After thinking about my outreach week and having spoken with a number of other people here on base about how difficult it was, but also how exposed I was to even more of the sin in my heart, and how at many times I cried out to God in my anguish as though this was not part of Gods plan, that maybe God had taken his eyes and hands of love off of me in a moment of neglect or forgetfulness, I can see now what God was doing in my heart. I was having a hard time trying to find my joy when my external conditions beat me down with a spiky bat. I mean most of my struggling was utterly physical pain and discomfort. I'm so used to struggling internally, and I see over the years how God has healed me of that and made me so much more confident in my identity, so transitioning to the external was a whole new beginning for me.
I think God is now working on how I am to be trained in physical pain, which sort of helps me recognize the growth in myself now that I am moving on to newer areas that need strengthening. Once one muscle is trained you continue to maintain that strength, but at the same time you begin working on a weaker muscle until that one is also built up, and then you maintain that as well as the previous muscle and move on to the next, until you have trained every muscle and work on continually maintaining your strength as much as you can to be strong and healthy. In that way I think God has trained me in many internal areas that I now have to focus on maintaining, while I am beginning to work on building up the strength for combatting external circumstances. Both the internal and external affect the way I think and the way I respond, and both reveal a different lens to what really lies behind the walls of my heart. Internally I have learned that I did not revere Gods holiness.
I set myself on the throne of my heart and God was only there to grant me my wishes, and I justified that system by deluding myself into thinking I actually could earn any of it by my actions (which brought me so much frustration as I could never uphold my end of the bargain for very long). The cycle of failure brought me to desperation, and then recognition that God will not be mocked as One who grants wishes based on our actions. He is Holy and set apart, and there is nothing I can do to earn His goodness, so to have thought that was ridiculing His nature. He will have all the glory of every throne in every heart and will not settle for anything less than all. Once I got that straightened out I began to see the tiny seeds of where sin had been sprouting, very subtly. By His grace I asked Him to help me pull all the weeds of those seeds out, and it was and continues to be a long process, but so much has been taken out (though so much still needs pruning) and I am slowly seeing Him more clearly and walking toward Him.
The more clearly I see God the more real He becomes, and the more real He becomes the more I can give up, and the more I give up the more my faith and intimacy with Him grows, and that is where I find my joy, my peace, and my eternal perspective in living everyday surrendered to Him. For me life without joy and life without peace and especially life without a hope for what will last forever when my time on earth is up is not worth living. I have very little in me that can settle for the fluff and be fine with that. God is my rock, and all the fluffy sands of the things apart from Him just crumble eventually. I can not but strive to cling to the Rock.
So as I have one more month here in Battambang for lectures, I pray that the teachings will prepare me for my two month long outreach time. That terrifies me since I barely survived a week! But I don't want to miss out on hearing God's voice or gaining new strength in weaker areas, because the more I train the stronger I become. This is definitely so hard for me, and I have so many thoughts of giving up all the time! God is so good because even when I get angry at Him over how frustrating the heat and the Mosquitos and everything else are, He still comforts me out of love but always in the way I don't expect Him to. Maybe that's His way of reminding me that I have no control, haha. But by Gods grace (and this brief moment of being in cafe eden's air conditioned room haha) I feel empowered to continue on, pressing further into my weaknesses and trusting that God will take care of me. It's not a mystery as to what God wants from me or from anyone. He wants it all, and a lot of the times I think my all is just the things that are only a little difficult to give up, but that is partial. Everything includes that which causes both internal and external discomfort In order that God can reveal Himself by throwing our logic to the wind. Anyone can trust in a situation they have complete control over (that kind of trust requires little to no faith at all), but to let go of control and trust despite that lack of knowing really amplifies a person's faith. I want my trust to be beyond the borders of my control so that my faith would grow, and being here right now, and especially gearing up for 2 months in outreach (preh vihear and Burma) are definitely pushing that training on me. And like I've told almost everyone who has asked me how my week in outreach was, I say again that "my body hates it, but my spirit loves it".
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.
No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
--
Be encouraged (and humbled haha) that what God wants from you is not a mystery, nor is it hard to find but especially that it is not tooooooo difficult (it's very difficult, but not difficult enough that we cannot do it). It is right there in front of you, and you alone are responsible for the decisions you make, to obey or not obey.
But again, I must emphasize that God is real, He is goooood, and He loves you. So let Him have everything, be persevering in the pain, and see for yourself that He is all of those things and more!
-j
No comments:
Post a Comment