I Can Only Imagine!

What happens when you’re given no hope, no family to call your own, and zero chances to change it? 

Honestly, it seems pretty impossible. Plenty of people are born into these circumstances, and even more, have all but given up. Even as they age, their spirits remain bitter, unable to receive hope and love. Some resort to performance, telling themselves maybe if I just work harder more people will validate and see me. Others turn to defensive measures telling themselves If I just never let anyone else in then I can’t get hurt right? Their walls become nearly impenetrable. Others still attempt to fill this hole with wealth, knowledge, power, or success only to find that it can’t be filled. Their spirits remain like that of a child crying and begging to be saved, to be loved, to be cared for, and to be given hope again. Yet they can’t show that because the pains of this world have created a separate spirit, a false ideal created by the empty, screaming, promises of this world. 

I turned to hopelessness, growing up in a small village with a name meaning Less than Nothing. Even as a child, I understood and knew this was meaningless. I was living the ending of Ecclesiastes 1:14

I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

Though I had not seen everything under the sun, I could see the ground, the water we drank and bathed in, the kids I played with, and the adults I feared. I saw everything I needed to, although I didn’t know Solomon, to agree with Solomon’s wisdom in Ecclesiastes. 

Then my life changed drastically, only because of God and the words spoken to Jeremiah in his days,

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

When I arrived in America, the hole had been filled. It wasn’t filled by me and my desires, or by the amount of hatred I could give others; it wasn’t by success or even the love received by my parents. It was simply because I found out that I was never without hope and love. God made a promise thousands of years ago that He then applied to me and others living upon the earth now. 

The only thing I struggled with was truly believing what everyone else saw and told me pretty immediately, God is going to do really big things with you Jacken! 

I’ve heard a variation of that phrase a thousand times and rarely believed. It just seemed so far away and I didn’t feel like I was all that special. Yet I continued going on mission trips, from Mississippi to Michigan, from Haiti to Puerto Rico, From Honduras to the Dominican Republic. I started noticing, ever so slowly, that the trips got bigger and more expensive. then a verse finally settled in my heart, Luke 16:10

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 

My trips were getting bigger because I kept going, and kept believing that God would provide If He wanted me to go. And now I’m being trusted to go on an eleven-month journey to eleven countries, sharing the Gospel in every country I land in. This is amazing and I loved the thought of going BUT $18,800 doesn’t fall outta the sky. Never the less, I trusted God would provide. I’m currently at $17,200!

Like the title of this blog, I could only imagine that amount could be raised. All of us to some degree have either experienced or are experiencing the childlike spirits. The one desperately crying out to be saved, loved, and given hope again. Seek out the promise God made me, Jeremiah, and now you (everyone reading). He wants to give you that hope and future, but you must seek Him out with all your heart. He promises to answer when you call out because He already is near you but is waiting for you to reply.

Thank you for reading and supporting me! I only have $1,600 left to raise and it all thanks to those who believed that God would do incredible things in, through, and around me! So thank you! Remain faithful in praying and if God leads you to give, give out of faithfulness that He will provide for you.