Recap: Ellensburg, WA April 16th-24th

Oh sweet, beloved town of Ellensburg, Washington.

After chillen in KC for 10 days, Dora, Jenna and I headed on a plane to the beautiful state of Washington . Even before going I knew I was going to love it and love Ellensburg, which is Jenna’s hometown. Didn’t know why, still don’t know why but I just have this precious heart connect with that place. First off the landscape around there, and basically all of Washington, is beauuuutiful. Driving from the airport was probably one of the most beautiful 2 hour car rides I’ve been on. Talk about an Artist who knows His stuff .

As I’m just re-thinking our time their, my heart is so incredibly grateful to the Lord. We called our time at IHOP our “Fire in the Night Track 2 Intensive” lol and Washington was more of a vacation thing. It was a time full of peace and sweetness to my heart really. I so loved the time of fellowship Dora, Jenna and I had, along with the rest of the beloved Miller clan and others from their church. I could totally sense just a “family-feel” the whole time and that was such a gift in and of itself to me. I loved how pretty much each morning we’d head over to the coffee place for “secret place time.” There’s just something so sweet about pursuing the Lord together. Like I said, the whole time was just sweet, sweet, sweet . We got to partake of an awesome BBQ & the famous “Taco Thursday” at the Miller household, did “farm things,” went for walks, enjoyed the classic films of Pride and Prejudice and The Ten Commandments, shot bows and arrows & BB-Guns, played with little ones, gave it a go at learning how to drive stick, and lots of other precious things. Most of all we loved on the Lord and loved on each other. I love that He is the glue for all this. At the end of the day, He was the center of it all and that is so beautiful.

Gotta have an artsy coffee shop pic

I really didn’t realize juuuust how much the Lord had blessed my heart while in Ellensburg until I got home. I realized that He had been doing something behind the scenes. My heart just felt so incredibly blessed and privileged to have had that time. There’s a bunch of stuff the Lord was showing me about Ellensburg but one thing that was really clear was just the peace that rests over that town. This is how I described it to Jenna:

I feel like it’s a city that is a resting place for the peace of God. Like I told you earlier, I feel like the peace of being there was like, deposited into my spirit. And peace is a Person, not just some universal, etherial mindset or something. If I’m feeling peace, I’m feeling Jesus so He is totally present in Ellensburg. It’s reminds me of something Bill Johnson said once, “Peace is not the absence of something, it’s the presence of a Person.”

I feel like the Lord gave me a precious, unique gift in Ellensburg through the beautiful times I had with my friends and also just by being there. My heart will greatly rejoice at the time that I get to head back there whenever the Lamb leads .

“Follow Me.” Okay. What?!

When you really slow down as you read the gospels and try to read stuff as if you’ve never heard it before, you realize that some of the stuff that goes on is actually pretty outrageous. Okay, pretty much all of it is. This is one of the most intriguing things to me though:

Mark 1:17-18 – Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him.

and again

Mark 2:14 – As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed him.

Have you ever slowed down to realize just how BIZARRE this is?! All Jesus says is “follow Me” and they just up and leave, no questions asked. Recently this has really started to stick out to me. Every time I read where something like this happens I go, “Whaaaaaaaaaa??” It’s so weird lol. Put yourself in their shoes. You’re just chillin, doing the same old mundane stuff you do every day and some random guy who you have never met comes up to you and just says, “Follow Me.” Quite honestly, if some stranger did that to me I don’t think I would exactly “immediately” leave everything and follow him.

Only thing is, this wasn’t just some ordinary guy

As I was reading this today I was just thinking, “What is it about You Lord that causes this kind of response?” When these men had this encounter with Him there had to be something extra about Him for them to just up and leave everything like that. James and John just straight up left their dad in the boat too and “went after Him.” They’d never heard a man speak like that before. It’s like they must have felt the life upon His words, upon His person. In Psalm 45 is says that grace is poured upon the lips of Jesus and again in John 1 it says that He is full of grace and truth. This wasn’t just some regular guy, this was the only begotten of the Father. Peter seems to sum all this up himself in John 6. When Jesus asks His disciples of they wanted to leave too Peter goes, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have to words of eternal life.” When you encounter Jesus you encounter a Man who is unlike anyone else you’ve known or will ever know. Totally other than. Chief among ten thousand for real.

Clearly there’s something about coming face to face with the Son of God that causes you to leave everything and follow Him. Reading about this with the disciples really stirs up this hunger in me to encounter the Lord in such a way that produces the same response in my heart and life. Walking out the reality of losing my life for His sake and finding it in the end. What’s awesome is that as we continue to do that, we experience the easy and light yoke of the Lord. These disciples left everything behind literally in a second. They didn’t rationalize or anything. We don’t read that they thought about it in their boats and then decided to go. We read that they immediately left, as if it really was a light thing. Like Peter said, why would they leave when they’ve found their true and only source of Life?

Bottom line: I want this more in my life. To encounter the beauty of this Man’s heart and words and surrender everything time and time again in return.

I leave you with some words from Justin Rizzo’s song “This is True Life”  that have been floating around in my head with all this:

Oh the peace, of pure abandon. Oh the joy, of sweet surrender. Cause if I try and save my life I will lose it, but if I lose my life for Your sake I’ll find it in the end. I have to give You everything, and then the yoke is easy. I have to give You everything, and then the burden is so light. And oh, the peace…