Getting God's Dream - KINSEY THURLOW CHARISMA MAGAZINE

Getting God's Dream

 5/2/2016 KINSEY THURLOW  charisma magazine

When God asks you to lay down your dream, here's what He may be doing. (Charisma archives)

Often, when people stare at a crisis, our thoughts seem more quickly inclined to Let's Do, instead of Let's Pray.

"Okay. The prayer thing, but we need to do something."

We are so eager to do something (and just for the record, I absolutely believe that we should do something). But in our eagerness to act, prayer is often put on the back burner or shoved to the side, while it actually needs to be our very foundation and the fire that is fueling our every move.

We cannot underestimate the importance of prayer's centrality.

A little over 10 years ago, I had some stirrings arise in my heart for orphaned children. So I acted on this interest and interned with an adoption agency one summer between college semesters. With a small group of other Americans, I traveled to Russia and spent about a month ministering to the nation's fatherless, living in their orphanages with them. I was with the children hours each day—eating with them, talking with them, playing games with them.

After the time spent in Russia, I had the urge to relocate somewhere overseas and work among the orphaned. These children had impacted my heart in a life-defining way. I could not imagine going back to "life as usual."

But. But sometimes God has a different course than the one we had in mind for ourselves.

The fourth summer I went to Russia, I felt from the Lord that it was the last time. I didn't know if that meant the last time for a while or the last time forever, but I knew when I said goodbye to the children that summer, these who I had come to know and love so much, that I wouldn't be seeing them again, at least in this age. I throbbed inside, wanting to understand the Lord's leadership, but not understanding.

I came back to Kansas City, with the desire to minister to the fatherless so strong in my heart. But there was no orphan ministry around, at least that I knew of. My heart wrestled, having no outlet for the burden that was burning inside of me.

But I remember a defining moment with the Lord that ultimately altered the trajectory of my life and ministry.

I longed to be among the orphaned—and God said to me, so clearly, "Kinsey, let it go, and let Me hold that dream."

I didn't know what to do with that. How could I let it go?

So, still aching within, I threw Him my rebuttal. "But Lord, what about the orphans?" His response didn't seem to answer my question at the time.

"I want you to pray," my heart heard Him whisper.

And well, having no other known outlets to serve these children, I began to pray. Like I never had before. Some days if felt rote and unexciting, and on other days God brought me to holy tears wept over their lives. I filled journals with prayers for these kids.

And as I prayed consistently, God began giving me a very precious gift.

He started releasing to me His burden and His heart for the fatherless.

It was bigger than what I had felt before. Much bigger.

Though I'd been ready to move across the ocean and leave all the familiars of life—what I felt now was bigger still.

The burden began to grow in my heart to such an extent that I was tempted to say at times, "Lord, I can't take anymore."

But rather than making this my prayer, someone wisely counseled me to instead pray, "Lord expand my heart's capacity to hold all that You want to give me."

The Lord called me away to pray, and something beautiful happened. When I really began to enter into that place of prayer, the Father of the fatherless drew me into His heart and began to give me a deeper taste of what He feels for a fatherless generation of children. It was something greater than I could have imagined, something beyond what I could have ever produced in myself—something that could only be found in prayer.

A gift found within a gift.

There in the gift of simple intimacy with my Father, I met Him heart to heart, felt Him weep and let His tears overflow into me, becoming mine. And His love for me, for them, overwhelmed me.

I see now what I didn't see those years ago. My vision will ever remain too small and my ability to bring true justice hindered unless the effort to minister to the fatherless is born out of an intimate prayer partnership with Jesus.

And so we pray, while also asking for abundant grace to put action to our prayers.

God wants to do something beyond our own ability. He wants to impart to us the depths of His own heart, to find those who will be a resting place for His emotions, and to release through us a movement of justice fueled by the power of His own Spirit.

Who cares about these children more than any of us do? Who is the only One who has the power to restore a broken story and heal a shattered heart? Who is He who has taken the highest seat in all of creation, who is enthroned in the heavens, and who has called Himself a Father to the fatherless?

We want to intimately connect with the heart of our God, our Father, our Friend over these children. We actually want to talk to Him, to closely engage His heart.

So for these 40 weeks, we're leaning in. We're asking Him to bring us into His precious burden for the orphaned. We asking Him to share dreams in His heart that we have yet to conceive.

What does He want to do? In our nation? In this fatherless generation? In our churches? In our families? In our hearts?

What are the desires of God's heart?

Come up close. Listen. Pray. And dream big with God.

Kinsey Thurlow is a minister at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. She is an advocate for the fatherless and her husband, Jon, is a worship leader and minister at IHOPKC.

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Why a Weary World Rejoices - KINSEY THURLOW CHARISMA MAGAZINE

Why a Weary World Rejoices

The ache in our soul for the One who can bring peace is a perpetual thirst that can't be quenched by the holiday spirit. (photo: Charisma archives)

12/14/2015 KINSEY THURLOW  charisma magazine

This season always brings with it a message. Songs that remind our hearts to hope. A story that puts us in awe of what has been, and what is yet to be—a story still unfolding.

We remember the lowly birth of the highest King. We remember the night when choirs of angels sounded in the sky, but only shepherds witnessed the song. We remember a Babe whose cries revealed to the world what everlasting love sounds like.

The birth of this One urges a weary world, and weary hearts, to rejoice.

Here we are two thousand years after that miraculous night in Bethlehem ...

And a weary world and some throbbing hearts that feel a little (or a lot) removed from that Silent Night that unfolded millennia ago, groan for a King.

These days, we stare at the news, watching smoke rise, hearing death tolls calculated, looking in despair as another law is passed that defies our God, listening to national leaders thrust out their arguments, witnessing refugees fleeing for safety— but here and now, we must remember that Babe.

This month, I'm going to sit around the Christmas tree with my family, pierced by the grieving absence of one we love, my first Christmas without my dad ... and in my grieving, I must remember that Babe.

This coming year, I'm going to look into the faces of foster children down the road, who have lived through the throes of abuse and neglect, who are without a family on Christmas Day, and every other day of the year ... and I must tell them of that Babe.

When the world is shaken, when our hearts are breaking, the truth is—our hope is—we need to draw near to the manger again.

For that Baby is the Hope of the nations, the hope of every weary heart. He's the God who is faithful to fulfill every promise, the One who will return to us, the righteous Judge who will bring justice to the earth, the Bridegroom who will marry His church, the King who will rule the nations, the Lord before whom every knee will one day bow.

That Baby is the Resurrection and the Life. He lived, He died, and He lived again. And if He has been raised, all who die in Christ will be raised also.

That Baby is the living declaration of the Father's love, who came to bring orphans into a holy and eternal family, and to bind up our pained brokenness.

This Christmas, we remember our God who took on infant flesh, the Man who embraced the cross, the Savior who broke open the grave.

We set our hearts on the One, the only One, who can bring hope to a failing world and to a fainting heart.

The One who revealed to us what Everlasting Love sounds like ...

It sounds like a helpless, holy infant, crying in a manger.

It sounds like a voice, beckoning undignified fishermen (and others, like us) to be His best friends.

It sounds like a tear, dropping to the ground, grieving with a friend over the death of her brother. And it sounds like a loud cry, calling the dead man out of his tomb.

It sounds like a groan, a prayer, a final breath.

It sounds like an earthquake, breaking open the grave.

It sounds like a promise to come back again.

And a day will come when it will sound like a loud shout, like a trumpet, ringing through all of heaven and earth, announcing our King's coming.

He was, and He is, and He is to come.

And so we say, with longing hearts—Come, thou long expected Jesus. Weary hearts and a weary world are desperate for Your return. 

Kinsey Thurlow is a minister at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. She is an advocate for the fatherless and her husband, Jon is a worship leader and minister at IHOP-KC. 

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