The Calling

Years ago someone asked me if I could do anything and there were no limitations, what would I do? I said I’d be a missionary painter…

HERE’S TO GOING AFTER THAT PIPE DREAM YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU WOULD

I could write a book on how God got me to this point, of laying my life down. So let me just tell you what the calling is.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Luke 4:18-19

Lord may I not hold bitterness at all to what you’ve done in my life, for to do so would be entirely ungrateful and blinded by worldly mindset. You are the most intentional God.

So what does that image of metal in my hands, especially nails, provided by the Creator to BUILD with Him mean?
(I saw a vision of this during worship one of my last weeks squad leading on the World Race in Panama)

Well the meaning started 2000 years ago when a Jewish man from Nazareth gave his life when He didn’t have to. He had equality with God and left the throne and humbled Himself and lived among us, knowing full well that His life was headed towards the most excruciating pain and death.

Over a year and a half ago, at training camp for my missions trip, Britt met me in the middle of my simple trust in God with hands open. My hands were open to God, little did I know they’d also be open to whatever He wanted me do to in life.

And so she came up and put her palms in my hand and said to God “thank you that your hands were pierced with nails right here for her. Thank you that these are healing hands (she goes on about living water and humility and being rooted and bearing fruit and all). You are exactly where you are supposed to be; I think you are called to do this full time.”

It rocked my world, but I was not ready at all to submit to the idea of being a full time missionary. I have thought of that prophecy a million times but I rarely think of the first part – why is it so important for her to emphasize nails in His hands?

He bled and gave it all for me; His hands were open to whatever cup the Father had for Him if it meant the liberation and salvation of the word. The work of His hands became suffering and surrendering His life. And when He did that, He purchased life for me.

It is the holes in His hands, the wounds that He would show me time and time again, like He did for Thomas, that the work is in fact finished. The price has been paid. His wounds show that He has resurrected and overcome.

The bleeding and the piercing of His open hands imparted healing into mine.

The nails that crucified sin, suffering, evil made a way for me to live, to have full life, to have Love, to have a purpose.

Hannah A, my coleader (after I had just that week had a vision of a well of living water with flames on top and a vision of hands holding fire that surrounds a heart), spoke “the girl with fire in her hands” over me.

She felt that God was leading me into a season where He’d use my hands to bring spiritual restoration and physical healing to bodies. The warmth in my hands and the word “heart” were especially highlighted to her. 

My World Race America teammate woke up with a vision of me weeping and God speaking “Woman of Zion” over me.

The woman of Zion first weeps for hurting, lost, sinful people and for the ruins of destruction. Then she gets to rebuild and bring restoration and His Kingdom. The woman of Zion weeps for all nations to come to worship the King. Zion isn’t the place of newness, healing, and restoration for one people group but for all. That is why she also is a mother of Nations and an intercessor for the Nations (2 other titles spoken over her over the years). To birth nations to faith and to stand on their behalf; it starts with seeing it, feeling it.

I get to be a mouthpiece for the unreached nations that others aren’t willing to go to.

Would I be willing to bleed for the nations because Jesus bled for me??

God said BUILD after He equipped me with what I needed.

What I will build with is open hands and the nails that pierced Christ’s open hands. The restoration and salvation and healing of foreign lands, of Zion, only comes through sacrifice.

In the vision He gave me, it was undoubtedly all metal He placed in my hands, the place where there is also fire according to Hannah A’s vision. Fire for Christ refines and molds the metal pieces in the needed way for rebuilding ruins. And living water flows through me from the Holy Spirit to bring life.

Fire for the Lord and His heart I get to bring to others to set them on fire.

But I cannot do so without remembering Jesus Christ’s pain, sacrifice, surrender, and then being willing to follow Him in the crucifixion, the daily ones to getting there. And it’s my joy to do so, it has to be when He gave it all and I’m living in abundance because of it.

• There’s people who need to know His Name, so I fish for people and go where I might not have chosen to.
• There people who need to know His Name, so I humble myself and out of absolute abundance, I enter into darkness with a light that doesn’t dim.
• There’s people who need to know His Name, so I surrender with open hands of fire and the new heart He’s given, I carry compassion.

I trust Him, and I feed His sheep. I trust Him and I build His church and GO into the nations and surrender what once was more important to me. I trust Him, and I know Him, and I therefore KNOW LIFE

WASTE IT ALL ON JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH

What a calling

I build with His love and compassion – with passion, prayer, evangelism, theology, discipleship, prophecy, creativity, prophetic painting, preaching, service to the poor, written word, worship, wonder, boldness, gentleness…

As I sit in this chapel in Panama that reminds me of ruins, in the distance there is a view of the trees that remind me of Colorado (the home and family I love and never wanted to leave).

God says don’t forget how you find me BEAUTIFUL in the ruins. Even though you love CO, the promise is not there. It’s here in the ruins that I’m calling you to rebuild. Build My Church in the Nations. You are equipped for this. The ruins I have for you to encounter Me in. Surrounded with the people I have caused to absolutely fill your heart. There no looking back.

Go to Colorado first? Meet Me there, enjoy it but be willing to go whenever, wherever I call you, because you have all you need!