Clarity and Challenge My Heavenly Father Gave Me Through My Earthly One...
- A Heart Refined with Rachel Menard
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Yesterday was my Daddy's 70th birthday. It really was a special day because 2025 brought a significant number of health problems for him that very well could have been what took him from us. However, God answered prayers in so many ways, helping him lose a tremendous amount of weight, go off insulin, and become a regular at the gym.
We are so proud of him!!
With that, as I celebrated Him in my heart, I still kept going back to a message he gave at a little church just around the corner from the house where my Mama passed away. In fact, the service was one year ago on her birthday, September 17, 2024.
At the end, he extended a challenge that I felt in my bones. He pressed the entire congregation to share the gospel with just ONE person over the next year. He reminded us that the first Church started with only 120 people, but because they lived with the intention of making the name of Jesus known, they grew to over 100,000 in their first 25 years.
He reminded us that we live in a sick, sin-infested world, but if every single one of us were to be committed to sharing the gospel, the whole world would be changed. He asked if we believe that the touch of the Master's hand would change everything?! He declared that...
GOD WILL DO WONDROUS THINGS WITH THOSE COMPLETELY SOLD OUT TO THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!!
But let me tell you what was happening in my heart in the months coming up to this beautiful moment of conviction and challenge...
Over the two years coming up to that message, our family had been through several hard things. We are no different than anyone else, but they were particularly difficult for us! The things range from life-changing surgeries for both Paul and me, to the near loss of our precious grand-girl, to relational struggles that brought me to my knees.
In the end, all these things created a strange combination in me: wanting more of God and becoming increasingly apathetic toward being a gospel sharer and a disciple maker. I would walk the small rectangle of my yard in the black of many pre-sunrise mornings, crying....
God of all creation and salvation, I confess that I don't feel any desire to share who you are and what you've done. I am numb. BUT GOD...I WANT TO WANT TO!!!! Please do something in me!
You know the common phrase spoken by Elizabeth Elliot and quoted by Christian women daily: "When you don't know what to do, just do the next thing."
Well, this is why I use the word strange to describe what I knew God was putting on my heart. How in the world could I be so full of unbelief and desire, and God still be placing the largest retreat that A Heart Refined Ministries had ever done?!?!?!
But it was on that day in 2024...after months of that obscure battle in my heart with my faith while at the same time inviting other women to join me on a journey toward this vision God had given me...that my Daddy delivered the message that would change the trajectory of my heart to match the mission God has planned for me ahead of time (Eph 2:10).
His message given from God's Word -- John 9 to be exact -- brought my dead bones alive, separating me down to the soul and the spirit, the bone and the marrow, exposing the intentions of my heart and yet showed me He wanted to use me anyway (Heb 4:12). That revelation of His patient and persistent love and purpose floored me and lifted me to make a whole-hearted decision to make myself available to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Over the next few days and weeks, I will share more about the message that God gave me and the other women who so graciously offered their testimonies, but for now, I marvel at what God has done to resurrect my wandering heart. I also adore how God has raised me to stand behind a podium just like my Daddy, and challenge people to know...
GOD IS HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. HIGH AND LIFTED UP, SEATED ON HIS THRONE, AND HE WILL DO WONDROUS THINGS WITH THOSE COMPLETELY SOLD OUT TO THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!!
What a privileged life I have to live out that legacy!! Thank you, Daddy!
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one [the only God]! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and with all your soul and with all your strength [your entire being]. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be [written] on your heart and mind. You shall teach them diligently to your children [impressing God’s precepts on their minds and penetrating their hearts with His truths] and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand (forearm), and they shall be used as bands (frontals, frontlets) on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Deut 6:4-9 AMP
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