"Drop and give me fifty..."

It's disappointing to me that I haven't blogged more of the things the Lord has shown me the past few years. So, from time to time as I remember a really great moment, funny story or eye opening lesson, I will back track and tell the story. Tonight, I am going to go back a couple months and tell you a story of Jesus... the trainer.

I was laying in bed, just about to drift off to sleep when I heard a still small voice clearly speak to my spirit "Drop and give me fifty". Well, during this last season of my life, I was frequently doing push ups as I was training for a certain event with a ministry I will tell you more about later. Now, in my sleepy head, I said back to God "are you kidding? On so many levels I can't do that, 1. I am tired, 2. I have never done any more that 40 pushups and 2. I just don't want to" He said again "Get down a give me fifty". As I put my feet on the ground in obedience, I almost was amused at this situation. My husband was just staring with a confused look on his face as I took my position on the floor of our bedroom and began to do push ups. 1-30 was nothing, 30-40 was tuff but 40-50 was exhillerating. It honestly wasn't even nearly as hard as I thought. As I climbed back into bed and awaited this profound down load from God as to why he just asked me to do this... i heard him say... nothing. Yep, thats right, when I asked him "Father, WHY on earth did you just make me do that?" He said... nothing. I went to bed very irritated and almost even questioning if I even heard from him at all.

The next day I was at work and as I was right in the middle of a blow dry I heard him say "well done". I was like "uh... me? For what? " I mean, I know he cares about the small stuff, but surely he wasn't talking about how great my clients hair looked? I honestly brushed it off until about an hour later when I was sitting at the front desk with a co-worker who is also a believer and I was rubbing my arms. Low and Behold, I was really sore and it never even dawned on me why until she asked if I had worked out ? I laughed and began to tell her my story about the random request from Captain Jesus... then it hit me. "Well done" I was like..."really, now you have something to say?" He said "I had to give you time to be sore"... As we began a short conversation about why he would require me to be sore before he could speak to me I started to get a sense of clarity and when this download finally came, i knew that his timing was perfect.

See, God isn't on our schedule. He showed me that in life, sometimes he must give us challenges that will have a result of soreness. This be the parallel between sore muscles and life. Just like our muscles, when we are obedient, even if we don't understand, and EVEN if the result in painful, we are giving ourselves an opportunity to grow and we are STRETCHING ourselves. HE will even ask us to do MORE than we think we are capable of doing so that he can show us we are stronger than we think" So, my body experienced something that was a physical strain and created soreness, but thru the process, my strength grew and my muscle became more visible. In the same way, my faith grew and the fruits of my life became more visible. I really appreciated this love encounter with God because it really confirmed in me that the natural and the supernatural usually go hand in hand if you are willing to be obedient so that God can have a chance to grow and stretch us in our walk with him.

So, he is God of the Universe, but don't put it past him to tell you to "drop and give him 50"!!!

"I was called to be free" ~ Galatians 5:13