Go and Do

Go and do.

I heard the word for the first time when I was 18.  I had been to a YWAM base four times throughout my high school years, and it enticed me.  The culture was so life-giving and so different from what I knew at home, and I wanted to be a part of it.  I craved it.

But I was afraid too.  I felt like I wouldn’t fit in, that I would go all that way and find myself an outcast.  I was also afraid of raising support and going overseas.  I was a spontaneous adventure lover, and yet there was something in the going that terrified me.  Because going after something so wholeheartedly means trusting in something or someone else, and in this case, it meant believing God was so loving and caring and good that He was going to provide my every need and then some, and He was going to see me through.

Honestly….that wasn’t the God I knew.

My God was one who cared about rules.  He wanted me to do the right things, and when bad things happened or people shunned me or humiliated me, it was my own doing.

I heard Him tell me quietly in the stillest of times, “go,” but I didn’t go.  I found a version of “go” that I was comfortable with, and I did that instead.

See the God I knew wasn’t one I could trust.  I liked the idea of Him, but I was so legalistic in my thinking that I knew without a doubt that God could not use me.  I was not good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, funny enough, etc.  There was always little doubts and lies circling around my brain.  I had no idea who I was in Christ.  I was saved, but not transformed.  I thought the point now was to save as many other people as I could, and when I failed, which I did on a daily basis, then I was letting God down.  How could He use someone like that?

I can’t say that I regret my choice now, because God really does work all things together for the good of those who love Him.  He was with me through my valleys, even when I felt like I couldn’t hear Him or feel Him.  The one thing I do regret was not getting to know Him for almost ten years because I compromised.  For ten years, I missed out on knowing my Papa and my best friend.  I missed out on intimacy and love, things I was craving desperately.

And all those failures I let bury me?  They were all of my own making.  I basically built myself a prison, and then sat there while Jesus stood outside the unlocked door beckoning me with so much grace and so much forgiveness.  But I would bury my head in my arms and whisper lies to myself and shut Him out.

We really do need each other.  It took a couple of years of genuinely being loved by others to realize that the God I had created in my mind didn’t exist.  When I finally understood that God IS love, and that the point of it all is that beautiful four letter word L-O-V-E, it blew my mind.  I’m serious…the shackles were gone, the prison was gone, and all that was left was rubble being blow to the east and to the west by the great wind of the Holy Spirit.  And me.  Standing there, now with no place to hide, exposed, with Jesus looking at me with those eyes that strike to the core.  Love.

Zero condemnation.  Absolutely no blame on me for the decisions I had made and the souls I may have missed.

“The story isn’t just about them,” He said.  “It’s about you, it’s you and me.  It’s us, together, loving the world.”

Now I realize, go and do means love and be loved.