THE TEARING DOWN

                                                                                          THE TEARING DOWN
Many don't realize that before we go completely into ministry there is a tearing down process to build our character and humility in Christ. This is my testimony. 
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I wasn’t a pastor yet…at least the Lord hadn’t made mention of it. I was a mortgage broker. I loved helping people and I love math, so doing mortgages put the two into one, helping people get into homes and accounting seemed to be the best of both worlds (it was also very lucrative). Though it may not have seemed that way at first glance, I wasn’t a people person. I didn’t carry a bubbly, outgoing, or charming personality. I’ve always been shy, reserved, and somewhat standoffish. Because of this, the Lord has been the driving force making things work behind the scenes and I was content. Most of the work that I did was by telephone with little interaction and most clients rarely saw me until closing.
Because of my passion for patient and nursing care I also signed a contract with the U.S. Air Force Reserves. This would fulfill my desires for emergency medicine practice which I would be obligated to once a month, allowing me to maintain balance doing the things I loved (math as well as science), without getting burned out and overwhelmed.
One day I had reached a tipping point. I was co-owner of a mortgage business headed to military training. Financially things were going well but it was a front for what was really going on emotionally and spiritually.
I was in a bad relationship. It was a relationship that started all wrong. It started on a lie…a lie that I told. I led the fellow to believe that I was a certain age that I was not. So the initial foundation was not built with trust. I didn’t trust that He would want me if He knew and He didn’t trust me once He eventually found out. The relationship was one of comfort and convenience. We settled. However, I wasn’t happy…I wasn’t being fulfilled. Something was missing.
This was a relationship of chase. Though He was my natural husband at the time, He wasn’t spiritually ordained for me. I chased him for years hoping we would get past the lie I told but it didn’t happen. I thought that I did everything I could to get the man to love me but the love wasn’t there.
So back to that day…. The tipping point. I was a believer. I went to church often. I prayed prayers (though they were selfish) and I sought the Lord. I loved helping people but I hated myself. I thought I wasn’t good enough. One night I finally broke down and cried out to the Lord with my whole heart. “What’s wrong with me?” I cried. “What’s wrong with me, Lord?”
For the first time in my life I received a response from the Lord. It was prophetic in nature. “Nothing is wrong with you.” The Lord replied. He went on to tell me the things I was dealing with spiritually and that I needed to surrender completely and seek Him more. I allotted time to read my word and study daily. He, in the meantime blessed me with a new relationship that He ordained. We would study the word together, pray together, praise and worship together and seek the Lord together. Jesus being the Chief Cornerstone, this was a foundation and relationship built (for success) to last forever.
I soon went off to military training. What I initially thought was a natural wound up having more spiritual revelation than I anticipated. I left somewhat naïve but returned home more spiritually aware and more rooted and grounded than ever before.
I immediately got back to work catching up on a lot of things that lacked while I was gone. Spiritually I grew leaps and bounds but naturally my world came “tumbling down”. Suddenly the “successful” mortgage company had business which started to dwindle, loans weren’t closing. Employees had to be laid off (let go) and eventually we were out of business. The home we were blessed with had gone to “short sale” and we needed to move! I was seeking the Lord, acknowledging Him in all of my ways…yet that question came to mind again. “What am I doing wrong?” I thought. The Lord told me I was in a season of tearing down. He used those exact words but I thought it was because I had done wrong in the past and though He had forgiven me, I needed to pay the consequences for my actions. Times weren’t easy but there was comfort because my Father told me what was going on and that He was allowing it to happen.
In the midst of this tearing down, the Lord kept giving me the unction to speak His word. I was excited about the things the Lord was doing in my life. In the natural sense I was homeless for a while staying in hotels and sometimes with a relative. However, I was seeking the face of God and He was daily making Himself known to me more and more. The insecurities that I had about someone loving me began to dwindle because Jesus loved me and began to show me the depths of His love which couldn’t be matched by the world. It was pure. It was complete. Nights I’d wake up with laughter and praise uncontrollably. It was a joy that cannot be described or explained.
One day the Lord told me that He had a ministry for me. The lord told me I was a pastor and that I’d get my start from the radio. He said that I’d lay hands on the sick and they’d recover. I was excited but I must admit that what I saw with my natural eye and what He told me were two different things.
I wasn’t a preacher. I wasn’t born into a lineage of ministers. I had no natural friends or spiritual friends to go to. I didn’t have the personality for it. There was no flock to see with the natural eye. This is a weighty call and I didn’t really like people enough.
However, I was obedient and started doing radio broadcasts live every day. Meanwhile, we were hiding our vehicle form the repo man and hoping for a miracle to pay it. I was skilled and yet I couldn’t get a job anywhere. To top it off I had a new born baby to care for. The Lord really does have a sense of humor. Every week we had yard sales in hopes that we would sell enough to cover radio expenses, hotel, and diapers.
Family members thought I was crazy. They though I did something wrong. They thought my husband was a dead beat because I was in such a situation. This new faith walk was somewhat overwhelming but I had to trust and put my faith into action leading by example. I already had two strikes against me to start with being that I was a woman and I was young.
The fifteen minute broadcasts that we did weren’t a great “profound” word as some would hope, but I spoke the Truth and I shared my testimony. It seemed as if there wasn’t anyone who understood or could relate. People who heard our broadcasts didn’t call for prayer requests or praise reports. There didn’t seem to be a natural support system but the Lord was with us and all I had was faith and obedience. I knew things would get better.
We found a small space for rent that I wanted so that we could hold worship service. At the time I thought it was the right thing to do. I advertised on the radio. I printed flyers and brochures. No one showed up for services, so we preached to the walls until that final day we had to clear out our things because we couldn’t pay for the building any longer. I was a pastor of the Most High, but with all of the circumstances and situations it didn’t seem like it at all. Most nights I cried out to the Lord while somehow gathering the strength to praise Him. I learned that He was my refuge and my strong tower. I soon found out the difference between knowing something and having the actual experience for yourself.
One late night I finally managed to fall asleep. An angel came unto me and suddenly I had the urge to write. I wrote and I wrote. I couldn’t stop writing. All day and all night I wrote for two weeks straight. This birthed template for the book “Pick Up Your Weapons and Fight!” I went from writing to typing as all of my experiences along with the Word of God started to come together and the Lord’s purposes for my life started to make sense. I continued to write and speak the Word even though it seemed that no one cared to hear it, especially coming from me.
The Lord led my husband, Demetrius and I, to fellowship with different ministries. I learned more and more about humility and about what takes place behind the scenes. I wasn’t religious. I wasn’t traditional… I didn’t want to be. Something about me was different. I didn’t want the same ol’, same ol’ service. I really wanted to help change peoples’ lives I wanted the true restoration. I wanted complete healing and deliverance to take place. I wanted miracles, signs, and wonders to transform and renew the Lord’s people. I wanted the true pouring of the Spirit. I wanted people to see what I saw. I wanted them to encounter what I encountered…His Holy Spirit…His power…His depth…His love. How could I make these desires a reality? How could I implement and show forth so great a love? Was anyone listening? There’s so much passion but where do you put it when it begins to overflow? It was like “fire shut up in my bones”.
The churches my husband and I attempted to fellowship with didn’t particularly care for us too much. They said I was out of order. They also mentioned I wasn’t a pastor because I was a woman. There was a great bit of pressure to join ministries and have them “cover me”, as if man could cover anything. We quickly moved on brushing the “dust” off our feet in those places we weren’t wanted. Because I was in my hometown I knew we really didn’t have a chance of being really accepted so we decided to be obedient to the Lord’s nudge and start fresh in Alabama. We determined to start again while still maintaining the radio broadcast as the Lord instructed us to do.
I knew we needed to make a move but I must admit that the last place that I thought of was Alabama. It wasn’t in our thoughts or plans at all. Nonetheless, my husband and prophet advised that it was where the Lord wanted us and so in obedience we went.
The churches and the people seemed to be the same. I wanted to compel men and women to come to Christ, but I was encountered with religion instead of God-fearing reverence and heart-felt desire for more. I grew discouraged and my desire for the task at hand began to dwindle. I didn’t want this job! Where was the drawing? Was there anyone the Lord would use me to save? It was a lonely walk. The zeal that I thought I had begun to diminish. Then in the midst of it all, the Lord said that our tearing down was over and to go forth and build. Build what? I didn’t want to do it. I wasn’t the right one for the job and I was upfront willing to admit it.
There was so much that needed to be done and there was so much that I desired to do for the Lord. I was overwhelmed by the great need to establish a spiritual foundation in others where Jesus was the Chief Cornerstone, but I didn’t know where to start. Who was listening? I was obedient but sometimes the spiritual works that I did lacked the joy that the Lord desired for me to have. I told myself over and over that we plant and others may water, but God grants the increase. That’s what kept me going searching for that one.
During this tearing down I learned to see people in Christ’s eyes. I no longer looked at them at face value but I saw works in progress by a master potter…like trees planted by the rivers of water. I saw possibility! 
It's not an easy thing to do. Oftentimes, we are used to the flesh. However, the Lord wants us to put the flesh into subjection and be led by His Spirit. We must decrease and He must increase. This is a responsibility for all men and women within the body of Christ.
As a child growing up I had a fear of pastors and ministers. I held such high esteem for them. Because I recognized my sin nature I tried to avoid them. I thought they were so Holy that they would embarrass me by calling out my sin in front of the other people in church. I felt like they knew the things I ever did wrong. I would pray in secret closets but feared going to the alter.
We shouldn't put ministers on pedestals like that. We are all distributed gifts and talents among the saints of God and we are all required to cleanse ourselves daily by the Spirit of God. We have the same responsibility to let the Spirit of God reign so that we maintain unity in the Spirit and continue to stir up the gifts of God among us. Just as the Lord shows patience and long suffering toward us, we ust equally show patience and long suffering to others within the body of Christ. Many have started with the same humility we have. However, we must maintain this humble state of being and remember our testimony. We must be living testimonies among the nation letting others know and see that very same Jesus that saved us.

- A God Chaser