Outrageous Courage: What God Can Do With Raw Obedience and Radical Faith by Kris Vallotton & Jason Vallotton

Author:Kris Vallotton & Jason Vallotton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, Pentecostal & Charismatic, Inspirational, Christianity
ISBN: 9780800795542
Publisher: Chosen Books
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

Learning to Run

As I did with my street-smart hypervigilance and violence, many of us carry the hang-ups of an orphan heart into our relationship with God—ways of doing

life that we often do not even realize are terribly broken until God graciously confronts us with a better way. Like a skilled physician, our Father also knows how much healing we can handle at any given time. Sometimes His timeline for restoration does not make sense to us. (You know what I am talking about if you have ever asked, “Really? Am I still dealing with this one?”) But as long as we keep yielding to Him, we can be sure that He is healing and restoring us at the perfect pace.

Even as God heals us, however, it is vital to understand that He is not turning orphans simply into functional citizens, but into royal sons who look like Jesus. To use Paul’s metaphor, in order to run the race of the Christian life, we must not simply be healed of our broken legs—we also must train them to run with speed and endurance. And everyone knows that in order to build speed and endurance, you must consistently push past convenience and comfort. Similarly, as we learn to run as sons and daughters, God will lead us to face challenges that are difficult not so much because of wounds in our past, but because they press us to our limits of faith, emotional and physical strength, social skills, knowledge and love.

One of the primary goals of this training is to help us align our desires and expectations with God’s desires and expectations for us and let Him define our successes, failures and assignments. It is only by embracing our Father’s goals and expectations that we run the race to win, for He designed the racecourse in the first place.

The Journey into His Expectations As you have seen, my years in the Philippines, which culminated in the extreme highs and lows of that year on Oriental Mindoro with which I began this book, were filled with experiences that tested and stretched me beyond my limits. Perhaps the greatest challenge of those years, though, the one that ended up doing the most to align my expectations with God’s, was how that time in my life ended.

After my divinely orchestrated escape from the guerilla rebels in Oriental Mindoro, I hitchhiked back to Manila and went to the Department of Immigration to renew my visa, which had expired while I was trapped with the rebels. To my dismay, they rejected my renewal and gave me three days to leave the country.

My heart was torn; I was not ready to go back to the United States. Nothing felt good about leaving behind so many who had become my friends and family in the Philippines. In addition, a close missionary friend with whom I had worked there had vanished, and I desperately wanted to find her. (To this day, she has never been found.) Some friends helped me

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