As I lather on my sunscreen I start to feel pieces of the dirt getting mixed in and creating something very similar to the small rubber pieces that get left behind from an eraser. It's all over me, dirt and sweat, it almost seems futile to apply sunscreen atop the layers of dirt that cover me from head to toe. But I still do it anyway, perhaps out of a shameless habit, or maybe I think it will somehow matter...the trying...the trying will turn into pity and God will magically make it effective. Again, all this is coming from a hot day, typing on my iPhone. My thumbs barely able to touch each letter. Week 1 has officially begun and we are learning about the nature and character of God. But I gotta say, the repeating theme for me seems to be the bigness of God. God from this angle is almost completely different from God in the states. God is good wherever I go, but God truly shouts in our times of need, and living in a third world country has shown me what need on a daily basis looks like. We wake up at 4:30am for our work duties and morning chores, we take turns using the bathroom for a courteous amount of time so that each of us gets a chance to wash up before heading out. Some have work duties in the blazing sun, but everyone works to maintain the cleanliness and function of the base, most of all the duties require lots of manual labor (dusting, mopping, trash, heavy lifting, and all by hand...no one uses anything that requires electricity since it's super expensive here. My tools are a broom, mop, bucket, trash bag, and several rag towels. God is with me every morning, with every stroke of the broom. He is there with me, guiding my hands over the floors, my feet swiftly moving, I am his hands and feet helping the body in whatever way I can. It's pretty awesome, and at first I thought I would dread mopping, because I hated mopping when I was a server, but here I see it as something I do that makes my Lord happy, and that brings a smile to my face like a fresh gust of cold air on a hot day.
Fellowship here is overwhelmingly good. I live with 7 girls in a room that's small. Yet I have never slept more soundly or comfortingly or just happily. Living with these girls is oddly comforting, like always having friends around me in the night as I fall asleep...it's just nice haha.
So sometimes a huge part of me just wants to be back in the states where the bathrooms don't smell, where my feet are always clean, and the air isn't caking dirt on my skin and clothes. Sometimes I just want to shrink back into those comfortable things, and ignore the fact that I have a reason for my existence, a reason that calls me to serve others, to tell people about Jesus, and do things that I don't always feel like doing. I want to do what I want to do all the time, but when I do that I am discontent with life, because a life of self is a life without meaning.
I have somehow, at some point this past week, fallen in love with God like it was the first time. Man it is so scary! There's that verse about working out your salvation in fear and trembling, and that's exactly how I feel. God is BIG. God is so much bigger than I believed in my life, He's so much more than just a friend, a lover, a provider, a healer, He's all of those things, but He's also the God who sees people at their worst and then calls someone from across the globe to go help that person. He's that big! He's not just in one place catering to people according to their life styles, but He sees someone crying out for help, maybe it's a child whose parents abandoned them, maybe it's a starving man thinking there's just no hope, maybe it's a suicidal teen, maybe it's someone in deep depression or apathy or no it's bigger, maybe it's an entire village that has no idea how things like love for someone is possible, it could be you right now in your room crying out to Him in your heart. Whoever it is, God is big and He calls us to help one another, sometimes we are called to help people right in our hometowns, but our Great God also calls us to be His feet that rush to thousands of miles away to that child who's all alone in this world and to get on a plane, go to him or her, hold them and bring them the powerful truth that they are being invited to join the family of the Almighty God. And when one more gets brought back to the One who created them, we can celebrate like it's nobody's bidness. I mean, what's more epic than doing something for God....God?!!! I am just blown away that there is such a thing! I used to live to please my self, my wants, and my preferences...yea that never really panned out very well in the long run...but that was because I am not God, so whatever I do will be on a very human level...maybe sometimes it will be an ok thing,but never on a God level. And I would rather have epic chapters in my life than ok ones.
Lately, I have been speaking more with people, I feel The Lord putting me in situations that compel me to speak and I seriously feel like a trembling match...and my obedience to speak and also to listen is the swiping of the match against whatever that rough stuff is called that light it up. Haha. I'm never sure what I'm really doing or what I'm getting myself into when I begin to speak about God or words of encouragement to someone hurting, but the more I just do it the more I feel God power just take control and it almost always leaves me excitedly trembling!
Oh that I would be emptied for Christ to come and dwell more fully! I don't want my God to live in the corner of a cramped heart, I want him to have everything, because the more I give to Him the more my life becomes an epic adventure. Money is no problem, relationships are no problem, health is no problem, there's nothing that my God does not know about, and He loves me and I love Him so even if all of those things fail in my life, I don't care, they were temporary anyway, I care about what is going to be forever.
I really just want to say to you, friends or people just reading this, that God is so big and He wants you to be about forever rather than the "for nows". Maybe He is calling you to Asia, Europe, Africa, India, some small island in the middle of some ocean, haha, but man, life is about giving God all the glory with our lives. I mean it's God, He is nothing short of awesome and amazing and epic. So you live for Him you live awesome and amazing and epic lives.
It starts with an honest prayer, over and over, not because God doesn't hear the first couple of times, but because you yourself don't hear the first couple of times. Keep praying til you really hear what you're asking for.
God keeps reminding me that He sees me, and He is calling me to Himself.
J
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