The dance of fearlessness.

I have had this habit. This horrible habit. 

Where I jump on social media and I begin trolling through Facebook and live vicariously through pictures and statuses.

I find people who have similar callings or passions to my own and while they live theirs out, I am at home, sitting in my chair, looking at their pictures.

It is the difference of risk and fear. 

Via metrodorus.tumblr.com

There has been a rumbling rising. You can catch the whispers of it around dinner tables, underneath pews, on the streets, among the poor and the rich alike. It is a mesh of questions and statements and wanderings of the heart. It is striking up heart cries about fearlessness, risk, courage + bravery. Maybe you've knelt down to hear it. Maybe you've joined in with your whisper. Maybe it is a cry that echoes in your heart too.

We all crave adventure. We want to be brave. We want to rise up, throwing every fear off and away, and run without hindrance, fly without weight, dance with perfect abandon.

But we are constantly stopped. We constantly feel stuck. 

Via mimidono.tumblr.com 

Sometimes the ways of the world seem so suffocating; filled with fear and anxiety, silencing the wonder and awe and trapping us as slaves of society's priorities. 

Can I just say it, because it probably needs to be said? 

You don't answer to the world. Society doesn't tell you who you need to be. You don't have to follow it's rules and ways, but you have a beautiful opportunity to follow Him.

Him who is outside of every box. Him who breaks every rule. Him who is explosively beautiful.

Him who weaves Himself through the hearts of men and women and says, "awake!" Him who walks through death, sickness and sin, and commands it away with His very showing up.

Him. 

And that as you follow Him, He won't call you to the boxes and the lines and the rules. He might call you to live outside that box, laying across those lines, crashing right through these rules. And that desire in you for adventure, for fearlessness, for courage will awaken.

And then you may just be scared half out of your mind. 

You'll think of everything He has said, maybe you'll write it in your journal, post it on your wall, pray it out in the shower. To not be afraid because He is with you. That He has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. To pick up your Cross, deny yourself, follow + go.

And you'll have moments where tears become your food and your heartbeat is louder than your voice and you'll wonder - did I really hear Him, is this really what He said?

And without even realizing it, you have begun a dance. 

Via Pinterest. 

You have begun a dance with Him where you are no longer looking where to step next, but you have abandoned in this surrender, allowing Him to lead. And that the only thing that matters to you, the only thing you're thinking about, is keeping your eyes on His eyes. 

Because if that's where they are, you know that He has you. 

That when you fall back, you know His hands are right underneath you. That when you are moved from the left or the right, you know in just a moment He will pull you back, and pull you back that much closer into Him. And that when you are up in the air and you can no longer feel the ground beneath, you know He is beneath you.

And that as you never look away, as you just keep looking into those eyes. Those eyes that see so much of what we don't see; those eyes that see life and hope and newness in all things. Those eyes that are filled with pictures of who you really are. Those eyes that break your chains before they even set up camp. Those eyes that call you closer, draw you nearer. Those eyes.

You stop feeling the fear of the leap and the fall and the abandon. But even on the days where you do, where it still gets a lump in your throat or a pause in your heartbeat, one look in His eyes reminds you that it's worth it. That He is creating something beautiful.

That to be fearless, to practice risk, to be brave is not just a calling, it is a command. .

A command that becomes easy when you see Him. When you know Him. When you've found Him.  A command that is not a rule or a you-have-to, but it is an invitation to an adventure.

An adventure that will leave you breathless. 

When you're not running the race you're called to run.

I had an incredible moment last week where it was like Jesus stuck His hands in the mud, rubbed them ever-so-gently into my eyes, and cried out to my heart, "Ashley, now you can see."

Ashley, now you can see. 

It was a moment where I realized I had been running everyone else's race, the race I thought I should be running, the race people told me I ought to run, instead of running the race that He has called me to run.

The race with my name on it. The race reserved for me alone. The race He has picked me out for. That race. 

That in the midst of all the voices and answers and questions,  I had picked up more than I was called to carry.

And it led me into this place, into this open space of: I don't want to get to the end of my days and realize that I was a slave to the words "should" and "shouldn't." That I was a slave to people's thoughts of me. Sometimes it is like people have an image of us, created by many different things and without even realizing it, that image gets held over us.

And we become a slave to attaining that image; maybe attaining an image we were not even called to reach.

My heart has been broken (in the best way) because if I have been caught trying to attain other people's expectations of me or society's expectation of me, then where is Jesus in the midst of this?

It is like I can see Him standing on the rocky dirt of a marathon track and He is in my lane and He keeps calling my name, not to reprimand, but to call forth.

"Ashley." 

And the parts of me that have chased after status and wealth, the parts of me that have chased after approval and recognition, the parts of me that have chased after comfort and pleasure; they have to crumble now, how can they stand when my name is on His lips? So I run back to the lane, back to the race He has called me to run and even if it looks different, even if it is terrifying, even if nothing makes sense; I trust.

I trust. 

If you could get up, come through this computer screen and climb inside my heart right now; everywhere you'd turn, you'd collide with the word loved marked in every corner and every wall. I know I'd find the same in yours. You'd encounter ideas and hopes and dreams and in it's very depths, you would run into a roar that cries for justice.

There is a roar in me that cries justice for a generation of children. Children that have been labelled at-risk, forgotten, and a dead cause, but Jesus comes in and He champions another label that says, "Mine."

I have been captivated by my Dad's voice. Like any Dad who has kids; if their baby was in trouble or alone or  left with questions and he could not physically get to them; that Dad would call up every single person he knows and he would say, "Get to my son, get to my daughter."

Photo by: Tom Elgersma/Encore Photography

And I hear Him saying it to me.

That's all I know right now. That's all I know. 

No one can take your life.

There are these words that Jesus said that I cannot stop thinking about; when He said, "I have authority to lay my life down and I have the authority to pick it up again."

He was talking about how no one could take His life away from Him, but He gave it up willingly.

Those words have been sinking into me. 

Sometimes it is like when I read Jesus' words in scripture, it pulls out freedom for me.

No one can take your life. You give it up willingly. You have authority to lay your life down and to pick it up again. 

So many people in our culture are trying to not be consumed by things; running victim to cycles of defeat and
allowing time, money and expectations to manage them. Listen, money and time are slave drivers, and if you submit to them, they will run you into exhaustion and ruin.

Pick up your authority.

No one can take your life. Not even time, itself.

This is such a beautiful thing we have and it is the authority to lay down our lives. To lay down our lives for Himself, for the Kingdom, for a generation.

That is up to us, it is our choice, but we have the authority to do it.

Don't let your life be taken from you, rather exert your authority and lay your life down as He calls you. 

Come on. Preaching to myself, tonight.

I am just so hungry; hungry for more of Him. All that He is, I want and I know that He will always meet our hunger.

Always.

Girl Behind the Blog: Passion

Hey everyone!

So excited to be linking up today with Girl Behind the Blog (first timer here!)

I am going to stop talking now and let you watch the video! ;) And heeeeere you go.

Give your yes.

Tonight, I was walking home from church  and I got to thinking about how the difference between someone who lives their life out for God and someone who just does their own thing is one of those people never stopped saying yes. They never stopped saying yes to Him. 

I want to never stop saying yes to God. I want Him to get my yes. 

Pondering that in that moment, I felt the Lord just whisper into my heart that, He is jealous for our yes. 

He is jealous for our yes. 

Some days it is easy to say yes to so many other things and He is just like, I want your yes! I want your yes to be Mine. 

It is like I could just hear Jesus telling me that every yes is precious to Him. Every yes. 

Every yes to Him is beautiful. Every yes to Him is precious. Every turning of our heart to Him is love. 

Religion made the Gospel out to be a bunch of no's but the Gospel is a multitude of YES. It is not about what ended, but it is about what began. It is not about what the Father said no to, but it is about what the Father said yes to. 

He said YES to healing and joy and freedom for you. 

He said YES to authority and forgiveness and more-than-enough for you. 

He said YES to you. 

He is wide open to us today. Fully available and fully accessible.

Will you give Him your yes today? 

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There is still time to join the 40 Day Challenge for Overcome the Lie! Make sure you get in touch with me today!