Sometimes it takes leaving a thing to know how much you value it. It’s in the departure that we truly realize how deep we love. But how can you love so much after knowing for so little time? Together for a mere three months and yet our hearts ached as we hugged and said our goodbyes.

It was a week of “lasts”. Every place and person and thing and moment was a appreciated with new depths as we knew it would be the last time we would experience it. Every sunset was a countdown. There were no longer just items on the schedule, but all was prefaced with “the last”. “The last ministry night,” “the last Monday morning worship,” “the last work duty,” “the last time eating at the aloha cafeteria.” Everything held a fresh level of beauty that, had we not known we were leaving, we would never have had such admiration for.

But every palm tree and ocean view could not touch the beauty that overwhelmed our hearts as we looked at the faces of those recent strangers who were now deep friends. The heart’s capacity to love is truly amazing. May we not wait till we leave a place to treasure those around us for who they truly are.

On a less sappy note…
Going into this week we knew it was going to be a wild one. If you don’t know Todd White, well, you probably should. He’s a famous evangelist/speaker/miracle-worker/ normal Christian. What he shared, but more than that, the life we watched him live, deeply inspired us. The man just walks in radical faith and simple obedience. He shared story after story of times he had seen people saved, healed, or delivered, but many of the stories he told weren’t from years ago; they were from within the last few days. There’s no vacation for him, because every person he comes in contact with has the potential of encountering Jesus.

When we look at someone like Todd, the first thing we tend to do is elevate them. We glorify there personality or their gifting, and we say, well he can live like that, because he’s Todd White. He’s a preacher, or he’s specially chosen by God, but Todd continuously challenged us to believe that he was nothing special, but this was supposed to be normal Christianity. We’re supposed to walk like Jesus: destroying the power of hell wherever we go, healing the sick, casting out demons, and showing the world what the Father is really like.

Todd’s story was one of unrelenting obedience to Jesus. He read in the bible that “these signs will follow those who believe, the sick will be healed, the lame will walk, the blind will see.” So he would pray for people, but no one would get healed. Three and a half months of praying for 10-15 people a day went by without him seeing a single healing, but he believed more in what the Bible said he should be seeing than what he wasn’t seeing happening. And eventually someone got healed, and the week after that a few more got healed, and then a few more. He wasn’t anything special, he was just a man working construction, telling everyone about Jesus, and praying for all who needed healing. And he didn’t give up.

Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Heidi Baker has one of the most profound ministries, where healings in Mozambique are so common that they do not even know if a deaf person has been prayed for that hasn’t received heading back. As far as they know, 100% are healed. But Even Heidi baker prayed for around 1000 people before seeing anyone get healed. And she famously quoted as saying, “if you don’t quit, you win.”

So Todd White and Heidi Baker, two of the most well know people in ministry, both started out with a ton of failure, a ton of rejection, but the common denominator was this, they didn’t give up.

Man, something just hit me when Todd was sharing, because in understanding all this, I became aware of the fact that I had given up. There was a time in high school when my friends and I would go out to laundromats and gas stations and wherever we felt God leading us to, and we would tell people that Jesus loved them, and we’d pray for anyone who needed healing. But after a while of seeing minimal salvations or healings, and feeling quite insecure I stopped. There were times when I would return to this, but it was always drenched in fear and insecurity. And the weight of this lifestyle became too much, so I gave up. But I believe it’s time to stop hiding from what I’ve been called to, and dare to believe that the a harvest will be reaped if I just keep going for it.

The thing to remember is that the driving force behind people like Todd and Heidi is love. They’ve died to serving themselves, they’ve died to receiving honor from people, they live the way they do because they love the way they do, and they recognize that the world is dying for that kind of love. All creation groans for the revealing of the children of God. Because when the children walk out in their identity, all will see the Father.

After this week, we couldn’t stay the same. We couldn’t let fears hold us back any longer. We couldn’t quit. Thursday night, after Todd’s last time sharing, we went. We hit the streets with a love in our hearts and fire in our eyes. We shared the gospel on street corners and bars,g to marines and high school students. And when we moved God did too. We saw one the healing of persons shoulder, another guys arm, and a girls neck.

Outreach has begun, not just for the next two months, but for the rest of our lives. We have been sent, and there’s no turning back, there’s no giving up. We’ve been set free and we’ll set free. We’ve tasted and seen, and as long as breath remains we’ll offer the world this feast.