You never let go

God answers our prayers.
you just have to ACTUALLY pray them.

everything about Elevation the past three weeks has been about the movement of God in our lives. it's about big prayers and big leaps of faith and big risks. it's about praying things that make us look ridiculously dumb if they don't work out.

throughout this sermon series, i've had a hard time really coming up with a "sun stand still" kind of prayer. one that could tear my world apart if answered. one that could devastate me if left unanswered.
the most i could come up with is still pretty important, but a little vague.
the past 3 weeks i've been praying for my family's salvation.

so yea, this is extremely important, but like i said, it's vague.
we'll get there.

i was raised Catholic. i'm not sure if it's because of the religion or because of my family's personality, but we've never really been a family to talk about our faith.
[let me just say, that i completely understand why God did things the way He did in my life and i'm eternally grateful. i would not be who i am if things didn't go exactly as He planned]
it never occured to me that worship and loving Jesus could be a familial, relational process.
so, growing up this way, i never fully understood the concept of salvation or being "saved." yea i knew that if you did good things and prayed to God and loved people you could go to this awesome place called Heaven. but then there was hell. and purgatory and that just involved a lot of babies and people floating around in an empty space waiting to be prayed out of there...my point is, i was never encouraged to talk about God. we didn't say grace before every meal; only on Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. we gave up on saying prayers before sleep really early on (though i will always remember saying now i lay me down to sleep, i pray the Lord my soul to keep and if i die before i wake, i pray the Lord my soul to take). God was supposed to be at church, not necessarily at home.

so when i was 15 i went to this amazing camp on the beach with amazing friends who cared enough to drag me there and amazing music that showed me that there could be a fire inside me that burned for something larger than what i had been living for. and i came home and it was awkward. and no one in my family knew what to say or how to respond to an active faith. i spent my childhood practicing a calm, passive, watchful faith in God. not really believing. now there was something else. fire. passion. life. Jesus.

[anyways, sorry for getting off topic] every summer i would come back from this place with a little bit more in my life. a little bit happier. a little bit smarter. a lot more in love with this dude, Jesus. and for some reason the idea of talking to my family about it never came up.

so now, when i'm on a mountaintop and God is alive and burning and proving His own faithfulness along with mine every single day, i'm realizing how important it is for my family to feel the same thing. and because we've never talked about our faith in detail, I JUST DON'T KNOW if they know Jesus or love Him or think/know they're going to Heaven. so my "sun stand still" prayer has been that God would touch them in a way that they could not ignore. that He would make His presence in their lives and hearts known beyond doubt. that He would move them to change...

tonight, for the first time (as far as i can remember), my mom and i talked about God and the Bible. just a little bit, but it was enough to let me know that if i can remain faithful through this process of showing them Christ's love, He will move. if i can make sure i'm doing all i can to witness to them, they will see. if i can show them who God is and who Jesus was and how He loves through my own life, then they will follow.
she doesn't understand my faith yet. but i am determined to show her exactly what God can do with a life that is given to Him completely, even if i am still working on doing that.