Kingdom Woman: Embracing Your Purpose, Power, and Possibilities (12 page)

The police told us that Jesse had been happy. However, the officers also said they could tell that he had been crying at one point, because dried tears were on his face. But from the time he had chased after the car on the road and the family had picked him up, he had been smiling and laughing.

Later that evening, I asked Jesse why he had left the house.

He said without hesitation, “I was looking for you, Mommy.”

My young son had been looking for me. He had been pursuing me. He had seen me head off in another direction in a crowd of aunties and relatives, and he had to do everything he could to find me. This eventually led him to a road where his three-year-old legs chased after a car. Had Jesse realized that he couldn’t find me and that he was alone somewhere, he might have just stood by himself and cried.
He might have just sat down and given up. Yet because he kept pursuing—he kept looking for anything that resembled what he was searching for—he chased down a car, the driver stopped, and Jesse eventually “found” me.

I’m convinced that Jesus Christ was right there with little Jesse, encouraging him to keep looking, keep pursuing. Even though he had wandered out into a frightening and dangerous scenario, because he did not quit pursuing what he believed he would find, he found what he was looking for.

“Mommy, I found you!” Those words still bring tears to my eyes and clog up my throat with gratitude for a child who kept looking—and for a God who stayed right there with him the entire way.

I don’t know what you are looking for. I don’t know the object of your deepest desires. You may know exactly what you want, or you may simply be struggling with a hole that you don’t know how to fill. Either way, there is one thing that I know for certain. Pursuing God is worth it. Be determined to know nothing “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

When asked about the most important thing that a person should do, Jesus responded, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). To chase after God, to want more of Him over and above all else, is where the journey of faith begins. When we show by our actions that we believe that He is good, and we illustrate by our activity that believe that God can deliver to us more than we could ever acquire on our own without Him, that is the beginning of the journey of faith.

Who Touched Me?

All little Jesse knew when he saw his mom pull out of the driveway was that he wanted to find her. In his tiny three-year-old mind, he decided to pursue her the only way he knew how—on his tiny three-year-old feet. Although the situation in real-time was probably the most frightening moment of my life, the purity of the illustration of passionately pursuing the one you love—in Jesse’s case,
his mom, Chrystal—is such a great reminder to each of us about how we are to want nothing more than to be in Christ’s presence. How we are to willingly leave the security of our comfort zone and step out in faith to pursue the path that will take us the closest to Jesus.

It was no small step for the woman who suffered from hemorrhaging to move through a crowd that normally would reject her and scorn her as an untouchable outcast. She courageously pursued Christ even though it took her out of the comfort of obscurity. And because she did, she found Him, along with her miracle.

One of the most intriguing elements of the story of this woman is how Jesus was able to tell, apart from all the others, who was touching Him when this particular woman touched His clothes. He could feel His power being used to heal her:

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” (Luke 8:45–46)

Keep in mind that there is one fundamental difference between the woman touching Jesus and everyone else who was pressing up against Him and touching Him in some form or fashion. I want to again point out this difference because it is a spiritual principle that, when applied, will open up the gateway of heaven’s power in your life as a kingdom woman:
The woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment lowered herself; probably she knelt.

She had humbled herself to pursue the very object of her faith, the Word of God. Everyone else was standing up. They were part of the crowd, content to approach Jesus at the same level and deeply unaware of their authentic need for His Word. A large number of people in the crowd touched or pressed against Jesus yet did not receive any manifestation of His power.

See, you can be part of a crowd who gathers at church or even comes together to do a Bible study, but unless you recognize your true humility before the living God and your complete dependence on Him and His Word, you will
only be in the vicinity. You will only be part of the Jesus Fan Club. You will go untouched. Nothing will change within you because His power will not be released to you.

A kingdom woman of faith must pursue both Christ and the authority of the Scripture with a heart of humility. It is only when you kneel down to reach for the hem, when you humble yourself under His divine authority based on His divine Word, that you will get the power you need to live out the fullness of your destiny.

You can get a touch from Jesus right now if you are willing to go low enough, if you are willing to ignore the stares of the people, and if you are willing to press on through your pain. If you will humble yourself to grab hold of His Word, His power is yours.

As a pastor of a fairly large congregation, I see a certain pattern play out too often. I see individuals who long to be healed, to be set free, and to serve God, yet they won’t relinquish their control, their self-dependence and preservation. They won’t let go and go low. As a result, they remain in the vicinity without the power they need to live a victorious life.

Faith coupled with humility is the secret to every kingdom woman’s success. As one theologian wrote, “Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.”
[29]
Because the woman who struggled for twelve years with a major health issue chose the path of greatest humility before God, she received the greatest gift of power and healing.

In fact, kneeling down to touch the blue cords tied to the hem of Jesus’ garment wasn’t the end of her practice of humility. Following the transfer of healing power to the woman, Jesus asked who had touched her. He wasn’t asking because He didn’t know. He was asking because He wanted the woman to do one more brave act of humble faith. He wanted her to go public. He knew she had been healed. She knew she had been healed. In fact Mark 5:29 says, “She felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”

He wanted her to share with the others what had happened as a result of her great humility and faith. He wanted her to step out of the comfort zone of the isolated life she had known for so long and publicly declare what He had done. Jesus knew that this action would not come naturally to a woman who was used to being overlooked and ignored. He knew that speaking up about what had happened would be uncomfortable for her. But He wanted her to do it. Even in doing it once, in His presence, she would learn the courage to do it again and again. This woman of great faith and humility also needed to discover great courage. And Jesus was right there to help her. When she heard Him asking specifically for her . . .

She trembled. She wasn’t used to being noticed in large crowds. She wasn’t used to being a part of a conversation in the public’s eye. But she came forward and told Jesus she had touched His clothing. Jesus’ response was personal. She was not a stranger to Him at all. In fact, He called her the endearing term in that culture of
daughter
. He rewarded both her pursuit and her courage with more than healing. He rewarded it with peace, saying, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace” (verse 48).

Somehow between getting physically healed and having the courage to testify about it, she had established a relationship with her Savior. She had gone from “Who?” to “Daughter.” She became a recipient of peace within the family of God.

Not everyone gets peace in this life. Many people have what would be considered the blessings of good health, money, clothes, or a nice house. Yet God can bless you with a house, and you still may not have a home. God can bless you with physical healing, but you may still be in mental anguish. God can bless you with things that your physical five senses can enjoy, but you still may not have a relationship with Him.

Jesus wants to do more for you. He doesn’t mind giving you stuff. He doesn’t mind your body working properly. And He wants you to be well. But more than that, He wants you to be His daughter. He wants you to have the courage to pursue Him publicly in order to enter into an intimate relationship with Him.

A kingdom woman pursues Christ in private and in public. That’s when you get to see Him show up in a way that you cannot explain. That’s when you get to experience a closeness you have never known. Pursuing Jesus while you grab hold of His Word releases power to you. Things that you have been struggling with for years may be resolved in a moment when you pursue Christ humbly, publicly, and holistically.

7

The story goes it had been a hard winter in the Rockies. The snow piled deeper and deeper. The temperature dropped below zero and stayed there. The rivers froze over. People were suffering.

The Red Cross used helicopters to fly in supplies. After a long, hard day, as they were returning to their base camp, the rescue team in a helicopter saw a cabin nearly submerged in the snow. A thin wisp of smoke came from the chimney. The men figured the people in the cabin were probably critically short of food and fuel.

Because of the trees, they had to set down about a mile from the cabin. They put their heavy emergency equipment on their backs, trudged through waist-deep snow, and reached the cabin exhausted, panting, and perspiring. They pounded on the door, and a thin, gaunt mountain woman finally answered.

The lead man barely could get the words out, “Ma’am, we’re from the Red Cross.”

She was silent for a moment, and then she said, “It’s been a hard, long winter, sonny. I just don’t think we can give anything this year.”

Many women find themselves in situations like this mountain woman. It seems like you’ve used every ounce of energy, supply, reserve, and know-how just to meet the needs of those around you, and yet someone still comes
knocking at your door. The problem is that it becomes difficult to discern that that person is not there to ask for more but to offer help. While the Red Cross had actually shown up to assist the woman, she assumed that they were just others in a long line of people needing something from her.

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish when God is sending help your way, because it comes wrapped in a shroud of faith. It takes an unveiling before you realize what God is actually up to. Many women in the Bible had to step out in faith when they faced a lack or need before they saw God’s response to meet their needs with abundance. The phrase
taking a leap of faith
implies a swift and sure movement in a direction where the destination is unseen.

In 2011 I was in South Africa with Lois, and we saw a beautiful animal called the impala. The impala has the unique ability to jump over ten feet high. It also is able to leap farther than thirty feet. In Africa, the impala runs and leaps freely in wide-open game parks or wildlife preserves. However, the impala—despite its gift of leaping high and long—can easily be contained in a zoo enclosure with nothing more than a three-foot-high wall. This is because the impala does not jump when it cannot visualize where it will land. The impala remains trapped in self-imposed limitations simply because of its inability to take a
leap of faith
.

For many of us, faith is an amorphous term we just can’t seem to grasp. Because we lack faith, we stay confined behind walls of fear, doubt, insecurity, and self-preservation. Yet faith is the very footpath to freedom. Simply put, faith is acting like God is telling the truth. To act like God is telling the truth is to act on His words without having to see any proof first that what He says is true. I will often summarize faith in this way:
Faith is acting like something
is
so, even when it is
not
so, in order that it might
be
so simply because God said so.

Faith is not first and foremost your feelings. It is not an emotion. In fact, many people can
feel
full of faith but have no faith at all. This is because faith is
not functional and useful until it is an action. Faith always involves your feet. This is why Paul said to walk by faith—not to talk by faith. You know that you have faith by what you do, not merely by what you say or feel.

Chrystal’s Chronicles

My oldest daughter, Kariss, was enrolled in a homeschool co-op during her teenage years. She would receive homework assignments via e-mail from her Fitness and Nutrition teacher. Because Kariss was homeschooled, her responsibility was to complete her assignment before the next week when her class met. My job was to find ways of working in fitness (PE) and nutrition (eating healthy) to our everyday lives. The assignment for one particular week was to do the following:

• Run/walk a mile, and time it.
  
• Immediately after finishing your mile, count your heart rate.
  
• Find your target heart rate and target-heart-rate range.
  

So we went as a family that evening to 24 Hour Fitness and proceeded to do our own workouts. My husband and daughter ran side by side on their respective treadmills to make that one-mile benchmark.

I was on an elliptical machine that put my back to them. Every now and then, I would glance back to see how they were doing. Noticing that my daughter kept reaching for her neck to find her pulse, I worried for a brief second that something was wrong. But then I remembered that she was trying to keep a tab on her pulse while she ran. Funny, you would think that a person running a mile would only be focused on the mile. You would think that the focus would be on putting one foot in front of the other, keeping one’s breathing rhythmic, and inhaling deeply. But, oh no, this girl had her hand on her neck.

I find this funny because in the Christian walk, we have so many measurements of how well we are doing in our journey. We want to make sure we are having devotions every morning. We try to make our Sunday morning worship services at all costs (even if we make it late). We even tithe to our local churches
exactly
10 percent. We are keeping our fingers on the “pulse” of our Christianity.

But the real measure of our walk with Christ is whether we are keeping one foot in front of the other, walking with Him and talking with Him, believing by faith that He will help us finish the race that He asked us to run. “Being confident of this,
that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

The real measure of our relationship with Christ and our faith in Christ is our ability to act based on what we know. It’s the ability to stick with it even when we can’t see our way. Faith is learning how to hear His voice clearly along the way as we grow in the art of praying without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). In a way faith is not confined to a certain time of day but is like air in that we need it throughout our day to sustain us. The journey of a kingdom woman is for the woman who is willing to learn the value of getting to know Christ along the path of faith rather than focusing on the path itself.

The real measure of our walk with Christ is how much of Him we “inhale” and receive deeply within our souls until His glorious resurrection power is seeping through our pores—“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

The challenge of this walk of faith is to make sure that our focus is in the right place. Although the “pulse,” or indicators, that Christians are accustomed to looking at are real and do provide a gauge of what is going on inside of a person, they are
not
the end-all.

We have a God and Savior who wants us to
walk
with
Him
. He wants a relationship that transcends measurements and benchmarks. He wants us to
know
Him. Isn’t that something?

I’ve seen many runners take a towel and cover up the treadmill dashboard that reveals the distance run, time remaining, and calories burned. Why? Because they don’t want to focus on their stats; they want to enjoy the run.

My hope for my daughter was that she would not focus so much on the mechanics of the run or the requirements of the run, but that she would just run the race, knowing that all of those other things would fall into place as long as she put one foot in front of the other.

That is also my hope for you!

In life some paths lead us to where we want to go, and some paths lead us away from where we want to end up. Some roads are smooth, some are rocky, some are slippery, and some will get us stuck. I’ve personally traveled along paths that were painful and paths that brought me so much joy I felt I would burst.

Every now and then I’ve traveled a path that lasted for a brief moment, or one that flat-out exhausted me because it seemed to have no end. There have been paths lined with beauty and some lined with sights I hope to never see again. I’ve trodden along trails that have taken me to dead ends, and some that have led me to places I could have never imagined.

What have I learned?

The only way to live is to choose a path and follow it. Simply put: Choose to walk the path God has placed in front of you, and put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, we don’t know what our paths hold; in fact, most times we have no idea what our journeys will bring. These are the pathways with a direction and end you cannot see. The way ahead may seem blurry, but you know deep within you that God has asked you to travel this path.

God always asks us to walk the pathway of faith. I can gaze at that path all I want from a distance. It is only when I choose to walk that path, to take in all the sights and sounds, to experience the journey step by step, stride by stride, that I experience my life in its entirety. It is only when I step out in faith that I am able to reach a destination that only God knew was there all along, but I could not see myself.

When walking these paths, I pray:

Lord, help me not just be a hearer but a doer.

Help me not to be a gazer but a walker.

Keep me from standing on the precipice of my life.

Hold my hand and help me to leave footprints along the paths You lead me to.

Lord, help me to boldly walk the paths set before me.

Help me to live the life You have given me fully, completely, and abundantly.

Let me experience the power provided through the life of Jesus Christ living in me.

Lord, let me live my life in such a way,

with such endurance,

with such commitment,

and with such vigor,

that when You tell me to take a foreign path with a destination I cannot predict,
I will be ready to do it boldly—knowing that You are with me along the way, that I am not alone, and that You only set me on a path of unknowing because You want me to grow in the walk and take me to a greater place through the journey.

What is your prayer? What are your concerns or hesitations? Whatever your anxieties or apprehensions, fears or trepidations, follow the instructions that the Father has given you in His Word to the path that He has for you. Walk or run in the direction He points you. Put one foot in front of the other and follow the pathway of faith.

Zipporah

The Bible is full of women whom God asked to walk a pathway of faith just as Chrystal has described. In fact, as I pored over the Scriptures looking for just the right stories to pull out to demonstrate women of faith, I came across so many women that I had to pick and choose. There aren’t enough pages in this book to include each one of them, but I want us to look at a few more powerful stories. One woman acted in faith despite following a husband, Moses, who was making God mad. If you know what Zipporah must have felt like, just make sure your “amen” right now is not so loud that your husband can hear you.

Not a lot is known about Zipporah. We do know that she was of African descent. She was the daughter of a man named Jethro, who held the respected position as the priest of Midian. We also know that Zipporah married Moses after he had fled Egypt, and that their interracial marriage had been the cause of some contention in Moses’ biological family (Numbers 12).

Zipporah was a proselyte to the faith. She believed in the one true God—Moses’ God. And she demonstrated her fear of God and faith in Him at a time when Moses seemed to lack faith.

Moses had been instructed to circumcise his firstborn son as a demonstration of his commitment to God’s covenant. The covenant was the unique agreement God had set up between Himself and His followers, the Israelites. It was the father’s responsibility, according to the culture and tradition, to raise his family in the faith and to teach them to carry out the various symbolic acts and demonstrations of the faith.