7 more days

I just got back from the college worship service at the church. Kyle preached an incredible message out of Luke 12. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple..."
I am so sleepy, so tired to even think that well. Driving home in a daze I remember times in the last couple of years that those scriptures have driven me to a place of surrender.
I can't remember much before my sophomore year in college, of how my heart felt about counting the cost. what is would be like to go-wherever the Lord called me. to leave whatever I had to leave, or lose whatever I need to lose so that the name of the Lord may be lifted high and carried to places of darkness to bring light. BUT I do remember the springtime of 2005 and the stirring of my heart. I really can't believe that I still look back on that season and consider it a milestone of my faith. The freeing of my heart spawned from a lot of things---Coming out of a 2 1/2 year relationship, reading a book called Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi, taking ministry classes for the first time and diving into what that really meant, and having a guy named Shaundell walk into the lives of me and my roomate.(I'll save the Shaundell story for a later post)
The Lord just turned my heart upside down and gave me a fresh look at life and what it was about, and those are times in our life that we never forget. Its when all things make sense again. we have a purpose, we have a mission. I was terrified to leave this place---my family, my friends, my comfort, my routines, my home. And the Lord just began to walk me into conversations with people and into hands on ministry where I was uncomfortable. Little by little that spring I began to be challenged by things that brought me fear and I began to gain victory through Jesus. There was no rival---Kyle said it that way tonight and what a simple way to put it. But there was no rival--if HE decided to rearrange the furniture in my life, I was ready. I would have jumped on an airplane and went anywhere. my heart had been set free, and it's still really hard to explain, but I'm typing about it right now and I know that the Lord walked me through.
Two years after that in the Spring of 2007 I experienced one of the same things except in a smaller amount of time. I was saturated at that point with school, stuff, and time so much that I wanted to throw up(much like the feeling I get now when Im busy, spend my time on stuff, and then have to drive 25 min home afterwards). keep in mind, this "stuff" i speak of is good stuff, but can become just tasks at times and lose flavor. I began to listen to David Platt a lot at this point and He did a series called follow me. that did it for me. it tore me apart. I was ready to sell everything I had. I would have left it all. I was thinking radically. I had things to change, and ties to cut.
Some days that I walk through I wish life were that simple, to have no more "busy work," but to be able to get straight to the point, and live the life. But life gets in the way sometimes. But I gotta keep fighting.