"If any of you wants to be my followers, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it."-- Mark 8:34-35
I think I've heard that verse at least 100 times. We're told to not be selfish, take up a cross, follow Jesus, and give up our life... The past few years of doing missions work or fundraising for missions work it's been so easy to look at that verse and say, "Yup, I got that... I'm a missionary, duh." Although I've always known that there was something else there. Something I needed to give up, I just wasn't quite sure what it was.
Give up your life.
"I am giving up my life, or at least I think I am."... But what does "life" really mean?
As I was reading this in Mark last night it finally hit me in a new way. "My Life" isn't just where I live and the job I have, it's also my dreams and expectations of what I want my life to be... I live in Wales, I have the title of Assemblies of God World Missionary. So, I'm giving up my life, I'm living out the Great Commission. Wrong.... To a certain extent, I have given up my life. I am willing to go where God sends and leave behind family and the possibility of a better paying career. But, these are things I'm easily willing to do. I love to travel and see new places, so it's not asking much to move to Europe for year.
What I struggle with is giving up the expectations of the amazing life I will have overseas. I long for every moment to be exciting and to see tons of people come to know Jesus, and to come quickly! I want to hop off that plane and have everything ready for me to do. I long to be satisfied by the fruit of my labor. I long to live that "ideal" life. My dream life.... But Jesus asks us to give it up.
So that's where I am right now, on this day. I'm taking the day to seek after Jesus. To lay my burdens at His feet, to ask Him to help me. To find real satisfaction in simply doing nothing but spending a day with Him.... How can I try to tell people that Christianity is all about a relationship if I can't even take a day and find satisfaction in spending it with Jesus, and not crossing things off a to-do list?
What exactly should I be doing? Where do I belong? What's next?... I'm always plagued with these questions. It's a blessing and a curse I think.... For now, I don't know the answer to any of those questions..... I do know this: I belong in the presence of a King who loves me. Who sent His only Son to die for me. A King who is closer than a brother, who has a plan for my life-far beyond my imagination. A King who finds delight in me, who rejoices over me. A King that is desperate for me, for my love and obedience. A King who wants the best for me. A King who allows me to be a part of His army, even though I'm weak and fearful. A King who deserves my all, who deserves my life-all of it, even my silly dreams of what it should be.
I belong to Jesus, and if I accomplish nothing in this life other than getting to know Him even the slightest bit better, than I can leave this earth happy and fulfilled!
Is Jesus enough for you? Are you satisfied with Him, only Him?
Are you willing to give up your life? Your dreams? Your everything?
Monday, February 27, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Lessons from Loneliness
Finding yourself on the other side of the planet, and being able to count the number of people you know on your hands is challenging.
God created us in His image, in His likeness. He is all about relationships, thus we are wired to desire a relationship with Him and with each other. Friends and family are important, more so than we realize at times.
Being alone a lot the past few weeks has made me realize how important friendships are. Being lonely is horrible, in my opinion, but through the loneliness I've experienced the past few weeks I've learned a lot.
A Treasure... True friends really are a gift from God and should be treasured. I've come to have a new appreciation for the friendships I have.
Perspective... Through the times of being alone I believe I can now relate better to people who are alone for much of their time and also suffer from depression (not saying I'm depressed, I just feel like I can understand it better now). Most of my life I've been around people a lot and had at least a few friends around me for a good portion of each day. I'm realizing that a life without that is very challenging.
Provision... I've been praying for friends, and asking others to pray for this as well. To be honest, I really haven't made a close friend since I've been here. However, God has provided. There's been several times I was feeling very lonely and one of my friends from back home, or someone else who is serving overseas, will start chatting with me on Facebook, Gmail, or Skype. It's been incredible how the timing of it all has worked out.... I've really been praying that God would send me some good guy friends who I can hang out with. Guys just need to be around guys sometimes. It's funny because I have two really good guy friends who are both serving in Africa. One of them was a fellow intern from South Africa and another I met at Pre-field Orientation this past summer. The three of us are in similar situations, we're all lacking those guy friends in our lives. We haven't really found those friendships yet, but we've all had times to catch up with each other and/or other friends back home. It's not a person in your physical presence, but it's what we needed. It's what I've needed.
Priorities... Another blessing that has come out of this period is the time I've had to spend with Jesus. To be completely honest with you, I haven't been taking advantage of it like I should. There has been a lot of wasted time, but there's also been some great times of prayer and journaling. God's using this time to prepare me for something I think. I'm not sure what, but I know this is happening for a reason.
Truth be told, I like to be busy and have lots of work to do, but in this season it's not the case... Before I came to Wales I really thought about why I was coming and I came to the conclusion that the ultimate reason I was going is that God wanted me to come on an adventure with Him so we could fall more in love. It's not about the number of people that will come to our church, the help I can offer the missionaries I work with, or even the people who will get saved. Ultimately, God wants me here so I can know Him more. I know this sounds selfish in a lot of ways, but God is jealous for us. He wants us! And maybe I just need a slap in the face at times to realize that. God has called us to do good works and to serve, but that comes after the relationship with Him. He is my priority and my everything.
I may have days where I honestly don't have anything that I have to get done, but if I simply spend the day walking around taking in God's beauty and talking with Him, that's all He could ask of me for that day. I have to get my mind around the fact that my worth simply comes from the fact that Jesus loves me, and I can do nothing to earn that love or make it stop.
Even though I absolutely hate not having much to do, and I hate being lonely, I'm very thankful for the past few weeks. God is teaching me things, most of them I'm probably not even aware of!
Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you find yourself in a similar situation I hope you can gain something from this post.
God bless!
God created us in His image, in His likeness. He is all about relationships, thus we are wired to desire a relationship with Him and with each other. Friends and family are important, more so than we realize at times.
Being alone a lot the past few weeks has made me realize how important friendships are. Being lonely is horrible, in my opinion, but through the loneliness I've experienced the past few weeks I've learned a lot.
A Treasure... True friends really are a gift from God and should be treasured. I've come to have a new appreciation for the friendships I have.
Perspective... Through the times of being alone I believe I can now relate better to people who are alone for much of their time and also suffer from depression (not saying I'm depressed, I just feel like I can understand it better now). Most of my life I've been around people a lot and had at least a few friends around me for a good portion of each day. I'm realizing that a life without that is very challenging.
Provision... I've been praying for friends, and asking others to pray for this as well. To be honest, I really haven't made a close friend since I've been here. However, God has provided. There's been several times I was feeling very lonely and one of my friends from back home, or someone else who is serving overseas, will start chatting with me on Facebook, Gmail, or Skype. It's been incredible how the timing of it all has worked out.... I've really been praying that God would send me some good guy friends who I can hang out with. Guys just need to be around guys sometimes. It's funny because I have two really good guy friends who are both serving in Africa. One of them was a fellow intern from South Africa and another I met at Pre-field Orientation this past summer. The three of us are in similar situations, we're all lacking those guy friends in our lives. We haven't really found those friendships yet, but we've all had times to catch up with each other and/or other friends back home. It's not a person in your physical presence, but it's what we needed. It's what I've needed.
Priorities... Another blessing that has come out of this period is the time I've had to spend with Jesus. To be completely honest with you, I haven't been taking advantage of it like I should. There has been a lot of wasted time, but there's also been some great times of prayer and journaling. God's using this time to prepare me for something I think. I'm not sure what, but I know this is happening for a reason.
Truth be told, I like to be busy and have lots of work to do, but in this season it's not the case... Before I came to Wales I really thought about why I was coming and I came to the conclusion that the ultimate reason I was going is that God wanted me to come on an adventure with Him so we could fall more in love. It's not about the number of people that will come to our church, the help I can offer the missionaries I work with, or even the people who will get saved. Ultimately, God wants me here so I can know Him more. I know this sounds selfish in a lot of ways, but God is jealous for us. He wants us! And maybe I just need a slap in the face at times to realize that. God has called us to do good works and to serve, but that comes after the relationship with Him. He is my priority and my everything.
I may have days where I honestly don't have anything that I have to get done, but if I simply spend the day walking around taking in God's beauty and talking with Him, that's all He could ask of me for that day. I have to get my mind around the fact that my worth simply comes from the fact that Jesus loves me, and I can do nothing to earn that love or make it stop.
Even though I absolutely hate not having much to do, and I hate being lonely, I'm very thankful for the past few weeks. God is teaching me things, most of them I'm probably not even aware of!
Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you find yourself in a similar situation I hope you can gain something from this post.
God bless!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Hopeful
Patience: an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.
That's one of the definitions dictionary.com provided. There are some key words in there that are applying to my life right now. Suppress, restlessness, and delay are some of the big ones.
I've been in Cardiff for about two and half weeks, not that long to be honest. However, in my mind, I would like to be good friends with at least 10 people by now and have a University Ministry plan already underway. In reality, I'm no where near that point!
Patience has always been an issue with me. I'm very proactive in getting things done, if I can do it now why wait? If there's a decision to be made, well let's hurry up and decide!... That's how my mind works.... However, at this time God has placed me in a very slow-paced environment, which is challenging for me to say the least! Our church has literally JUST begun. We're in the infant stages of this community, and it takes time to grow-up in a healthy way. A part of me really just wants to be busy, and be validated by the amount of work I get done and the fruit that is produced by that labor. Right now, I'm honestly not that busy. It's not because I'm avoiding things that need to get done, it just takes time to get acclimated and get plans in place.
Even though this is challenging for me, I'm thankful for this phase of the journey. It's taking a lot of faith and a lot of patience (which we all know I'm not very good at!) to keep going. It's very easy to question whether or not things are happening like they should. I was reading in Psalms the other day and I came across this verse, "For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation" Psalm 100:5. That's what I'm holding onto. God is good, He is love, and He is faithful... He told me to come and paved the way to make it possible. I need to continue to trust Him through each stage of the journey, even the slow ones!
With all this said, I'm hopeful for the months to come, and I have made some friends with the staff at Starbucks in the Student Union of Cardiff Metropolitan University. These two ladies have questioned me about everything from the weather to prayer to sin to Jesus Himself! We had a great conversation a few days ago, and when I stopped in yesterday they fixed me my chi tea latte and gave to me for free!
Progress has been made with ministry plans for the campus. I finally found out who I need to talk to about doing things on campus, and tomorrow I meet with someone from a student group called the Christian Union. We're going to discuss ministry ideas and a possible partnership. We are also having an open house this Saturday at the Elliotts home, our temporary meeting place for the church. We've been going around the neighborhood stuffing flyers in everyone's mailboxes, I think we're getting close to about 1,000 flyers passed out! We have several more "getting to know people" events planned for the next few weeks as well.
Progress is being made and I'm learning to have some patience. I keep reminding myself that God is good, He is loving, and He is faithful.... I know God is teaching me patience, but I believe He is also teaching me to remain faithful, even when it feels like I'm not doing much at all. My value and self-worth needs to stem from who I am in Christ, not how much busy work I get done, or how many lives I see changed. I'm here to be a witness for Jesus, that's it. He's doing the rest.
God is good.
God is loving.
God is faithful.
And I... am hopeful.
That's one of the definitions dictionary.com provided. There are some key words in there that are applying to my life right now. Suppress, restlessness, and delay are some of the big ones.
I've been in Cardiff for about two and half weeks, not that long to be honest. However, in my mind, I would like to be good friends with at least 10 people by now and have a University Ministry plan already underway. In reality, I'm no where near that point!
Patience has always been an issue with me. I'm very proactive in getting things done, if I can do it now why wait? If there's a decision to be made, well let's hurry up and decide!... That's how my mind works.... However, at this time God has placed me in a very slow-paced environment, which is challenging for me to say the least! Our church has literally JUST begun. We're in the infant stages of this community, and it takes time to grow-up in a healthy way. A part of me really just wants to be busy, and be validated by the amount of work I get done and the fruit that is produced by that labor. Right now, I'm honestly not that busy. It's not because I'm avoiding things that need to get done, it just takes time to get acclimated and get plans in place.
Even though this is challenging for me, I'm thankful for this phase of the journey. It's taking a lot of faith and a lot of patience (which we all know I'm not very good at!) to keep going. It's very easy to question whether or not things are happening like they should. I was reading in Psalms the other day and I came across this verse, "For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation" Psalm 100:5. That's what I'm holding onto. God is good, He is love, and He is faithful... He told me to come and paved the way to make it possible. I need to continue to trust Him through each stage of the journey, even the slow ones!
With all this said, I'm hopeful for the months to come, and I have made some friends with the staff at Starbucks in the Student Union of Cardiff Metropolitan University. These two ladies have questioned me about everything from the weather to prayer to sin to Jesus Himself! We had a great conversation a few days ago, and when I stopped in yesterday they fixed me my chi tea latte and gave to me for free!
Progress has been made with ministry plans for the campus. I finally found out who I need to talk to about doing things on campus, and tomorrow I meet with someone from a student group called the Christian Union. We're going to discuss ministry ideas and a possible partnership. We are also having an open house this Saturday at the Elliotts home, our temporary meeting place for the church. We've been going around the neighborhood stuffing flyers in everyone's mailboxes, I think we're getting close to about 1,000 flyers passed out! We have several more "getting to know people" events planned for the next few weeks as well.
Progress is being made and I'm learning to have some patience. I keep reminding myself that God is good, He is loving, and He is faithful.... I know God is teaching me patience, but I believe He is also teaching me to remain faithful, even when it feels like I'm not doing much at all. My value and self-worth needs to stem from who I am in Christ, not how much busy work I get done, or how many lives I see changed. I'm here to be a witness for Jesus, that's it. He's doing the rest.
God is good.
God is loving.
God is faithful.
And I... am hopeful.
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