Hard Stuff Brings Great Stuff

Sometimes its the decisions that require the most from us that open the doors to the the greatest opportunities of our lives.  For the past decade or so I have heard a saying "hard stuff brings great stuff".  I always like the sound of that saying until I started to feel the pressure of the hard stuff.  I started to feel the pressing down in order to extract the good stuff in my life.  

God has started asking me to do difficult things, knowing that the obedience required of me would open doors for our future, but still struggling to obey because of my current discomfort.  The hardest thing about new opportunities is being willing to let go of the old life.  Sure there are things about the old life that we would like to see different but any way you shake it out the old life is safe, its familiar and its comfortable.  There are always things about our current situation that we like, so when we start to feel that God is asking us to give those things up the internal struggle begins.  That is the place I have been living in for the past few months.  The silent internal struggle to give into the Holy Spirit.  To jump into the greatest leap of faith in my entire life.  To surrender to God in a way that will effect my whole world, it a way that I have never surrendered before.  Choosing to go All In, in the kind of way where any means of going back to the comfort and familiarity is gone. 

I read a story recently about a spanish explorer coming to the coast of South America.  No other explorer had been successful at colonizing the land, either they left or they died.  In order to remove any option of failure this explorer told his crew to burn the ships.  What??  They burned the ships and removed every option for going back to the safety and comfort of the familiar.  That is the word God has been gently at first and then not so gently whispering in my spirit, Carrie, Burn the ships.  Go all in, with me.  I will not leave you or forsake you.  God has been reminding me that he is in the midst of me and I will not fail.  Oh but the faith this new season will require is unlike the faith that my entire life has required up until now.  Then God gently at first and then not so gently reminds me that I am supposed to have faith in Him.  It is because He is great that I can have faith.  Not only is God a great God but he is a good God.  His goodness is what sets him a part from others, he loves me.  He is not leading me into a new situation to trick me or laugh at my failure, he is leading into an unchartered territory in order to show me his goodness, to show me how much he loves me.  

What is this new territory God is leading me into you may ask?  Well as soon as I type the words it becomes real.  As soon as I post this post I am committed, but the truth is my spirit is committed to being obedient already,  so here goes nothing.   Matt and I are planting a church.  There is it in Black and white.  We are leaving everything we know and everything we are comfortable with and going where God has called us to go.  We are packing up our family and moving to.... Lincoln, Nebraska and launching a Church in the early Spring of 2015.  

My goal is to share this journey with anyone willing to listen.  I have heard the stories of how difficult and horrible it can be to plant a church.  I am choosing to expect good things.  I am choosing to believe that this adventure can be the beginning of the greatest adventure of our lives.  I am believing that throughout this year long journey of raising money, building a team and launching a church my marriage will be stronger, my family with grow closer and the foundation for a life long journey will be built.  

Why do I want to share this journey you may ask?  My hope is that faith will be stirred within someone, I hope that through our journey someone may be willing to obey God with the hard stuff so that the great stuff can come through.  I hope that someone will pray with us for what God is building at Mercy City.  I hope that this will be the chronicle of the greatest adventure of my life.  I hope that my faith will grow as I proclaim all that God is saying and doing through this process.  I hope that you will join me in growing in hope and faith through this year.  

"

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ" Eph 2:4-5

Books referenced "All In" and "Sun Stand Still"