Endurance for the Journey, Faith, Featured

The Awakening

“Awake, O sleeper,
rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.”
EPHESIANS 5:14 (NLT)


In the fantasy movie, Wizard of Oz, Dorothy desperately wanted to go home to Kansas. When she missed the hot air balloon ride back with the Wizard, she was devastated thinking she would never be able to go home. But then Glinda, the good witch of the south, appears and tells her that she has always had the ability to “go home”. All she had to do was tap her magical ruby shoes together and repeat “There is no place like home.”


I always knew that I received the Holy Spirit when I accepted Jesus into my heart but somehow, in my 40 years of walking with the Lord, I never realized the power of the Holy Spirit that existed within me. Many times, I approached God in prayer and asked for wisdom and guidance but as soon as I felt my prayers were answered I would resume my independent, self-reliant life depending on my own strengths and abilities.


When I became aware of the anger I had stuffed for years in my heart this realization allowed me to see the changes that were taking place in Dave’s heart. I knew I could no longer do this in my own strength. I wanted to be different and so I cried out to God for Truth. The truth about me, the Truth of His Word and the Truth from the Holy Spirit – I knew only the Holy Spirit could do the work in me that needed to be done.


So just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, when I felt completely hopeless that change would never take place in me, God woke me up one morning and I prayed. I told God that I did not know the way “home” to Him, and I asked Him to transform my heart. And just as Glinda told Dorothy, God told me that I had always had the ability to come “home” to Him through the power of the Holy Spirit that lived within my heart. All I needed to do was ask and surrender daily to the Holy Spirit. And so, I did and the adventure of transformation began.


To be continued …


“It is not by force nor by strength,
but by my Spirit,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
ZECHARIAH 4:6 (NLT)



On the journey with you,
Jan Dravecky