, but it's really quite an experience to recognize it as it's happening...

i know Jesus more intimately now than ever before. i've heard about camp highs - how i pray that this is so much more than that! i pray that it is a permanent shift toward Him. i pray that i continue to realize that the invitation stands - all the time - that He waits, just here, for me to turn to Him, to experience all that life has to offer with Him. naive? simple? perhaps...

and perhaps that's ok. perhaps it's ok to live simply trusting Him. perhaps that's the beauty of the invitation... perhaps, just perhaps, it's ok to live my life seeking Him in everything, everywhere, in everyone. i never considered myself a minimalist, just a pretty low-maintenance kind of girl. i don't ask for much... then again, maybe that's what He's been trying to show me.

He told me on that walk that i don't ask for the big things - that i've stopped asking for much - or maybe i've stopped believing that "much" is what i want. i know now that i want a lot - of Him. i intend to accept His invitation to live my life with Him... and that doesn't mean vocationally, or seeking some place to serve, or seeking a "normal" life - i don't even know what that means! i just want to live deeply from my heart, fully alive in Him, all the time. i want that Life to overflow into everything else about me, and into everyone else around me... as josh says, get the vertical right, and the horizontal falls into place...

that invitation is extended to you, as well. there is beauty, there is danger, there is a villian and a Hero to this story we are invited into. will you be content to watch from the safety of mediocrity, or are you willing to step forth, hand stretched out to the One who invites? yes, there will be suffering and sorrow. yes, there will be joy and triumph. yes, there will be hardship and grief. and YES, there will be life in abundance. there will be adventure and romance and love and loss, but we travel together, toward eden.

john eldregde writes in epic, "We have reached the moment where we, too, must find the courage and rise up to recover our hearts and fight for the hearts of others. The hour is late, and much time has been wasted. Aslan is on the move; we must rally to him at the stone table... This is our most desperate hour. You are needed."