Another year...an eternal journey

It's my birthday today!!

What's on my mind? Awe at the way God has crafted my story.

What's in my heart? Gratitude, as I recognize the undeniable evidence of His grace upon my life.

This birthday is especially significant because for me, it's a decade birthday. I left East Africa 20 years ago, about 10 days before my birthday. My coming was the beginning of God separating me from all that I knew, not only of my environment, but also of myself. 6 months before that transition, alone in the apartment I shared with a roommate in Dar es Salaam, I knelt in the living room and asked God not to leave me, and I vowed that if He would take me from that place, anywhere He takes me I would serve Him. I will be fulfilling that vow until the day He calls me back home.

The past 20 years, I have lived with the pain and pleasure of separation. Being set apart for the purpose of God is humbling and a work of grace, because you realize that it was a choice He made, not you. At the same time however, it is a knowing that you will forever be broken bread and poured out wine for the purpose of God and His pleasure. He will be your only "possession". I spent a lot of time in reflection throughout January, and I realized again, more poignantly perhaps than ever before, something I had realized very quickly back in 2006: I have nothing, except Christ. People have often looked at me as having much, but when I look at me, all that I know I have is Christ.

I remember throughout the years, one thing that would often be said to me, was how favored I was. It got to a point that I was asking: what does that mean?? Because everyone who prayed for me always mentioned the favor of God upon me. I started to question my understanding of favor because clearly there was something there that I wasn't grasping and that God was repeating to me over and over again because it was important for me to understand. Now, looking at what my journey has been for the last 20 years, the pain I've had to walk through, the weight I've had to learn to bear, and the training I went through to stand in the places I stand in today, I realize that favor is the mark of God on His vessels that He has intended to pass through fires that others will not go through, because theirs will be the life that is sacrificed for the sake of others. How painful and heavy the favor of God can be! Does He comfort? Absolutely. Does He sustain in His peace? Consistently! But the pain must be felt, because that is the sacrifice. And yet, there is not bitterness or selfishness in the offering, because you have reconciled in your spirit, by His spirit, that you are His anyway, and therefore He can do with you what He wills, because ultimately, nothing else will give you pleasure but His perfect will.

Here I am, 20 years later, and I am even less my own than I was back then. LOL! I laugh because for me, it has been a consistent surrender of the will. The one thing I know: I was born to serve God and minister to His people. The one thing I have battled with the most: that I was born to serve God and minister to His people 😅😂 I share this so candidly because I want you to understand that yielding is real. When you see me talk about Live Yielded and the importance of surrender, understand that it is real experience that God has taken me through until I came to the place of complete abandon. It has cost me EVERYTHING. Everything. My pleasure is to do God's will. Nothing else.

So as I celebrate this birthday, and as I look ahead, I don't see the road that lies ahead, I see Christ. I see His love and mercy towards me. I see His gentleness and grace that covers me. I see His fierce care and intentionality towards me, and I have no fear for anything, because I would never have conceived this story even in my wildest imagination. I would never have placed myself here. So if He is the One in control of the details, then all I need to see is Him. All I need to hear is His voice.

I pray that you will have the courage to yield all to Him in your life. There is no cost that will ever be too great, not even everything. Your everything will never compare to His. Surrender to the Lord, and I promise you, the pain He allows you to experience will become the greatest treasure of your heart because of what you learn of Him, in those places.

I love you fam. If you read this, pray for me, for God's grace to abound towards me even more, and that His mercy would cover me. Be blessed.🌹

Until next time,

Bénie

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