One of the key sayings here in Pemba is "go low and slow." The past few weeks Father has been increasingly revealing to me what that means.
I really struggled coming here, the first night here was very difficult for me. So much insecurity was being surfaced in me and already so much of the dirt in my heart; the places still orphaned and needing to be loved on and accepted again were being shown to me.
I felt so vulnerable and naked before all these people I didn't know, in a place I have never been before, with all my open wounds gushing out of me.
The first night here in Africa we had a worship night under the stars and Jesus already had me on my face in the dirt speaking tenderly to my heart. (Hosea 2 "therefore I will allure her, I will lead her into the wilderness and there I will speak tenderly to her.)
My heart was just crying out for more and Jesus spoke back to me and he said "kayla everything comes out of how hungry you really are for more love." I realized that I had come to Africa very very okay with myself, very satisfied with the amount of love I had with Jesus, content with his presence in my life, with where I was and with where my life was going. The very first night there were so many things wrong with my heart. I had come to the end of myself.
One of Heidi's messages this past week was "What does incarnational love look like?"
The past two weeks my heart has been re-learning how to be okay with feeling no good at all.
A few days ago this past week, a few friends and I went and visited a small village right beside Iris. Walking through the villages as a white person has been very humbling. I am awful at learning new languages, I have found it very difficult to learn makua and Portuguese. With only knowing the basic, "hello?", "how are you?" And "what's your name?", I went with a few others to break bread and spend time with families in the village. As we visited one family, father humbled me so much. I could not sit there and minister to them with any fancy words, I couldn't tell very much about myself or ask in very much detail anything of my new friends to get to know them, it was just me and Holy Spirit. Father spoke to me so much about being HIS presence and in HIM the whole time "ministering" to them.
How humbling it was to be completely stripped of everything I could really offer of myself and only rely fully on Holy Spirit to be my presence and speak to them what needed to be communicated. Oh how hungry my spirit has been getting. Hungrier and hungrier. Less and less confident, increasingly uncertain of myself and more and more unattracted to myself. I have really looked like a fool the past few weeks, meeting and trying to form relationships with new people with only three sentences, having nothing new to really offer to people here who are just so on fire and so full of life already, having no plan with no idea where my life is headed. On top of this, I spent three days earlier this week so ill I could barely move and the dirtiest I have felt ever. In all of this just feeling completely wrecked before Jesus as he showed me so much shame and guilt.
I have been stripped of everything I thought was good about myself. I really am so poor and needy. Jesus has been showing me that poor and neediness are the two keys to revival.
Jesus came to show us what love looks like. He emptied Himself out, completely dependent upon the Father admitting he could do nothing on his own but everything fully yielded and submitted to the Father's will. Laid downess and yieldedness like this has wrecked me. I can't help but just feel so much conviction with how dependent I become apart from His spirit in me. The Son came to put us in Himself so that we could have the same spirit that could be yielded and submitted to God crying out "Abba Father". How much could we revolutionize Christianity by wanting to seriously become nothing. Why do we try and prove to Father that we can do all things? Why do we strive like slaves working so hard in our loving Him? How much more fun could we have if we simply just learned how to be okay with being nothing before Father? It's in our nothingness we can accept the fullness of grace. Father has been saying "Let go and be nothing, having nothing to offer and nothing to give me but your open hands." Hunger revolutionizes our loving. When we are empty enough we can receive to overflowing ALL of Father's love. It was only Father's love and not His own that possessed Him and made Him INCARNATIONAL love. One of Heidi's key saying is "I can't, He can, so together we will".
She tells us that that is why Pemba is full of faith and fruitfulness. We see little children accepting Jesus and walking in pure incarnational love, healing the sick, praying over emotional sickness and setting the captives free. They believe completely and fully that they have unity with Jesus. The little children have taught the leaders at Iris that childlikeness really does bring down the kingdom. They don't know how to do anything by themselves, they know how to have nothing and let Him be everything. They say that hunger is truly the source of all love.
Yesterday we had the amazing opportunity to wash the feet of our Iris' mozambiqican pastors. The culture at Iris revolves around honour; to really believe in our oneness with Jesus in submission to the Father enough to go the lowest. Not only was I able to wash my Mozambican brother's feet but he washed mine, while 4 or 5 people gathered around me with the laying on of hands and they just prayed over me and lavished his love on me. I felt absolutely unworthy and undeserving. I saw Jesus' laid down love for me that morning and it was powerful. Jesus knew His position with the Father. He knew He was a Son, He knew He wore the crown and sits on the throne beside God the Father and it was in this knowing where He came from, He could come down and be the lowest of all and wash my feet. It was in this knowing who He was to Father and knowing where He came from that He was able to be emptied out and nothing, ready and willing to wash feet.
Jesus has invited us into that Sonship!
While being here Father has been showing me that He is looking for laid down lovers who are willing to give it all because they know who they are and who's they are.
If we are still attracted to ourselves, believing in ourselves apart from Father, unwilling to be emptied out love will not come through and revival in our own hearts and in our churches will not happen. If desperation is not the position of our hearts, we will not see Jesus and we will not see the kingdom here, we will not see miracles and we will not see love.
I have just been getting filled up with wanting more. I don't want Him to pass me by, I want love to overshadow me.
Pemba has definitely been full of powerful love and I see Father just handing me the keys to revival for my heart and for His church, so amazing! Keep praying friends!
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
Matthew 5:3, 6
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