Come Away With Me My Beloved

My beloved spoke, and said to me:

“ Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; The time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell.

Rise up, my love, my fair one, And come away!”

~Song of Solomon 2:10-13

My November newsletter will talk a lot of the work God is doing in my heart.  Yet I still can’t help but share just a small piece of what God has shown me just today.  These last few months have been a true refining time for me and I feel the Lord sifting through my heart and cleaning it out so that He can fill every area.  Needless to say it is still a work in progress, but the Lord is faithful to continue to cleanse me and make me into His pure bride (Ephesians 5:25-27).  I am humbled as the Lord reveals things in my heart and life that He desires to purify.

Yet as I have discovered in my Christian walk whenever the Lord is working and trying to shape me into a vessel that will shine more of His glory the devil is waiting and lurking to see if he can destroy any progress.  As I have seen God’s hand and His changes have been seen in my heart and His glory shown in it, this last week I have also seen the devil trying to distract.  This is nothing unexpected, but definitely a thing that brings me to my knees in prayer.

For it is in prayer that victory is found, for we are not fighting physical powers but spiritual battles.  As I have been setting aside more time and trying to be more diligent in growing in my relationship with God and giving Him my whole heart the world tries to come in between.  I know we face the battle everywhere not just in the mission field, but I see how technology, entertainment, activities, and people can draw the focus off the eternal things and off Him and steal time.  As I study Revelation with our youth group and dig into it, and look at the lost around me I feel an urgency to reach as many as possible for His Kingdom since the end is near and life is a vapor.  Yet how often time is wasted on distracted thoughts, pointless entertainment, and technology.  Even ministry can become so busy and demanding that something good can cause me to loose focus on why I am serving and Who I am serving.

However, today as I woke up I just felt that desire to not make plans but listen to His voice the calling me to “Come away with Him.”  These days are always nice to just read His Word, pray, listen to a teaching, read a study, and just sit and hear from Him.  Today I was so blessed, so refreshed and encouraged.  After a week that seemed to have different and odd distraction, I was able to drive, not face traffic, not get caught up in work, and just set aside time to refocus and be refilled by His Spirit.  God will not relent until He has all of my heart and by responding to His voice today I am just overwhelmed with peace and joy.  For it is not by my own strength I can live day by day but by His Spirit! (Zechariah 4:6)  I encourage you answer His call and come away with Him, you don’t need a whole day like I had today; but just time that is dedicated to Him alone, He is a jealous God!

Please continue to pray that my focus would be on God and His glory and that these distractions would fade and be at a distance.  Thank you so much for your prayers, you are truly a blessing!

In Him,  Jamie

Update: from Natasha!

Dear friends and family,

I’ve been reading the book “Love, a Holy Command” by Oswald Chambers… and I really want to share a few thoughts with you. “Whenever God has given you a blessing, take time to meditate beside the blessing and offer it back to God in a deliberate ecstasy of worship. God will never allow you to hold a spiritual blessing for yourself; it has to be given back to Him that He may make it a blessing to others. If you hoard it, it will turn to spiritual dry rot. If God has blessed you, erect an altar and give the blessing back to God as a love-gift.”

Do I stop and meditate over spiritual blessings that God gives to me? Am I ready to give them back to God or I am trying to hold them for myself? These are the real questions that I am asking myself…

The Lord brought me to a place in my life where I am like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning from Him…and honestly, I am telling you that it’s not easy for me… I am more like Martha… I like to be busy about my Father’s business…and I understand that there are different seasons in our walk with Jesus, and there is nothing wrong about being busy in the ministry…I am just saying that I am in a season in my life right now when God wants me to be quiet and listen… so I can embrace everything that Jesus has for me…It’s amazing how deep He can take me if only I am ready to receive…I hope it all makes sense to you and encourages you to get on your knees and let the Lord draw you closer to His Heart full of Love…

The warfare is so strong that it is hard even to explain…I read again and again Matthew 17 and see the warfare that the disciples faced after their experience on the mountain…We are all fighting; not against flesh and blood but our fight is in the spiritual realm…I cannot forget about it, you cannot forget about it…It does not matter how hard it might be…Jesus is my Victory, His Precious Blood covers me…His Love covers me…I can rest in Him, it gives me strength to move further...It makes me want to yield to my Beloved even more…to let Him do whatever it takes to make me like gold for His glory, for His pleasure…

I know that Jesus is writing His story through my life and it’s an amazing story of His Love and Faithfulness…

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; it’s flames are flames of fire,…many waters cannot quench this love…” Song of Solomon 8:6

in Him,

Natasha

 

Photo Slideshow: Bud Stonebaker

Check out this slideshow from Bud Stonebaker!

Bud was just recently over in Sudan and was kind enough to put this slideshow together for us all to enjoy!

Update! from Natasha

Dear friends and family,

Wow, it’s been awhile since I sent my updates out…You probably though that I was dead J in a sense you are right…but let me start from the beginning J

As you probably know that the Lord opened an opportunity for me to go to Sudan…and it was a great time…so stretching and challenging and yet amazing!!! Full of God’s faithfulness and love…

I might share with you before that it was my dream from the beginning of my ministry with FRM to go to Sudan and serve the Lord there. In God’s Sovereignty, He took me through an amazing time of ministry in Calvary Chapel Nairobi, knitted my heart together with the people in the church and missionaries there…

When I finally arrived to Sudan, it felt like home, I wrote about it in one of my newsletters that I called it my earthly “promised Land” I even kissed the ground J Yeah, and arrived in a military caravan with guns and everything… but that’s a whole nother story.  Just makes me smile to think about it.  J

Being there slowly but surely the Lord started speaking to me that He called me to Himself and not to a certain geographic place on the planet…Jesus took me to a place where I realized that it does not matter anymore what I want…it’s all about what He wants…You know, those moments with Jesus you can never forget…I loved the ministry in S. Sudan, I’ve seen this country celebrate its independence and  I’ve seen how much more needs to be done there…I’ve seen God’s glory!!! It was a mountain of transfiguration for me…And I felt like I was Peter who was asking Jesus to stay there…This is how amazing it was, yet, Jesus spoke clearly to me…,” you are going back to the valley”…Everything in me cried out to God for mercy, I asked the Lord to give me a sword (a scripture that I can stand on) or a song that I can sing to Him, and He gave me both…This passage from Matthew 17:1-8 became alive to me…How faithful and amazing the Lord is!!!! And even though I had to give up my dream…He gave me peace that passes all understanding…I started my updates with the statement that you probably though that I was dead…and this is true, I had to die, so Jesus can live through me…isn’t it a prayer for all of us…It was not an easy time for my flesh…nor for people around me…but I appreciated their prayers and support!!!

I arrived in Nairobi on the 26^th of August…I had such a great time of reunion with people in the church and my fellow missionaries…The time went by so fast and on the 13^th of September I came to Uganda to serve here and help with a guest house…And a question came up in my mind: “Why, why did the Lord move me again?” In His perfect love He wants me to obey Him in everything…and I know by my obedience to God that I love Him…

There is so much more to tell…I am in a place where the Lord took all my dreams, all my secure places that I had in my heart and left only Jesus… “When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.” Matthew 17:8

Prayer requests:

·         Please pray for the Lord to continue to lead me the way He wants to…

·         Pray that He would give me wisdom in how to help with the guest house in Kampala.

·         Please pray for my daughter Masha and my Dad, Vladimir that they would come to the Lord…

 

~Natasha

 

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