I get flirted with in Spanish and we talk spiritual over fajitas

Last night Hank and I splurged on Mexican food at a little restaurant in town.

We came home from running errands and our landlord was working on our dripping faucet and the water heater and furnace that wouldn't work. Our sweet landlord is 88 years old and reminds me so much of my Opa. He knows how to do everything and hates to pay someone to do something he knows how to do. He isn't in great shape and he can't hear very well but he is sharp as a tack and can teach you how to fix anything.

    Well he and his daughter worked on our repairs and eventually called a plumber after they exhausted all their ideas.

The plumber came, a nice Mexican guy. He lit the water heater and proceeded to fix our leaky bathtub as our landlord's daughter perched on the side of the tub with a flashlight and the rest of us crowded around the door of the bathroom to watch. I learned that our house is over 50 years old. Wow.
    Well, the plumber and I started speaking in Spanish and I learned that he was from Guanajuato, where I have been twice. I asked him if he liked being a plumber and if he liked Rosenberg. Then I asked if he had an esposa- a wife.
    He laughed, said no and then " Tienes una hermana?" Do you have a sister?
  I laughed so hard and promptly told him my sisters were much much younger. I may have emphasized the "mucho."

Hank was yelling talking to our landlord but poked his head into the bathroom to ask him what a good Mexican food place was and he referred us to this restaurant up the street. So it was that we found ourselves dashing out for some grub when the plumber finished at 8pm.

While we were eating the best fajitas I have ever had, Hank remarked that I had been "betheling it up" (in reference to Bethel Church in Redding, CA) since talking to my teammate from China earlier in the week.

Last year I was intoduced to Bethel Church by my dear teammates in China and some of the sermons and music shifted my spiritual paradigm. I learned more about the Holy Spirit, about expecting spiritual breakthrough, about living a life of excellence and worshipping with all that I have.

Since coming back from China and not being surrounded by my teammates, I have settled back into my old mindset. I got my routine but wasn't pressing in for God's fire. "God always sets the sacrifice on fire. Be consumed for him, " as Bill Johnson said. I wasn't offering my whole self- just a couple minutes in the morning and in the evening. I wasn't willing to be consumed. Afterall, being consumed means allowing some of those habits and interests I'm comfortable with to be burned away.

So Hank and I started talking about how we could rekindle that fire.
    Hank learned some of the same things at the same time last year by attending a college group at a church. We were both set a fire but lost some of our focus when I came back and we immediately started planning our wedding.

Its funny how busyness, how the good can rob us of the best by stealing our focus.

Hank asked how we could renew that passion. He suggested praying bigger. That was a huge thing for him last year. He learned to pray BIG prayers and to believe that his prayers meant something, that God heard and answered. We saw that truth many times last year and even recently. Yet we have started praying small, safe, memorized prayers.

We have stopped relying on and speaking out his promises.

Because honestly, his promises don't seem to really be meant for us. How could God have a good and perfect plan for us when I'm stuck in a rut at work, when I'm not feeling particularly loving toward Hank. How can I really believe he listens when I'm not seeing any results?

Hank and I have a calling afterall! We have a bigger purpose and quite frankly- I am not seeing it happening. Perhaps God has forgotten he called me to be a missionary? Perhaps he forgot I am stuck here in Texas when my heart longs for the foreign, the unknown, the adventure of missions.
(Sidenote: PLEASE listen to this message on not missing the process by Eric Johnson
http://www.ibethel.org/sermon-of-the-week )

We talked about simply coming into our time with the Lord with expectation. I tend to be sort of distracted in my quiet times.. My mind wanders to conversations I had the previous day, to the list of things I need to do, to anything but the words in front of me.

So last night we began to pray big prayers and this morning I pledged to at least try to focus. You know what- God began to speak to me like he hasn't in a long time. I started to listen and he began to speak. It was the best quiet time I have had in ages.

He spoke to me. How incredible is that? I was reading the store of Zaccheus (who I relate to simply because he was short) and God began to speak to me about how my life is a testimony. Zaccheaus met Jesus and was astonished and overjoyed that the Lord would call him out.

I guess you don't have to be a shady tax collector to make an about face. To shift your focus to Jesus' face and to be astonished once again by the love and beauty and longing there.