Hello everyone from here in Kigali, Rwanda! We’ve been here in the capital of Rwanda for just over one week. This is a “luxury month!" We have electricity, running water, a toilet, & satellite tv! We’ve been able to go to a local hotel which is about a 30 minute walk away and get free and pretty fast internet so I want to get caught up on uploading pictures, videos & get consistent with blogging. Writing blogs has been a challenging point for me. I’m learning and changing in many ways, but it takes me a while to process what's actually going on in my mind and heart. I’ve also felt like there has been a wall between God and myself these last few months. Our first month in Kenya, I felt oppressed in the area of knowledge. I suddenly felt like I didn’t know very much about anything that I thought I knew about. It was like I had a literal memory problem. I felt the enemy attacking me in this area but I also saw it for what it was: I've continued to have a head knowledge about things, but not store them in my heart as I should. I haven't been meditating on the Lord's Word day and night and storing it in my heart so I haven't been able to retain it in my mind. Previously when I've had revelations from the Lord, I didn't dwell on them or write them down. I treated them as a piece of news that just when in my head for a bit, but didn't stay very long. So over the past 2 months, God has been humbling me and allowing me to go back to the basics of my faith.
While we were hiking to church Sunday morning, I got a fresh revelation of God's grace. It was an hour and twenty minute trip to the church which is in a village on top of a mountain just outside Kigali. We make this trip every day to teach English & then we also preach Wednesdays & Sundays. This past Sunday on our hike to church, I was listening to "Oh You Bring" and "Tear Down the Walls" by Hillsong United. This wall that I've felt recently has made it difficult to feel intimate with the Lord. Since being on the Race, I've felt like I need to do things to be more intimate with God, and that is true in some sense. When you have a relationship with someone you need to spend time with them and having my alone time with God has always been a struggle for me to consistently uphold. While on one hand there are things you need to do to maintain your relationship with the Lord, that's not what it's about. It's not about what you can do to get yourself closer to God. It's not about what you can do to be or feel intimate with God – It's about grace. By God's grace through Jesus, we are instantaneously made intimate with our Creator. What a beautiful thing! It's not about anything we can do to attain a level of intimacy with the Father. We just have to step into that realization – we are made intimate with God through Christ. It's something that has already been made possible through Jesus. We just need to realize that and step into the fullness of relationship with the Lord. Step into that grace and intimacy and live it out.
"Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Romans 5:2 (Notice it says "in which we stand"… to stand in something, I'd assume you'd have to step into it!)
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." Ephesians 1:3-10
(PS – only 2,139 to go until I'm fully funded!)
