I've been in the process of re-evaluating my time here at IHOP. It has been a full 5 months thus far and I want to look back and highlight some of what the Lord has done. For starters, I came here to IHOP to really find myself, feel confident in who I am and how God feels about me, to find freedom in worship and to learn more about who He is. After asking the Lord to take me where He wants to take me, I never would have imagined Him leading me where He did. He is so wise in His leading!
To begin, I've had a lack of self-confidence which has resulted in me not sharing whats on my heart with others. I never thought that my voice really mattered enough that people would take what I said as legit or worth listening to, instead I saw it as weak with broken words/phrases- I realize now that I was just believing a lot of lies about my voice. This was a problem because deep down inside, I've always really wanted to preach/teach people the truths of the gospel and be a light in the darkest places, but this confidence had to be built on a strong foundation of identity: to know who God is and how He views me. Anyways, despite the awkward tension that I feel inside when its time for me to open my heart and be vulnerable, God has been showing me not to fear rejection from others but to lean into Him knowing that He wants to hear my voice in the secret place and has a grand plan that I can be a part of.
I have found that the most powerful thing that I've experienced being down here at IHOP has been speaking and agreeing with the the truths of scripture-especially over myself. I'm beginning to realize that I've kept my mouth shut for far too long- for fear of man/ fear of judgement or being thought of as stupid because of what I said. The Lord has been drawing me to the place of prayer and of speaking my thoughts and prayers out loud instead of just 'thinking' them (I did this for too many years, thinking that since God knows all my thoughts and what I want/need before I ask for them, what's the point of always speaking them out loud?). This was definitely an attack of the enemy to keep my mouth shut. There is power in the spoken word... look at Genesis 1- He created the universe by His Word! The book of James talks alot about putting a guard on your speech because we (as stewards of the Word) have the ability to speak life or death with our words- to bless or curse. And speaking the truth of the Word and God's heart over myself has been the area of most of the breakthrough that I've received... its that simple. I should have caught onto this years ago. The power of the spoken word goes to all areas of life- even my best method to study and remember material for tests/exams is by reading it out loud to teach myself or whoever is around who will listen. (My family has been victim to that for many a year!) :).
But even here at IHOP, I've felt a tension when it came to unloading my thoughts and what the Lord is doing in my heart onto others; thus I was more reserved. I believe that God set it up that way so that I would come more to Him in prayer even in the littlest things. He is so jealous for me and my time. He really wants to hear my voice and talk with me! And even when I was feeling awkward about how to say things to people, I know that the Lord's hand was on me. Now, He's showing me that I can and should testify even of the small revelations I receive and how this really helps others in the body of Christ to grow; to open up and testify even in weakness is actually loving and serving them. And the flipside of that is when one keeps from sharing what the Lord is doing in them, this results in holding back others from growing as much as they could. When we each share what we've been learning or going through, we get a fuller picture of what the Lord is doing and not only that but when one shares a thought/revelation it can stir up something new in another and we can spur each other to grow deeper in the Lord! I tell ya, there is power in our words and the sharing of our testimony!
