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God has been doing a revival in our midst in Mozambique. It is not my revival, I am not the one who is making it happen. It is God's. I don't trust in myself. My staff asks how long can I keep this up? There are thousand of orphans, and you have to keep it up, keep it up, keep it up. Every week you have to keep feeding them. How are you going to keep all of these churches organized? How are you going to keep all of the internal fighting and relationships straight? How are you going to maintain this thing? How are you going to bring in enough teachers for Bible school? How are you going to get enough logistics and trucks, and how are you going to account for it all? How are you going to keep it organized? How are you going to keep the whole thing under control? How are you going to keep the pace in the intensity and the travel and all of that. How are you going to do all that and travel in the United States and talk about it all? How are you going to keep your family and your marriage together and your kids straight?
I don't try to do any of that. I absolutely don't try to do any of that. I don't try to get God to do what I want Him to do. I don't try to get Him to give me money. I don't try to get Him to make my plans succeed or to make my ministry fruitful or to get my church to grow or to do something with my life. I don't try to do any of that. Am I a total idiot? No, I am just talking very simply to explain something that took me a long time to figure out. I'm trying to be honest and real on a ground level with you.
There are two ways of looking at the Christian life. You can strain and run and try to accomplish and try to move God emotionally, and try to get Him to do what you want Him to do in your life. Try to get Him to help you get a boyfriend, help you get a job, help you get a miracle, help you get healed, and all that stuff. Try, try, try, hard, hard, hard, to get Him to do something. Or you can say "I quit. I die, this is it. My life is over."
I don't even know how to run life, I don't know how to make a decision. I don't know how to organize anything. I don't know how to pick out a career. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know how to live today. I don't have any faith, I don't have any power. I don't know how to raise the dead, I don't know how to hold my hand. I don't know how to have an altar call, I don't know whether I'm supposed to kneel or lie or fall this way or that way. I don't know anything! I don't know how I'm supposed to talk, I don't know how I'm supposed to preach, I don't know how to convert a Muslim. I don't know how to prove to someone that God loves them. I really don't know anything. It's all Him! It's all Him. He is life; I don't have any.
Paul said it this way, "I put no confidence in the flesh." We put no confidence in ourselves anymore, but in Him who died and rose again on our behalf . It's His mind I want, it's His ideas that I want. It's His understanding I want. It's His initiative I want, it's His energy I want. It's His faith I want. It's His love I want. It's His ambition I want. Finally I just say "I'm dead, I'm dead. I'm dead God. I refuse all the pressure. I can't impress You. I can't do anything -- nothing, nothing, nothing. But what is in You, I want. I want to plug into You. I want to connect with You. I want to communicate with You. I want the sap that is in You, the life that is in You, the energy that is in You. I want You to tell me what you want to do with my life, because I don't have an ounce of good opinion about my own ideas along that line. I'm not going to tell you what to do, I'm not going to try to motivate You and channel You and use You. You're not my guru, You're not my genie."
"You are my God. You are my lover. You are my companion. You are my life. I want what you have, I want the real thing! I don't want You to just put Your stamp of approval on my plan for my life. I don't want You to just make my life work well. I want You to trash my life if You have to. I want you to put an A-bomb in my heart and in my life if you have to. I want You to look at my life and everything I have and just consider it Yours. You can destroy anything in my life that You'd like; remove anything that is in the way. You destroy anything You don't like until I end up perfect in Your sight. You take every interest I have, of every connection I have, of every emotion I have, of every distracting thought I have that isn't something that You like. You have my permission to just blow it out of my life, using any amount of discipline that You want to use. Be as severe with me as you want to, just use whatever method it takes. Just make sure it happens, because if it doesn't happen I'm the loser."
How can you improve on God's will for your life? You can't. So, let go of your agenda. The people in Mozambique have given up on their own agendas and that is why they are open to embracing God's. Mozambique has been humiliated by 500 years of colonialism, disaster, poverty, so they have no patriotism, no pride. They have been run over by foreign power, they have been run over by poverty. They don't have any lives to lead that are worth living. The life expectancy is in the 30's and getting down to 24 soon. God is all they have. What would have to happen to Western Nations to get as open and receptive and hungry for God as they are in Mozambique? What would have to happen before we treat God the way the Mozambique people treat God?
I'm not impressed in any way with our ideas of what a good life is. We don't know. And if you still think you know, it's going to take longer for you. You're just going to keep going until some day you say "This is it. I'm sick; I'm sick and tired of my life. I want to die, because I want a new life." That's what Jesus meant. He said "If you live your life for yourself you'll lose it. If you live your life for My sake, you'll get it." I just ask you, how long do you want to go, and try to keep your life? How long do you want to go, instead of taking the real thing?
Heidi and I got married 23 years ago. We asked people not to give us wedding gifts, we didn't want towels and china, or anything. All we wanted was ticket money. We were married on the beach in Laguna Beach, California, May 24, 1980. I met Heidi, and she was the first person I met that I could live a life of faith with. God told her the day I would ask her to marry her. She was on a missions trip to Mexico City. She hardly knew my first name. She was influenced towards missions when she was in 6th grade by her 6th grade teacher who used to be a missionary in China. (Later on I found out that her teacher was my mother.) God told Heidi, "You're going to marry Rolland Baker. Go to Indonesia this summer." We collected our money at the end of that day, which was just enough money for one-way tickets. We had about $30 left over, and no church behind us, no support. We just took off into the jungle, and we're still here twenty-three years later.
I want it God's way. I want the real thing or forget it. I'm tired of anything else -- I'm afraid of my own plans and my own will. I don't want to struggle and strain anymore. My favorite verse is Psalm 131:2, "But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.". I don't think about great and difficult things, I just rest my head. You know, like a baby rests its head against it's mother. That's all I want to do. All of the energy and the power and the glory and the miracles and everything else are from Him. So, I just tap in, I just receive. I simply say "God, I believe. God, You're that great, You're that good. You are what I want, and I trust in You and I believe in You." Reject everything else except God.