I walked into coaching thirsty. Lips cracked, mouth dry and spirit dehydrated. I felt burnt out and emptied of all anointing.
My heart was crusted from nonstop motion and effort to pour out of a dry cistern. I was so thirsty for a fresh word from the Lord- that feeling when you hear him speaking and your spirit is sensitive and supple and full.
I knew that I needed help, and pulling myself up by my bootstraps was not the right approach this time. My spiritual drought called for a deeper drenching than the light rains of my normal self-improvement activities.
I know God led me to this place, so that I could experience His refinement that leads to refreshing and ultimately revival.
I say “refinement that leads to refreshing” because coaching has not been easy. It has been a crucible process for me. Opening myself up- full of insecurities and imperfections, the tendrils of my heart and being to a blazing fire of truth and spiritual awakening. As iron sharpens iron, as fire purifies, and as a double-edged sword cuts bone from marrow has been the difficulty and pain of realizing the truth of my current spiritual state and the understanding of how far from the mark I had really wandered.
Coaching has been that true refining fire, burning hotter than anything I’ve ever experienced. God’s voice has been prevalent through this process, his breath hot as the anvil and his word sharp and pounding through our sessions. It has cut through layers of wrong thought processes and years of calcified insecurities, and has begun to remold my spiritual walk.
Although painful, this process of opening up my hardened exterior and searching my heart and testing my anxious thoughts has been life giving. I had been going through life so focused on outward activity, external results and my impact that I truly needed a shattering. I needed to reflect and dig and expose myself to the true refining fire of God instead of continuing on the deathly cycle of add, build, grow… yes, yes, yes.
I needed to put my overcrowded, dehydrated life on the altar. Through coaching, I did. We talked, we prayed. I cried. I prayed. I sought after God and I lifted thing after thing up on the altar. Surrendering. I begged for his overwhelming fire to lick up the things that weren’t for me any more, to empty my plate so he could fill it again, so that I would never burn out in the hamster wheel again.
This process has been brutal, but absolutely the sweetest and most beautiful engagement I have entered into. I believe that is the process of true pruning- actual life change through Christ.
I realized that I wanted to be done chasing God and his approval and instead see him face to face, resting in his presence. This is when the refreshing happened. His refining, piercing, life-changing fire began to change me, to lick up the lies I peeled off of myself to place on his altar. Layer after layer, my load began to lighten and the truth of “grace” became more clear.
Little by little, I began to hear his voice again. His words began to leap into my heart, sweet conversations behind the steering wheel and in my office chair began to overwhelm me. The feeling of refreshing- being made new because of being “in” him gracefully danced into my spirit.
The scales of spiritual drought were melting from my eyes, and I was seeing in a new light. This spiritual refreshing has birthed revival in my heart. Revival in God. My God. All MINE. This living water, this spring of water welling up into eternal life is MINE- to be tasted and known forever.
Hope broke my drought.
I do not belong in the desert. I do not have to suffer from spiritual thirst. I am not forsaken in drought. He brings newness-even to the oldest Christians.
This divine coaching process has led me to the well- to the Living Water- to the Spring Himself. In the midst of my high-noon, but God’s perfect timing, this coaching process has drawn out of me, emptying me of myself, that I might be able to drink long and full of Him, the Living Water. It’s here that He is revealing himself to me in His most intimate, tender way. Whispering to me that he is The Way. He is my Way.
He has revived me.
Coaching has looked like refining, refreshing, and revival for me. And I am so grateful.
Isn’t that the most beautiful process- to look and dig into yourself only to find Jesus?
Thank you Jesus, so much. Thank you for what you have done, and thank you for greater depths there are to find in you.
“Then Jesus declared, ‘I, the one speaking to you- I am he.’” John 4: 26
Katy, A COO who pastors in the marketplace.
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