Crazy Love

A revival prayer. A journey to grasp a crazy love, a burning love for the King of Kings. If you think about the aspect of going before your creator, in awe of His Majesty; were you crazy in love, as he was when you became a creation in his hands. I want to meet my Savior, but I want to know him, I want to be crazy in love with Him.

Crazy Love by Francis Chan, has quite honestly transformed my view of a passionate love, a passionate desire to love God.

I need to learn one thing first, to love others, to love God, is to love his creation. It says in the book it says, “God assess our lives bases on how we love. But the word love is so overused and word out. What does God mean by love?”

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says,

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bares all things, believes all things, and hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

In the book he challenges the reader to take those verses, and replace love is…with my name, and when I did it I sitting there thinking, “Okay, am I any of those?”

For me it would be “Katie is patient, and kind; Katie does not envy or boast; Katie is not arrogant or rude. Katie does not insist on her own way, she is not irritable or resentful; Katie does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but she rejoices in the truth. Katie bears all things, believes all things, and hopes all things, endures all things.”

We tend to be our worst critics, I looked at the list and was shaking my head at a lot of the “Katie is…”

Am I always patient and kind? Do I boast? Am I arrogant or rude?

I don’t know, that’s where I’m at, I’m adjusting my life, and changing the way I look at things, the book is fabulous, and you should check it out. If you’re in the Salem area, our Young Adults group is going to be starting it as a study. Come hang out.

Revive us God; open our eyes, and hearts.

The Change

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

In one day my entire spiritual life changed, I was consumed with a burning desire to find Jesus again. I can’t say I had lost him, or my faith; I had lost the luster that had at a young age consumed my entire being. I had moved on to the mundane Christian walk, to the less challenging, and half committed walk; as my mom would say-- the “luke-warm” life. In a twelve hour van ride home from vacation, my world was rocked and transformed, at first my cousin and I were full of criticism of the CD his parents were listening to, the acting was terrible, the story completely “lame”…and then all of a sudden the fictional story of a pastor and some of his congregation who died and went to hell…became so gripping that we were all left in complete awe, and perhaps in the greatest soul changing, and life challenging experience we had ever faced. What if we, like the pastor in the story, died…and went to hell. Some would say that it was completely stupid, but Cory and I sat in quiet soul searching, and almost full terror of dying and hearing God express that he did not know us. Twelve hours of another van passenger expressing his thoughts, that I was crazy…I was going to heaven…there was nothing to worry about…and my soul crying out to the God of the universe, my redeemer, my saving grace. I was changed, I was changing. I began my quest that day; I was going to know Him, and He was going to know me. I began to search, I began to grow, and I found that, in past times, I always wanted to hear from God, but I wasn’t putting effort into knowing him. I was living half in and half out.

My theme was “Back to Basics”, I was going to get back to the basics of a healthy Spiritual life; I had to start from scratch. We got home on a Saturday, and I had to work that Sunday, but I started my nightly reading of the Bible, and by the next Sunday I was able to go to church. To my absolute surprise my pastor, Pastor Jason, preached on the exact topic, it was literally called “Back to Basics”, he basically said everything that God had laid on my heart—I needed to get into the Word every day, I needed to chase after God, and seek him in everything. As I listened-- holding back tears, I held onto every word, making it my goal. One thing that he said has really made a difference; he said that we needed to listen to music that lifts us up, Christian music. I will be the first to admit that I pretty much don’t like it. I have always had a hard time listening to it, but my thing was that…I had made up my mind to do everything possible to change, so I decided to go full force into my choice to chase after God, and that meant listening to Christian music. I made my playlist that night on Pandora. I want to say, that it has made a huge difference, I still skip songs here and there, but it’s almost like it was water to my soul on a dry day. A lot of it was my cry to God, the words I couldn’t find to express what I wanted to say. I go to sleep singing songs of praise to God, and I wake up renewed.

And then….

The dreams began; there are two significant ones that I still feel pressing my heart, that still shake me. I had fallen asleep after praying, Pandora was probably still playing the worship station I had formed, and at about 6:00am (I know you’re like, how did she know it was 6:00? Just wait!) and in my dream I went from me having a conversation with my mom to us standing on a street corner, and loud voice booms over a loud speaker, “THE PRAYERS OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN WILL PROSPER…” and in my dream I started shouting (the good ol’ Pentecostal in me comes out) and I start praying in tongues, I woke myself up doing that. Let me just say, that I am a night person, not early morning, and I woke up as if I hadn’t fallen asleep at all. I was still praying as I woke up, the clock brightly shined 6:00 am, and my heart and mind were racing. My entire being was overcome with the need to pray, and I had to get my bible out, I had to find that verse from the dream, I had to read more. I texted my sister, and thankfully she was already awake, getting ready to fly out early to Texas, had it been any other day she would have been somewhat unhappy at a text at that time practically screaming “DO YOU KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED”. Anyway, I find that the verse isn’t exactly the words from the dream, but it’s relatively the same meaning (I believe the verse is in James 5:16 “…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”). My sister’s immediate answer was something along the lines of “Sister, that is AWESOME, I think you should be praying!” little did she know that I was already deep into talking to God, the next hour was filled with prayer and reading, by 7:00 I was starting to fall back asleep. As I began to fall back asleep, I thought of a church I had attended growing up that was a “river church”. So many amazing acts of God happened there, so many times the Spirit of God had fallen in such an intense way, that we spent hours glued to the floor, unable to move, unable to do anything but worship the Lord; an all consuming thirst for Him was manifested, and it had changed me even then—but I had come so far from that time in my life, and here I was at seven in the morning, falling back to sleep, as I thought back on the experiences there. As I stopped praying my last thought was, “I could go for that kind of church service right now…” as soon as the thought finished, a loud voice in my head answered back, “It’s going to happen again, and when it does, you’re going to fall flat on your face”… imagine my awe. I woke up just as alert as I had earlier, and was consumed by the need to pray, the need to talk to God.

I guess the second dream is unclear, in fact I have no idea what I was dreaming or if I was dreaming at all, but what I do know is that when I woke up I was singing Hosanna by Hillsong United, it was so in my mind, and almost like I had been singing it all night, you know, when you’re almost overwhelmed by a sense that you could cry? I had to look up the entire song to see what it was I was singing, because I wasn’t sure of the words, all I woke up singing was the Chorus, I couldn’t remember the words I had been singing in my sleep…so my best friend, Google, gave me an answer and the lyrics still blow me away. Instead of posting the lyrics, I urge you to take a listen to the song if you haven’t listened to it yet, it’s a great song. Anyway the part that stands out to me, the part I was singing in my sleep is as follows:

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith

With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees
We're on our knees

I kept having these dreams of revival-like services, and then I wake up singing this song, and I can’t remember the words I had been singing in my sleep…I feel still in complete astonishment. God has put this prayer into my heart, I believe there’s going to be an awesome revival, and I believe that he’s looking for those who are seeking. I am so amazed; I continually stand in awe of God speaking.

Praise the Lord for his mercy, and His timing. Have you ever thought about it? I mean really thought about it. He knows exactly what we need, when we need it. It says He knows us, he calls us by name. The God of the Universe knows my name, and he wants the best for me, only the best. It’s amazing really, the ease of which we can come to Him and poor out our hearts, our worries, and fears—and he takes us by the hand and guides us. When I think about how hard we make it out to be, it overwhelms me, it’s like HELLO, Katie, its easy…search him, know him. The more I seek, the more he speaks.

So my daily routine changes, I start my days in the night, so it’s a little backwards…I put aside time to read the Bible at night and in the morning or afternoon. For the most part, I study at night, I’m more alert, and I need the unwind from the busy day that has ended. I have also added a lot of worship music to my listening. I normally hit play every morning on my Pandora “worship” playlist and I soak it up.

We worship an awesome God.

Your Name is a strong and mighty tower
Your Name is a shelter like no other
Your Name, let the nations sing it louder
'Cause nothing has the power to save
But Your Name

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me: how true the words, how beautiful the grace extended, the grace received, he still accepts me although I’ve let him down—even in my darkest days, he loved me still.

-Kate