Hungry For God

As a leader and missionary I find myself constantly attempting to get others involved, trying to lead them into being God chasers. America as a whole struggles to get people committed to the body and to devoting their lives to following Christ. We are constantly searching for people who are hungry for God.

Here is something I read about a Pastor in America talking to an Ethiopian pastor who lived in horrible poverty. He said, “Brother, we pray for you in your poverty.” The humble Ethiopian turned  and said, “No, you don’t understand. We pray for you in your prosperity.”  Seeing the taken aback look on the American Pastor’s face he continued, “We pray for you Americans because it is much harder for you to live at the place God wants you to live in the midst of prosperity, than it is for us in the midst of our poverty.”

I think that is such a key point. Most people you meet are starving. They try to meet that desperate need with anything and everything. Now days we turn to alcohol, physics, parties, medication, programs, money, possessions, status, professional psychologists, social acceptance… the list goes on. We try to fill that emptiness inside with all the stuff that America has to offer. We come to church to check it off our list, to socialize, to meet the "religious" part of us, some even come to sit and be taught. But how many of us come just because we are God chasers? We are following Him, running towards Him, we go to church because we fully expect to meet personally with our almighty, all powerful God.

How many times do we come to church on Sundays and completely miss the presence of God only because we didn’t really expect to meet with Him? But maybe we don’t actually want to meet with Him. Do we even know when He shows up? When you go to “church” on Sunday is God going to be there in the building? If so what is He doing? What is He saying? Who is He talking to? What if He shows up to personally talk to you? One of the things that scares me the most is becoming so complacent that when He does show up we either miss Him, or He finds us comfortably tipped back in our church seat napping and when He asks us about the things He has sent us to do we will not have an answer because the list is crumpled up in the garbage can. I believe that no matter how hard we pray or ask God to work, He will not pour out His Spirit on those who do not hunger for Him.

Do we really want Jesus? Or do we just like the idea of Him? Do we just like the things He has to offer? Or do we want Him to completely ruin us for the world? Do we really want Jesus? Or do we just want to know about Him? What will it take for us to be overwhelmed by His presence? For us to fall on our knees and bow our faces in reverence to our almighty God? What will it take for us to break out of our self-induced, self-absorbed comas and start really living for the One whose blood spilled out upon Calvary’s Hill?

A couple months ago I was once again sitting at the table having a conversation with my dad when he said something that really struck me.  “The one thing that comforts me is knowing that whatever God tells you to do, you will do because you don’t know how to stop following God.”

He is right. Rewind about 9 years. It was a spring day, I was alone, terrified, depressed, and hopeless. That’s when I met Jesus. He was there all along, I can see Him when I look back on my younger years but I’d never let Him in. That day I realized that only He could fill the starving part of my soul. At the time I was still living with my birth family and I had no clue what to do about this whole “following God” thing or what a real relationship with Him was like. In fact it was a few years after that when I got to meet my adoptive dad that I really started learning about who Jesus is and who we are in Him. I suddenly found that everything I had been taught about God needed to be rearranged and redefined. 

Somewhere during all the long talks and late nights a fire was lit inside my soul, one that could not be quenched. During the short course of my lifetime I have been through many struggles. Many of the things that happened, the things I had to go through were not easy to overcome. Sometimes I still struggle with them. It’s not easy to make the decision to choose God over your family, to forgive the man who tried to rape you, forget all the voices telling you that you aren’t worth it, to find love in your heart for somebody after years of being abused, it’s not easy to miss out on your sisters growing up, or overcome depression, anxiety and self-destructive habits. It’s the hardest thing in the world to break addictions and the chains that Satan so tightly bound you with. But here’s the good part. We can choose to let those struggles make us bitter against God or we can choose to believe Romans 5:1-5

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Thankfully, my struggles ended up driving me straight into the arms of my God. And sometime during the course of finding my place in God’s plan, finding Him through the struggles and the dark I came to the realization… (I think I first really realized it when God told me to go to Peru) I came to the realization that I cannot say no. I have continually found that I am unable to say no to God. There are times when I’ll argue with him, I’ll try to rationalize and dance around the point but in the end I find that I have no choice but to follow my God wherever He leads.

Has it been easy? No way. Is it always easy now? Nope. Is it worth it? Without doubt. Many people often ask me if I could go back and restart would I? They want to know what I’d change. I struggle to answer that sometimes but in the end it always comes down to the fact that I wouldn’t change a thing. Because if I took out the tragic, the trials, the struggles, the dark parts… if I took that out... my faith wouldn’t be as deep as it is, the fire wouldn’t be quite so consuming and I wouldn’t know Jesus’s love like I do now. 

I don’t wish my life from here on out to be easy either, because if my life runs smoothly with no struggles, no parts that make me question what God is doing that make me drive deeper into His Word, I’ll become complacent. That is my biggest fear. I never want to become lukewarm, I never want to lose passion, I never want to forget how great God’s mercy and grace are over me. So I welcome the struggles, the trials that are sure to come because they will require me to take my faith to a deeper level, to run to my Father’s open arms and trust Him with my life.

And in the end… when I have done all that I was commanded, I say, “I am an unworthy servant; I have only done what was my duty.” *Luke 17-10

~KrissElise

God Answers Prayers Even in the Most Desperate Times

So Monday morning at 5:00am we headed out to hike 11 miles to Ingomar Lake up Sawtooth Creek. Our plan was to camp at the lake Monday and Tuesday night and come back late Wednesday or early Thursday afternoon. We got a good start. Sawtooth trail was better maintained then we thought it would be. We made fairly good time considering we were carrying 40 lb backpacks. By the time we crossed the third creek crossing it was nearing 3:00. We took a break and pushed on the the spot another mile and a half or so up where we cut off trail crossed the creek and begun the several hour ascent up to what we thought was going to be Ingomar Lake. The downfall was worse than we thought. It took us awhile trying lots of different paths over the rough terrain, all the downed trees, rocks and bushes. Some places it was impossible to get through especially with our heavy packs that we had to move towards and alternate route. Josh was worried about getting too far right and missing the lake, I was worried about going too far left and running into dead fall that would be impossible to get through. We were pushing it to get to the top by dark. As we neared the top we realized we were not where we thought we were. Looking at the map we realized we were actually on the left side of the lake with a cliff in between us. We decided that the best thing would be to set up a makeshift camp where we were kind of at the top of the really steep stuff at a kind of flat area. We started a fire and set up our sleeping bags. We figured we'd stay the night there and in the morning we would head down around the west cliff and find the lake. That was about 7:45pm and it was completely dark by then. My stomach had started to hurt and I thought it was probably because I hadn't eaten enough to compensate for the calories I burned. So I ate some high calorie food and we sat by the fire for awhile, Josh cooked hamburgers and I tried to not focus on the pain. Around 9:30ish I decided I needed to take acetaminophen and try to sleep it off cause it was steadily getting worse. The next few hours I tossed and turned trying to lay in a position where it wouldn't hurt as much. Around 11:00 or 12:00 Josh asked if he should start a fire if maybe it would help if I sat up. I didn't know. He got up and started a fire and I decided I could take more pain killer but by the time he got it out of my pack the pain was so intense I was throwing up and knew it wouldn't help if I couldn't keep it down. Josh really started getting worried then and we sat for a little bit trying to decide whether it was more dangerous to try to head down through all that dead fall in the dark or to stay and do nothing. We decided we needed to try to head down the mountain. I sat by the fire while he packed up. He took some of the heavier items out of my pack and put them in his to make mine lighter. By the time we left camp it was 2:00 in the morning. It was really slow going because I needed to stop every ten feet or so because it hurt so much. I think we made it about 45 minutes before I laid down against a rock and was throwing up again. I told Josh I didn't think I could do this. He was really scared by then I could tell though he was trying to keep his cool. That's when we started playing our options out. Josh could go for search and rescue, but to get a signal to call out would be at least an hour and a half down through the dead fall and eight miles back down the trail. By the time search and rescue would be able to find me up there it might be too late. We had no idea how serious this was. So the decision we made at that point in time was to ditch a bunch of our gear so Josh could take both of our backpacks and see if we could make it down to the trail if I didn't have my pack. Where he could carry me out. We stayed at that place for a little bit while he figured out what we needed to take and what we could leave and I tried to catch my breath from the pain and get a little bit of energy to move. Josh asked me if there was anything I wanted. All I could think of is I wanted the pain to stop and I wanted Ken, I just wanted to feel my dad's arms around me one more time and feel like everything was gonna be okay. Neither of those could he give me though. At that point lying on that rock it hurt so bad and I felt so completely weak that the thought crossed my mind that dying would be okay because I didn't think we were gonna make it back and I just wanted the pain to stop. I asked Josh to give me my Bible which held a picture of Gavin I put in there the day before we left. I held it against me and thought about my family at home. At that moment I felt so overwhelmed with the power of their love for me that I knew we had to get out. We pushed on towards the cliff to the east knowing that if he needed to go out for help it would be easier to find me again if I was near there. We got into a rock field and went a little while across that. It was raining and it made the rocks slippery and twice as hard. I sat down on a rock and told Josh that I couldn't go further. We were both just sitting there crying out to God. Asking for His protection and mercy, for the pain to stop and to make it out alive. There was no way I could go farther. It would be hours before we even got down to the trail. The pain eased up a little while I was sitting there so we decided to put our sleeping bags under a tree and try to rest before moving on. I clutched the picture of Gavin close and lay there listening to the rain fall on the tarp over the top of us. I prayed until I fell asleep at some point. When we woke up the pain was gone. We continued down the mountain and had a fire at the trail to dry everything out and then headed the 10 miles out to the truck. When we got in cell service I called home and talked to Dale. Hearing a voice from home gave me the energy to go on the last five miles and I wanted to make sure they weren't worrying too much and knew that we were on our way out. I have never been so happy to see the truck as I was Tuesday night as we got to the trail head and it was turning dusk. We have not found out why I had the pain but I know God has His reasons. He protected us and answered our prayers. It's in times like that, when you are way out in the middle of nowhere, think you might be dying that God can show Himself most powerful. I am continually thankful that He got us out and was blessed to be in the arms of my family last night. Makes me want to never, ever take them for granted. And then while we were sitting around the kitchen table and I was telling them what happened Ken told me what was going on at home while I was out there...

"Monday evening (8 o'clock ish) I began to feel unsettled. Sometime between 9 and 9:30 pm Dale and I heard three loud knocks at the front door. Dale asked if we were expecting anyone. (Which is kind of interesting because it's not odd for somebody to show up at that time) I opened the door but no one was there. At the same time I had a very strong growth feeling that something was wrong and went downstairs and told Elli that we needed to pray. As we prayed the feeling slowly passed." ~Ken         

I was blown away by that. God told Ken to pray. Josh and I were praying. God answered our prayers. I don't know what happened up there or how life-threatening the situation was but I truly believe even more now that God answers prayers and that he provided protection for us. Maybe there is some reason we weren't supposed to get to the lake because before we left there were many people who expressed deep concern to me about us going and that isn't normal when we go out. And then we ended up in the wrong spot. Then when we thought we could get there the next morning I got the stomach pain. That's the only thing that would have kept us from continuing on. Either way. Whatever happened up there I know a couple things for sure. God is deeply involved in our lives. He is almighty and powerful. He cares for His children. And I am deeply loved. I see that now more than ever before. When we pray God works. I am just amazed by his presence and the way he works in our lives. May all glory and honor forever be His and His alone. Thank You God. ~Kriss

I held this picture the whole time. It gave me a reason to keep going.

 

This is what we were hiking in when we left the trail. This is what we were trying to come 

down through at 2:00am in the dark and snowy/rain.