Safer Than a Known Way

April 16, 2014

I have just a little over a month left until graduation. This past 4 years has just flown by! This quarter has been so busy but I wanted to send ya’ll an update and even ask a prayer request. In my last blog I mentioned I might go to New Zealand for a bit. As seniors, we are given the opportunity to do a senior capstone project which basically looks like a group of us going to another house of prayer somewhere for about a year and serving and strengthening the house of prayer. I initially signed up for New Zealand because it sounded super exciting and I had just gotten my passport, but after a couple of Skype meetings with them I realized that I just wasn’t excited about it. Sure it’s pretty but I think the beaches would only keep me for about a month and that wasn’t a good enough reason for me to go. New Zealand didn’t have a nightwatch or a CEC and it made me realize that I definitely want to be somewhere that has both of those things. Those are the 2 main things that cause my heart to come alive- singing to Jesus in the middle of the night and teaching kids about Jesus! The day after our last Skype session, IHOPU had a ministry fair where a good number of ministries from all over came and we had an opportunity to connect with them and see if we felt led towards a certain location.

So I decided to go to the ministry fair and just feel it out. My main desire in going was to find somewhere that was excited about children’s ministry. I walked around for several hours and nobody even brought it up. I was actually a bit discouraged and kinda figured it was a lost cause. But before I left I decided to stop by the booth for the Orlando house of prayer. I wasn’t really expecting anything given the response I was getting but I was curious to see if anything was there because they just went 24/7 and I’m sure they would welcome someone coming to help strengthen the nightwatch. I started talking with one of the guys at the booth and he asked me to share a little of my journey and I told him how I did FITN and then have done the nightwatch basically my entire time here. He got so excited and told me that they just went 24/7 and had like 5 full time people for the nightwatch. But here’s the part that threw me for a loop. After chatting for a bit he goes, "you know Amy if you were to come to OHOP you would be paving the way for the next generation." Now my ears perked up because I hadn’t even said anything about kids yet only nightwatch. And what he said was word for word a very significant prophetic word I received last year for my birthday when I was really seeking the Lord for vision for my life. Of course he had no idea what he was saying but as he was saying it he was like man I’m really feeling the Lord. So then I asked well speaking of the next generation do ya’ll have a CEC? And he said they did and shared their heart for raising up the next generation. My heart got so excited! He said the 2 areas where they probably need the most strengthening would be the nightwatch and CEC. So the next week I connected with the associate director on the phone and now I am emailing back and forth with the guy who leads the CEC just to get a better feel for what he may need.

This is where the prayer request comes in. In a few days I will be starting a 21 day fast. A few of my friends and I decided to do it a couple months ago and set the dates for later in the quarter. But here’s the cool part. Some of the sophomores were feeling like they wanted to do a fast and not knowing anything about ours they called it for almost the exact same days, just off by like a day. So now it’s like a school-wide invitation. The coolest part is that the main goal of their fast is confidence in the love of God which I have been praying over my class and myself for at least the last year. I felt like it was a sweet kiss from the Lord to show me He hears my prayers. I am fasting for several personal heart things but I am also going to be asking for direction. When New Zealand was out of the picture I was planning to stay in Kansas City and go on staff here. But now this other opportunity may be surfacing. The thing about it though is that I’m not even sure if anyone is planning on going to Orlando and the exciting part for me in thinking about the capstones is going somewhere with a group of people that I’ve been running with 4 years. I wouldn't be super excited about it if I was the only one going. So needless to say there are many fears I have in going somewhere I don’t know anybody. And let’s be honest, it’s way more comfortable to stay here than go to a completely different state where I won’t know anyone. So yeah if ya’ll could join me in praying for direction and for my heart that would be awesome! Remember the more prayers that go in the faster those bowls get filled.

I have to admit that graduating is very bittersweet. I have absolutely loved my time here at IHOPU! I don’t like change and transition is super scary. I recently read a book called Safer than a Known Way. It was a really random find and it’s an autobiography about a woman named Pamela Rosewell Moore. Basically this chick was 21 when she prayed her life over to God--with contingencies. She didn't want to leave her home country (England), she wanted to get married young, and she didn't want to speak in front of people. One by one, God leads her to surrender her expectations and follow His plan. She ends up serving in many countries, speaking to large audiences, and marries in her forties.

She shares this poem as a reflection of her experience--also her inspiration for naming the book:

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unkown." 

And he replied, "Go out into the darkness
And put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light
And safer than a known way!" 

-Minnie Louise Haskins, 1908

She put her faith in God, her hand in His, and trusted His way really would be the best--for her and for reaching others for Him. And it was. Her experiences smuggling Bibles, learning under Tante Corrie (who we might better know as Corrie ten Boom), and so much more are proof that God's way was best.

The book had a really big impact on my heart and I have been gradually relinquishing my rights to the Lord. The biggest and ouchiest one is I relinquished my right to write my own story. Instead of telling God how He was supposed to be doing things, I now say You’re will be done. It’s a slow journey but I am learning to trust that He really does have an adventurous story for me. In one of my classes one of the teachers was talking to us about graduating and figuring out life and how scary it all can be and he made a comment that really stuck with me. He said at our core we believe that if we really follow the Lord wholeheartedly that our lives will be hard and not enjoyable. But he told us that his experience has shown him completely the opposite. I’m asking the really hard questions like do I really believe you satisfy? Are your plans for my life really good? Can I really trust you with the desires of my heart? Do you really know what will make my heart come alive? Is God’s way truly safer than a known way?

Pamela said at the close of the book "God knew how to write my story far better than I could have imagined.” Now my question is, am I brave enough to trust that the same is true for me?