Luke 14:26-35, Philippians 3:7-11, 1 Peter 5:6-10, Isaiah 41:10, Ezekiel 47:3-5, Exodus 15:23-25

Heather Bellamy reflects on the journey of discipleship and intimacy with God

Interestingly in May this year someone saw a path in front of my husband and me of luscious green grass. "Hooray" I thought, "the path of suffering has gone"!

I was wrong, a few weeks later I walked through my deepest test yet.

I had carried promises from God relating to my greatest hearts-desire for 14 years and had learnt many things over that time through the process of waiting. The day before we were given that word about a path of luscious green grass, the start of the promises had arrived. God had begun the fulfilment of His promises in an amazingly supernatural way. Yet the promise didn't turn out like I thought.

My hand on my life wanted His promises to look a certain way, but His will turned out to be something totally different. Yes He had begun the fulfilment of the promises in astonishing accuracy, but His purposes in the fulfilment and therefore what happened was something that I could never have believed would be the outcome as it was so hard.

This was my deepest test yet.

In the midst of the test I was overjoyed to find that there was no idolatry in my heart. When the rubber hit the road, I no longer wanted my hearts-desire more than I wanted God. I didn't fight God. I didn't turn against Him. I worshipped Him. I didn't give the enemy a chance to get in and I declared His goodness and that I trusted Him and He responded in a measure I've never known.

He poured out understanding of what His will and purposes were, through the fulfilment of my promises looking completely different than I had expected. In response, I was able to have joy like Mary did with her nard. I was able to give back to Him my greatest hearts-desire and 14 years of my journey with Him carrying the promises, as the most expensive and lavish gift I've ever been able to give Him in love.

It was through all this process that I had come across a painting by Anthony Consiglio of a lady lying on a cross with luscious green grass on it, (see above). Psalm 23 speaks of suffering, but it also speaks of pastures, and I have discovered these seemingly contradictory and paradoxical truths actually work together. The cross makes the bitter waters sweet, (Exodus 15:23-25).

When God tells us to pick up our cross in order to be worthy of Him, He is literally asking us to pick up an instrument of capital punishment. Our will and our flesh has to die. Yet in even the deepest of circumstances, if we will embrace that death to self, after that path of suffering, we find that our surrender to death causes resurrection to spring forth and change our path of suffering into a path of luscious green grass - wonderful pastures in which we lie down and are restored. In that place of deep exchange with God, we receive peace and rest for our souls and we find that we delight in Him in such a way that the desire for His will has become our hearts cry: "Father, may your will be done on earth (in my life) as it is in Heaven."

I don't believe that path He showed me and the instruction He gave me in February 2013 were just for the last year and a half. I'm running after Him - I asked to go waist deep in January 2013 and I'm hungering to become completely out of my depth with Him now. And so the death and resurrection will continue until I'm totally free to run with the wind of the Holy Spirit wherever He goes.

He came to set us free from every encumbrance that would hinder our love. Will you let go today? He's calling, "Come away with Me". Will you respond to His invitation?