time to leave

I wish I could say I felt relieved after my last exam, but instead I had this sense of panic...I'm not ready to leave Jesus. I'm not ready to leave this place where I fallen so in love with you where I am growing into who you have made me to be, where I am loving spreading your name and proclaiming who you are. And then I thought of Abraham and God sending him to a land that is not his homeland and a people that is not his people. I know that he is saying to me
]You are ready. I have prepared you. I have poured my love upon you all year, preparing you for time away from the place where you have set deep roots because I have a plan for this summer that you cannot fathom or wrap your mind around. GO he said. Spread to the ends of the earth, proclaiming my name and making disciples, but perhaps far more important is the "Lo," Go, band lo, I will be with you always and forever. I cannot limit Jesus and his presence to Raleigh. This place has deep significance, but it is not Him. Not is NC State, not Neighbor2Neighbor nor Vintage. They are places where God is present, but he is not contained here. He calls us to our homes, our families, the places where we maybe no longer feel at home or no longer feel understood or known, but the places and the people who will see transformation. That is my family. I don't know what it looks like to pursue my family with the passion I pursue everyone else's. It is much harder. But it is not too much for Jesus. Nothing is. And I have no idea how to literally go to another nation and be a part of kingdom advancement. But Jesus does. So I just watch what he is doing and follow. Go along with him. Let him prepare me for himself. He wants to change my heart. Not just my church. Not my city. But me. That is his utmost concern with me. Not what I can do, not my potential, but my heart. He will strip me of all my comforts, even holy comforts, so that I am left with just the grit of the cross, the scandalous glory of the gospel. Its enough. he is preparing me for himself. Why that idea is so precious I know not. But I cling to it now, when I am leaving my realm of comfort and the place where I feel most joyful and alive. Going to a place where my sin becomes more frightening as my patience wanes quickly and my desire to be with my love shifts and pride gets in the way and fear comes creeping. Even then, he is good. He is faithful.

Jesus, make it a summer of reliance on you. A summer of prayer. A summer of transformation. A summer of clinging to you instead of to you in college in Raleigh. Just you. Not you and...anything. But that you already contain all fullness, all glory, all time, all victory. A time where legalism and my desire to prove my love or my worth is not optional. A time where I cannot cling to the work I am doing for you. You are the one who had to the count. The builder who laid out the plans before you began. The king who assessed his men and his abilities before going into battle. You need men who will not depart from you and you need men who are ready for discipline and suffering and preparation. These things are the mark of your love. You spare me not from hardship but promise me it. You learned obedience through your suffering and I am no different.
Give me boldness and gentleness, love. Im such a clinger. Clinging to every gift you have ever offered me, twisting it into an idol that steals me from you instead of pushing me toward you. You are just enough to not let me cling to my sin and to these idols no matter how much it hurts to get them taken away .And I can rest assured that this hurt is not mine to bear alone. That you bore the fullness of it, and you did bear alone, that I may never bear anything alone.

Open hands. My fear cuts deep as I think that you will take from me things I want to hold onto. Lovingly pry open these hands and gently tear down these walls. I know that the hammering and construction involved in turning this heart of stone to a heart of flesh is not a painless process. For me or for you. But it is worthwhile. A heart of flesh seems far more vulnerable, far more risky. But it is the kind of heart that you have. A heart that allows you to be broken by your people's departure from you. A heart that makes you draw us back. You could have had a heart of stone. But you chose not to. It cost you everything. Do the same for me. I trust that you know what you are doing with my life. That if you will it to be useful It will. That if I died this second, you would have done with it all that you wanted to do. That if I live for 70 more years you will do what you intend to. That it is just one little stitching in a kingdom that the gates of hell shall not prevail against.

I love you jesus. Thank you for loving me enough not to be concerned about my comfort, but only my heart. Stay with me, and I will be alright.