(This entry comes before wineskins)
I had a brief meltdown yesterday; quivers and some tears (kind of embarrassed since my dear friend saw, but grateful that she was the one who spoke the words I needed to find my anchor again) suddenly so unsure if this was really what God wanted for me (similar to my meltdown in preh vihear on my bed). Going back to Preh Vihear province for even one more week is so terrifying, but to go back for four weeks will really put my faith to the test, or is putting my faith to the test. I leave in 5 weeks (April 7).
Yesterday I kept contemplating and trying to hear God's voice about why I should go back, and I wrote the previous blog ("careful afterthoughts"), then while night was upon me and the heat was unrelenting I had such a difficult time falling asleep due to the sweat that coated my back, neck, and behind my knees. I just felt like I would drown in sticky, itchy sweat. Which led my thoughts to preh vihear and how exponentially worse it will be there, and fear began to choke me, anxiety started to seize me and I found myself losing my footing once again. "I can't go back there." "Why should I pay to go back just to suffer?" I even heard thoughts and excuses that sounded godly like "well, maybe God doesn't want me to finish the school here, what if I just don't want to go back (to the states) because of what people may think of me if I just left, I shouldn't care what people think, it's more humbling to go back home." Or "God just isn't calling me to preh vihear because I don't feel a desire to go there, those people who liked it there should go, not me, I wouldn't do much good."
Then I remember Jonah who had no such desire to speak to Nineveh, or the disciples who took in Matthew the traitor tax collector as one of their own, and of course Paul who suffered and suffered and suffered and suffered so many times for the sake of the gospel. Having a realistic perspective is essential, I think, to obedience. Ignorance will only delay severe and fatal disappointment over the truth that actually releases joy.
But perspective is learned and experienced, it starts out very narrow, and we choose to widen the scope by seeing through the eyes of others. But even that is difficult, because we like to have the control over what our eyes see, we choose to see what we want to see, it's comfortable because we have all the control and we can monitor our ignorance so as to avoid feeling guilty or unjustified in our set ways, but gaining a wider perspective gives us more a view like Gods. The only one who sees all. When my eyes saw what I did in preh vihear I saw more of What God sees, and that really shook me. To see that God is glorified by those who suffer so much daily (whether they lack food, clean water, beds, or air conditioning in smoldering heat) showed me how small my faith was, but it also taught me how to make my faith grow. Allowing bad things to happen in life and still giving God praise seemed so difficult for me, but after I saw how some people see God for more than just the gifts He gives us was humbling and really beautiful. God will not be mocked, and if we think we can say the words "I love you God" without really meaning it (in other words by our disobedience to His commands and ways), we are living in denial for the sake of a false comfort.
You might ask "how do I know what His ways or commands are?" The answer is: read the bible. Don't choose ignorance.
So many times here I have asked myself, if God is not real this is not worth another day, not another day or another $950! This place goes against almost everything I enjoy, and yet if, if God is real and He has led me here then I am in the only place that will bring me more joy through a deeper intimacy and bond with God. Even if that means hacking my way through the thorns and weeds to get to where I need to be. Preh vihear and Burma may be difficult, it may be the season of some of my most painful discomforts, but God never said it would be easy to follow Him. So again, my faith is to walk on the water of going forward to preh vihear and Burma, despite everything in me that wants to turn away. (Even if that means I will be crying the entire 7 hour bus ride there, I'm still going.)
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I burned my ships today. (our lecture on the cost of discipleship gave the example of Cortez who went to discover new lands, and when he found one he saw that his crew got scared and were thinking of sailing back home so he had some men burn the ships. There was to be no plan B or back up because even the thought or option of going home weakened the hearts of his men to boldly do what they had initially set out to do.). So I burned my ships today, there is no more plan b, my fees are paid, and although I'm for sure going to fall into a sea of fear and anxiety again and again in the coming month over going back, I'm going to do whatever I can to burn every ship, and be forced to have boldness. That is what I think "giving it all" means. It's more than just a feeling or desire to obey, but it's doing everything you can to prepare for what may hinder that obedience (because there will be hindrances).
If God speaks I ask for conviction, clarity of His words, and courage in heaps to obey.
My confidence comes in waves. Yesterday I was certain that I could never pick lice out of the village kids' hair (as one outreach team did), and yet today I know I could. Although the thoughts of touching lice eggs still grosses me out to the same degree.
"Sometimes you might feel that it is impossible to endure to the end (like my survival in preh vihear for 4 weeks!) That may be right! BUT when we come to the end of what is possible for us (hmm, I could possibly do 3 more days in preh vihear), then we can see God do the impossible. Faith has not begun until we believe God for the impossible ("For what is impossible for man, is possible for God"-Luke 18:27).
-The Father Heart of God
By Floyd McClung
I may think I will not be able to endure the suffering or task God asks of me for the hot season (next 3 months) and that might be true! However I will do up to what I can (which is getting on a 7 hour bus ride and maybe lasting 3 days before the pain really starts rising), then from there my faith kicks into gear and I get see God fill in the rest."
Today I feel empowered and even equipped to go back to preh vihear. A few reasons are that my faith will be exercised which means a deeper trust and a deeper intimacy with my God, and also because, I'll be honest, I know that it will be temporary. I will be there for four weeks, and unless God calls me back there, I feel more confident that this will be a really refining and sweet season in my life if I go.
Up until today I was so sure that I could never or would never be willing to pick lice out of the village kids' hair and the lice eggs (which is what the other teams had done), but as grossed out as even the thought of doing that is, I see now that even that was something God wanted me to give up (my intense grossed out-ness of bugs), and I'll do it if He asks me to. I will do as much as I can until all that remains in mere faith in God to finish the rest. However, that would seriously ....oh man...be so disgusting, yet so humbling and such an example of love and serving others very selflessly (for me at least haha, if I did that I would be 100% confident during that time that I was selfless and not selfish; or maybe I'm wrong, but it feels that way! Haha)
Joyfully,
J
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