The Desires of My Heart

First and fore mostly, I need you to pray for me. Every day I fight my desires to do “good” to bring attention to what Christ is doing in me. 

“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” 

-Galatians 6:14

I don’t want to do anything to bring fame to my name. I want it all to be about Jesus. When I walk my day to day life out, I want you to literally see the grace and love of Christ. Even writing this, I battle thoughts like, “I hope they can see how my heart is changing and recognize what God is doing in my life!” And if you do see how my heart is changing and it does bring glory and fame to His name, then I am glad in that. But if you don’t read these words and recognize that the only reason I speak them is to bring the life and death and resurrection of Jesus to the forefront of our minds, then they are better off unsaid. Pray that as I speak, as I pray for others, as I love the children at Asha House, and as I live out my life day to day that my natural tendency would become to do all things for the name and fame of the Lord alone. Also, pray for me that when I don’t want to do things or respond with love and kindness in circumstances that I don’t see God’s perfect plan, I would anyways and that I would feel the conviction from the Holy Spirit to love since He first loved me so well. 

Other prayer requests:

  Lynette is going back to the United States today. She had some medical issues that the doctors have been trying to figure out here, but just don’t have the capabilities to do so. Not only do we hope that as she goes home she would be healed, but also that she would find strength in the Lord and always see His perfect plan. In this whole time, she has been so faithful and devoted to her Father. She understands that it is in Him that she is held and carried when she is weak. We all are missing her already and the spirit that she brings to this team and she isn’t even gone yet. We are going to be so sad to see her leave, but even though she won’t actually be here… she will be tagging along in our hearts!

Some of the children at Asha are experiencing sickness as the weather changes here, as well as some of our team. It is miserably hot all the time. We all want to stay indoors but that just spreads the sickness. So that’s fun. 

Exams are also finished for the kids, so we have the next 23 days to spend all day with them until they go back to school. I know for myself at times I can get so drained… but I want to be all here because this is such a brief time we have and I want to make the most of it.  

And one more for me… I am so homesick this week. I haven’t been able to find the time my soul requires in the Word every day. I am reading, but not studying like I need. Its not like a checklist need… it’s like a survival need. I honestly cannot survive day to day without it. My soul thirsts for more of Jesus. He is my strength when I spend my day with these children and He is what supports me when I am weak. 

“Let us not become weary of doing good,

 for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 

let us do good to all people, 

especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” 

Galatians 6:9-10

Pray for me that my soul won’t become weary of loving those sweet children of God. Their hearts matter so much more. By gratifying my own soul and choosing to give into the feelings of emotional distress, I lose out on what God wants to do here. Don’t get me wrong, God will still do those things… but I won’t get to experience them or be a part of them.

So that’s where I’m at right now. I don’t really know what else to say about that… I apologize for not having more specific things to tell you about, but a lot of what has been happening lately has been emotional brokenness for my team. It really is ok though, actually more than ok. We can rejoice in our suffering, because in it we make known the Name of Jesus Christ. 

Think about this: You meet a woman. She claims to be a Christian. Her life is seemingly perfect. She seems to have it all together, never needing anything. Then, she comes to you and says, “Trust in the Lord! God is so good!” You look at her and say, “Why should I believe you? You don’t suffer like I do. You don’t have the pain that I have. Why should I trust your God? It doesn’t seem like He has been very ‘good’ to me! You don’t need anything.” 

What I mean by telling you this story is this: It is much easier for a person to testify the GRACE of Jesus Christ when they are open about their sufferings. It is much easier for someone to see the love of our Father when they see that those who stand firm in the Lord need Him just as badly as they do. Those who suffer look for rest. You want to share the rest that comes with salvation through Jesus Christ? Get down, get dirty, get real. People want real. People need real. They don’t need someone who has it all together. In fact, if you think you have it all together, then why should you need Christ to die for you in the first place? None of us have it all together. 

I know I am preaching to the choir, but sometimes I write just to see my thoughts about my own life down on paper… and I trust whole-heartedly that the Holy Spirit is interceding and speaking to your heart through this message. 

Thas wussup. 

While I don’t have a lot of specifics about the last 2 weeks, I have a couple. At debrief, there was a man that had come to beg from us for money a few times. We are urged not to give money away here, and I personally don’t like giving money away because I feel that there is a good chance that it won’t be used in a beneficial way… so I bought him crackers, but he declined my offer and walked away, so I left it alone. The last day of debrief was a stressful one. I had no money left in my bank account because I shopped too much at the market, so my team was having to buy my lunch, I was starting to get sick, feelings of homesickness were starting to set in again knowing that we were going to have to go back to Barasat later that afternoon, and on top of that all… the tiny straw that broke the camels back… we had to check out of our guest house at 12 but Pastor didn’t send a taxi until 2, so we had to walk to a restaurant where we had been days before and knew they wouldn’t mind us crashing with all our luggage (mainly because we were literally the only ones there.). 

So as I was sweating, tired, sick, and homesick, we walked out of the Sunflower Guest House with all of our luggage and trekked towards the restaurant about 2 blocks away. I say trekked because I had a rolling suit case that was too heavy to carry, but extremely difficult to drag because the ground was a bunch of rocks, sand, and dirt. You can see how at this point I am probably saying things inside my head that “Christian girls” don’t say. It wasn’t one of my finer moments. Then, all of a sudden, about a block into our walk, we see the man who had been begging us for money. He was lying on the ground with dirt and poop all over his body. He had flies all over his face and he had seemingly no life. My heart broke instantly. I knew that in that moment, God was weeping because not only was that one soul lost, but that is a picture of India in general. Death is prominent. Jesus has been made into a Hindu god here. There is no hope for 97% of the people here. They don’t get to experience life in abundance. I was angry, sad, and honestly still kind of peeved that I had to walk another block with my stupid luggage- as trivial as that is. Later on, we found out that the man wasn’t yet dead… probably more likely just had passed out from drunkenness. Even so, what is awaiting him when he does take his final breath? What awaits India? 

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for this mission to spread the Gospel – the good news of amazing grace of Jesus Christ. None of this is done by our own will, but by our Father’s alone. Also, let’s not forget that no one is unseen in the eyes of the Creator. Whether they know it or not… whether their soul cries out for His grace or not now… they will cry out in the end. God will be glorified.

I have one more story for you. I know this blog is long, but hopefully you haven’t quit on me. 

The people of Barasat are an interesting community. They know they need something… they just don’t know what it is. When we go on prayer walks, everyone is desperate to be prayed over. They all gather around us and one after one they come up to us and share their illness, and one after one, we pray. We ask the Holy Spirit to do miraculous works. We ask that whether he heals or not, that his Name would be magnified. As Judah Smith says, “not like a microscope; like a telescope.” Yesterday we went prayer walking for the first time in 2 weeks, and we saw some new faces. I asked the Holy Spirit to fall on me and the whole morning I was overwhelmed with the words of the Holy Spirit. I felt a burning in my soul and I was literally given the words to speak. I heard them clearly in my head, as if Holy Spirit was standing next to me speaking them to me in person. 

The first man that we prayed over had not been able to walk in a long time. We spent a total of about 30 minutes praying over him. Some prayed over other people while others continued to pray for him. Towards the end of the 30 minutes, I stepped back and looked at what was going on… trying to access and listen to Holy Spirit and where he wanted me to go. I then asked Julia to pray with me over the rest of our team as they were praying for the man. I am not saying that is what healed this man, but I know that our prayers lifted up to God was a beautiful sight to the Lord and he was pleased. A few minutes later, the man decided to stand up and try to walk. We never asked him to try. He just decided on his own that he needed to see exactly what kind of healing our God can do. With some of our help and a lot of faith, he stood up, walked a few feet, then turned around and sat back down and asked us to keep praying for him. We don’t know if he ended up being physically healed, but we have faith that something resonated in his soul. And lets not make light the fact that he ASKED for more prayer after taking those first couple of steps! I am super pumped that he walked, but more importantly, and what made my heart glad, was that he wanted more of whatever happened to him. He didn’t want to just taste and hunger, but he wanted to eat and be full. I have many stories like that. Like I said, Barasat is an interesting place. People desire more… but they don’t know what it is they desire. Keep the people of Barasat in your prayers. God favors our prayers and He loves it when we lift up our hearts to Him, especially when the desires of our heart are those that make His name famous. 

I hope that through my blog, Holy Spirit has moved you, challenged you, encouraged you, spoken truth to you, sharpened you, and most importantly, called you to the mission to make much of His name. Thank you again for all of your prayers as we have been broken for what has been breaking the heart of our Father! Continue to pray for us. In your own life, I challenge you to pray for brokenness so that you can rejoice in suffering for Christ’s name. Remember that suffering isn’t always persecution. Suffering is whatever produces perseverance. Suffering is what makes you wholly dependant on the Lord. Don’t just endure… embrace.  

For now,

Heidi McCune

p.s. my farmers tan is looking awesome.