Nothing Left

Hello All,

I'd like to go ahead and announce that I am ruined. It's in a good way, I will assure you, but I am wrecked. I will never be normal. I can never go back to mediocrity. I have been ruined.

This past week has been one of great difficulty, and once again, God has been dealing with me. (I wouldn't have it any other way--how else can I grow?) Once again, it's been another stage in the journey of loss and surrender, and it is painful. But, I have so much hope; life holds so much promise when governed with reckless obedience to God.

Then, this past weekend, I had my last ALEF retreat. ALEF is the scholarship that made it possible for me to go to college fully debt-free, and each year they hold leadership retreats for all of us fellows. If I am being honest, I am not often pleased with these experiences because my views of leadership are rather unconventional. I'd rather hear from the poor, serving missionary than the rich CEO, the faithful special education teacher than the powerful military leader. Money doesn't impress me. Human power is meaningless. Thus, I generally struggle to sit through these sessions because I reject so much of what they speak as normal success. This year was similar to past years in that regard.

Our first two speakers talked of various global troubles--the first was a powerful Air Force general, the second was a correspondent for CBS with the US State Department. Both of them talked about various plights in the world--upcoming Chinese power, troubles with North Korea, just the sort of things you hear on the news all the time. Meanwhile, most of the "solutions" that were listed involved weapons and force, diplomatic manipulation, and a well-spent dollar. Listening, I was devastated. Who said the US had to the be the world's superpower? The way I see it, we haven't been good stewards with the endless blessings we've been granted. Instead, we've been proud and selfish, greedy and exploitive. Pride goes before a fall--that doesn't exclude entire countries. Meanwhile, the people we would seek to control, exploit, and threaten are just that--people! People in Afghanistan, North Korea, Mexico, Iran, Iraq, Russia, etc. are not part of the ominous "them." They are people with souls and pain, just like we are. As these speakers brought up topic after topic for us, the new generation, to worry about, I sat with tears streaming down my face. There are so many people in the world that don't know Jesus. There are poor, starving, hurting, angry, deceived people all over the world that don't know Jesus, and it would seem that those that have the only hopeful answer are sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned room plotting out of fear the demise of the very people we should be reaching with God's love. As I sat there hearing about starving people in North Korea and dangerous Mexican drug cartels, all I could tell God was, "God, I'll go anywhere You send me. If You want me to go to North Korea, I'll go to North Korea. If you want me to go to Afghanistan, I'll go to Afghanistan. But, God, I am one little person." As the general was talking, the line from Jason Upton's song, "Dying Star," kept playing in my head over and over: Great victorious warrior. . .great shining star.

The whole talk revolved around what the strategies should be, and with every problem he presented, he made the quip: "There is an app for that!" and listed naval or air powers, weapons, and planes. Rise, rise, rise. Live out your strategies. And God made it very clear that the app for that is prayer. In that moment, I felt so alone, convicted, and repentant because while I would venture that nearly every person in that room would claim to be a Christian just as I do, how many of us are walking in what God is urging us, His people, to do? How many of us are broken and repentant, getting on our face daily to surrender the strategies that we think we have to solve the world's problems? How many of us have broken hearts for those around us and into the far reaches of the world?

I spent the whole day with such a heavy burden on my heart. I could feel it in my posture, and I could not disguise it on my face. By the end of the day, I was so heavy that I could feel a giant breakdown coming. When we went to dinner which was set to have another speaker, Gabrielle and I sat down at a table that we thought was toward the back. I purposefully sat at a round table with my back to where I thought the speaker would be standing because after hearing about "success" and riches, power and fame, I was done. I had nothing left, and the tears were already brimming. But, God, of course, has other plans. They moved the speaker to right in front of our table, and the way that he was standing was directly in front of my line of vision. There was no escape. The speaker, however, Kevin Crutchfield, was the best speaker of the day.

He started by talking of the world as a village of 100 people, and he explained the privilege that we have in the US. He pointed out that being born in the US is not a birthright. We did nothing to earn it, and we have the responsibility to recognize this privilege and be good stewards of it. He then talked of the people that are in our lives. He pointed out that he wouldn't be who he is today if it wasn't for his father and his workers and the people that serve faithfully that so many wouldn't recognize as heroes and leaders. By this time, I was so refreshed by his speech that I was crying. It wasn't just a tear here and there; it was red face, mascara streams, and snot sliding out my nose. I was a mess, and the speaker could clearly see it. Then he continued, "You may think, 'I am just one little person. What can I do to change the world?'" And he talked of loving people, treating them as you would want to be treated, being faithful in the small things, and running to problems instead of away from them. And in that moment, God reminded me of Heidi Baker and some things that I have heard in her messages--"I [Jesus] died that there will always be enough. . . . Love the one. Stop for the one. . . . I'm in love. I'm in love! There is no 'no' left in me for God!"

Thus, I am ruined. I can never live a "normal" life (who wants to anyway?) because I have seen too much. I know too much--God is too real. The world is too full of people who don't know Jesus, and my life is too short to waste being selfish. It's just that simple. Last night, with more tears streaming down my face (I'm pretty sure I'm just going to turn into a puddle before it's all said and done), I was listening to a message by Heidi Baker, and she said, "Do you know what I do in between meetings? I worship. I pray. I ride a bike and pray. I swim and pray. And some of you that may bother because you think, 'Oh that's so religious; why can't she just do something normal?' I worship. I soak. I am so desperate for Him that I have no other place to go. I'm unable to do other things. I'm just unable." And that is the place where I feel like I am slowly getting to. My greatest and most frequent utterance to God nowadays is "God, I have nothing left! I have absolutely nothing left." And when I have nothing left and no where else to turn, only then can He fill me up. He has given me these burdens for other people, other countries, other peoples, the world. They are His burdens, and rather than rushing into a fury of action, thinking that I can solve it all through my own strategies, all I can do is sob before Him and tell Him I have nothing left. I am so dependent on Him, so desperate that I can't make it through a day any more.

I have reached a point of such exhaustion. I am so drained. I cry all the time in any location in front of any people. I have nothing left. I feel so alone because so few believe that He is enough. The circumstances around me and even other Christians say that He's not enough, that I'm too idealistic, and while this breaks my heart and makes me cry with desolation, I hear echoed in my spirit, "I died that there would always be enough," and I am just crazy enough to believe it.

With humble love,
Sarah