|
 All
my life I wanted to be an adventurer. I yearned to be a
mountain climber, river forger, explorer -- to do something
wild and wonderful that challenged me to the limit. I
wanted desperately to defeat the bad guys and ride off into
the sunset in my dust covered Jeep. Alas, my office job
wouldn't give me the time off.
Until I met Jesus. The Bible says we are all
sojourners, visitors here. “For
I am your guest, I am a traveler passing through the earth.”
(Psalm 39:12 LB) Jesus, I discovered, is the Great
Adventurer. For over a decade He led me on a dark and
dangerous sojourn in an ugly and angry spiritual and
emotional desert. It was there I began to see other
women in the sand, thirsting for living water, hungering for
the holy mountain in the distance. It was there God dared me
to trust Him, to follow Him, and to believe His Word that He
was ready and willing to do wild and wonderful things. It
was there Daring Daughters Ministry was born.
H. Jackson Browne said,
“there lies within each of us a hero waiting
for the call the action.”
God has called. He stands waiting for His
daughters -- FOR YOU -- to Dare to answer His call.
In
August 2000, I sat with 10,000 other women in the Georgia
World Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia listening to Anne Graham Lotz, Kay Arthur
and Jill Briscoe speak at an event called "Just Give Me
Jesus." It was the first women's event of that
kind I had ever attended and I must tell you I did not want
to go. Not one bit. But the Spirit -- with a
nudging that could not be denied -- pushed me to go.
So I went.
As I sat there
listening to the music of Fernando Ortego and hearing the
words of God from those wonderful women of God, I felt
something I had never known before. It was there, in
that stadium of worshipping, awe-inspired women that God
spoke to me loudly and undeniably that I, too, could be a voice
to His daughters -- to speak, to teach, to inspire, to show
the love and power of Jesus. I was challenged and
changed as I walked out of the stadium that day and, for the
first time, I understood the purpose for my life.
It was, however,
Lynne Hybels, wife of Pastor Bill Hybels of Willow Creek
Community Church who opened the door to the Daring Daughters
name. For years I had prayed for an inspiring name for
this ministry. Then a sister member of the Women's
Ministry at Woodbine United Methodist Church in Pace,
Florida -- my home
church -- brought a book by Lynne Hybels to one of our
Women's Ministry Board Meetings. The book was simply called
"Nice Girls Don't Change the World" and it changed my
world.
In it, Lynne
tells the story of her transformation from a frightened
little girl to a good woman and, finally, her
awakening that we must be "downright dangerous women."
If you haven't read the book, get it now. Today.
It's short and you can read it in less than an hour but I
guarantee you'll never forget it.
As I read the
book over and over, it awakened me to the tremendous risk we
take in following Christ, and the realization that God does
not call His daughters to safety. He calls us to
dare to continually and courageously step out beyond ourselves in
faith and to trust Him.
Every story in the Bible of
men and women who did great things
for God came down to a
choice they made to risk all --
TO DARE TO BELIEVE IN WHAT
THEY COULD NOT SEE
TO ACHIEVE WHAT THEY COULD NOT DREAM!
That is God's Daring Call -- and how Daring
Daughters Ministry got its name. |
