"Caris, when did you stop living under Grace?"

Hello friends

So for the second half of last term my head and my emotions were a little more all over the place than usual, apologies for all those who were caught up in the firing line of that (particularly Joe, Lizzie, Kirsty, Seb, and Dr Kirby Sir)

It's that time of year again at Moorlands when you have to sort out a block placement, but unlike last year, this time you get to go anywhere in the world...

So like any average twenty year old girl who likes clothes shopping, pretty things, walking in the countryside, sitting in trees, ice-cream, bad TV, who jumps at loud noises, hates any form of exercise and still will always cry if someone shouts at her... I decided I wanted to go to Iraq. Obviously.

Now Iraq is a land that has been on my heart for a long time, and from my first year at college I wanted to do my third year block placement there.

In June when everything with ISIS kicked off I asked myself if I would still be prepared to follow God there if that was where He lead. I assumed that that was Him asking me to still be pursuing that as an option.

Things went well, I had made a lot of contacts, a few people after looking at my CV were keen to have me come out and work with them, things firmed up very quickly... I must admit that I felt slightly suspicious at that point... I love the way God works but I must say I find God's timing is usually what I would describe as being pretty last minute timing, He has a wonderful but at times exasperating habit of turning my plans upside down at the last second - so I was suspicious that things were being sorted out so quickly and in the back of my head I was partly expecting a large spanner to be thrown in the works at any minute.

Although pleased that things were coming together, I was also very afraid. My dissertation was about whether or not military intervention against ISIS was biblical, so I was reading up on all the gruesome stories, keeping well up to date with all the new territory they were seizing and generally becoming more and more certain of certain death as soon as I arrived there. I felt very ill-equipped for such a task, very fearful and very overwhelmed - hence the all over the place emotions.

Most people in my life were incredibly supportive of my plans, but there were also some who were very unsure.

This made me unsure. Therefore I rallied the troops and got some amazing people around me to pray with me and for me about this particular thing. They all asked for God to grant me His peace (which He did) and for Him to grant me a sign that would assure me of whether or not this was where He was sending me (which He did later on)

Meanwhile another weird thing was going on in my life
A few weeks ago I spoke to a mentor who I fondly refer to as my big sister. She is amazing, she's one of those people who it is simply impossible to lie to, by just the sound of your voice she'll somehow be able to gauge exactly where you are at spiritually. About ten minutes into the conversation she said to me plainly 

"Ok, what's going on? Right now I'm not speaking to the Caris I know, what have you not surrendered to God, what is it that's keeping your heart from Him?"

I love that woman, everyone needs someone in their life who can do this. But at that time I had no idea. How could I possibly know? Perhaps I wasn't quite experiencing a spiritual high at that point, but I didn't feel I was in a totally terrible place with God. So she told me to go and pray about it.
So I did.
I got nothing.
Two days later someone else said the same things to me, that there was something I wasn't surrendering.
So I prayed.
I heard nothing.
The next day in a worship evening a prophesy was given that there was someone who needed to surrender something that was stopping them from giving their heart completely to God.
So I prayed again.
And again, nothing.
It was getting weird, if there was something this big why on earth wasn't God telling me when I asked Him?! It was so frustrating!

On Tuesday morning, God spoke to me during a time of worship in a voice that cut to the core of my being, I have no idea how to explain it other than a violent hurricane-like whisper:

"Caris, when did you stop living under Grace? When did you decide that it was your works that saved you? When did you start believing that I would only be proud of you if you went somewhere like Iraq? When did you start believing that the things that you do have anything to do with my outrageous love for you? When did mission itself become your god? When did your desire shift from being solely for me to being solely for my work?" 

I wanted His work. I wanted to see disciples made. I wanted to risk my life for Him in the most dangerous of places to show the world that He was worth dying for, I wanted to shout His good news at the top of my lungs for all to hear... but somehow I had wanted those things more than I wanted God Himself. And that's idolatry.

Not long after this encounter, I was informed that college had changed their mind about allowing me to go, they explained that the risks that were involved far outweighed any long term impact that my presence would have therefore college refused to sign it off.

Within half an hour of each other God had answered all that I had been wanting know at that point in time. And I didn't realise that they were so intrinsically linked.

I was gutted that I couldn't go, really gutted.

But considering what God had told me just before finding out, it kind of made sense.

My desire should always first and foremost be for Him and Him alone and then all the other things will come from an overflow of that. Not from anything I try to muster up in myself.

Grace cuts to the root of our pride, there's absolutely nothing we can do to earn it... and that beautiful truth is also the most incredibly exasperating truth, because deep down a lot of us kind of want to be able to earn it, we want to be better than others, more deserving than others, we want to prove ourselves not only to other people but also to God. We have a nature that resists grace.

We are recovering legalists, often allowing ourselves to think that God isn't pleased with us unless we try to please Him.

The thing is though, God's grace, His unmerited favour towards us is not based on our performance for Him but what He performed on that cross for us.

Grace disarms us of our pride.

Chase after Jesus first and then the rest will follow. It's all about Him.

God is good all the time

God is good and that is His nature

God bless

Caris