Today I’m going to borrow from two forum posts by one of our members, Christine. I think both are moving and relevant to the message we are trying to convey. Before I dive into that, an update on our carepoint: We have chosen a carepoint – Ludlati – which you can see starting at 4:10 through 8:50 in the “Part 1” video from Monday’s post. Opportunities to connect with our community there – financially and personally will follow shortly. More pictures and video from Ludlati will be posted by this weekend.
The first borrowed content is an excerpt from a devotional by Oswald Chambers (I especially like the last two sentences of the first paragraph – very Pascal-ish, so this will substitute for the weekly Pensee):
Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. James 4:8
It is essential to give people a chance of acting on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual, you cannot
act for him, it must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message ought always to lead a man to act. The paralysis of refusing
to act leaves a man exactly where he was before; when once he acts, he is never the same. It is the foolishness of it that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Immediately I precipitate myself over into an act, that second I live; all the rest is existence. The moments when I truly live are the moments when I act with my whole will.
Never allow a truth of God that is brought home to your soul to pass without acting on it… The feeblest saint who transacts business
with Jesus Christ is emancipated the second he acts; all the almighty power of God is on his behalf…
The second post I’m borrowing from describes a short-term mission trip:
My daughter and I traveled to the DR in the summer of 2008 with Windsor Road Christian Church and GO Ministries. Here is the letter we wrote upon our return. The trip didn’t turn out exactly as planned…
Our bus ride from the airport in Santiago to our dorm in Hato del Yaque revealed that the DR is full of interesting smells, erratic driving and a lively nightlife. There were people, even small children, outside everywhere. It was the children that really captured our hearts. They were so eager to connect with us and we treasured the opportunities we had to do that.
Our trip was to include three days of construction on two churches/feeding centers followed by Vacation Bible School at two churches in the mountains. However, on the morning of our second day of construction I became ill. A doctor was called in and I ended up receiving intravenous fluids for dehydration. Needless to say, I hadn’t planned on spending most of our trip down, but I’m resting in God’s absolute sovereignty, His infinite wisdom and His perfect love. I’m clinging to His promises that He will use trials for good (Romans 8:28-29, Hebrews 12:7,11, 1 Peter 1:6-7, James 1:2-4) to mature us and make us more like His Son.
In Deuteronomy 8:2 God reveals that He led the Israelites in the desert for forty years to humble them and to test them in order to know what was in their hearts. God has definitely used this experience in the DR to reveal some things in my heart. I still feel as though I’m trying to get my mind around all He is teaching me through this.
My first thoughts upon getting sick were, “I just want to go home (NOW!)” and “I’m never coming back (EVER!)” However, I see now that my suffering does not mean I was not right where God wanted me to be. Nor does my suffering mean that I’m just not cut out for this sort of thing and I shouldn’t go back. I started thinking about Paul and all He suffered (2 Corinthians 11:23-29). He didn’t see these trials as a call out of ministry. He embraced them as an opportunity to share in the sufferings of our Savior (Philippians 3:10-11). He endured hardship as discipline (Hebrews 12:7) and trusted in the sufficiency of God’s grace to carry him in his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). I am humbled by such meekness.
God used my illness to mature Madeline as well. She was pushed way out of her comfort zones. She had to trust God and our team to take care of us. I think her statement on our last night in the DR is a fitting conclusion. She told me that she would like to return to the DR. This was a shock to me. I thought she would want to distance herself from the unpleasant experiences of the week. She said that when she works on a Bible study or devotional at home, she often feels like she’s not really growing. But this experience really showed her a lot of things about herself and God. This experience really pushed her and hard as it was…she liked that
It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. Psalm 119:71
For me, Psalm 119 polishes off this post perfectly. What I take from this is that we spend too much time fighting, praying, and believing for our comfort, peace, prosperity… All good things… all things that are ours through God’s promises… but just not where I see God telling us to focus in most of His Word. Those things are His job. The emphasis for us is on taking action. Taking action in ways that are uncomfortable and that require sacrifice, discomfort, and risk. Accepting that we have a cross to bear, that the world will hate us because it hated Him first. And knowing that somehow, in His plan, we will grow and benefit from that. Refusing affliction denies us the ability to learn from Him (I know you may not like that but don’t blame me – I didn’t say it – He did (see Psalm 119 above)). I believe that there are incredible, wonderful promises of what we receive as God’s kids. But we somtimes become so focused on “what’s in it for me” that we spend our time and effort pursuing benefits for us rather than DOING what we are told to do.
He’ll do His part. I don’t have to (and I can’t) make him do His part, and that’s not my job anyway. I just need to do my part (which means DO what His Word tells us to DO) and rest in the comfort that He is Omnipotent God of the Universe, and He loves me with a love that I cannot comprehend. Maybe I’m nuts, but given those parameters, somehow I think He’ll uphold His end of the bargain.
