This month couldn’t be more different than last month. The meals we cook are typically our own. Our ministry brings us to the same place everyday, building relationships with people we can all understand. The landscape is red instead of green, typically dry and dusty, the humidity of the rolling jungle exchanged for the drier heat of the Northern Territory. And while the shore’s just a short walk away, the crocs and stingers keep us all out of the water as the rainy season is just beginning to boil over.
Malaysia seemed to be fresh with big lessons, learning diligence and perseverance from a pastor who had been in ministry to Hindu families in the area for a decade, and was slowly starting to reap the fruit. We learned how to pray big to an even bigger God. We learned the sole focus of this journey, and how it neither began or ended with us or where we were. We learned how to live in edifying community, we trusted in sweeping fullness, and we prepared for the coming year in broad strokes only made manageable by the initial energy we brought with us from Launch.
We came to Australia rattled and frazzled, bumped and jostled a bit, out of the jungle and into the red suburban bush, back into an English speaking community almost as soon as we’d left one, our contacts and hosts more gentle and patient than anyone we’ve ever met. We were paired with another team this month, scarily similar to our team in almost every way. The days here stretch as long as the low-tide beaches, flat golden shores hedged in by the steamy blue horizon and red rock sunsets. And from all the big lessons we’ve learned so far, we were ready to move on to bigger and better things; until our own distracted miscommunication reeled us up and set us down, stripped and small on an island as big as our whole country, ready to learn from the Lord all the small things we must have missed in our carpe diem all-or-nothing impassioned barrage on the Southeast Asian peninsula.
I come to this month full well knowing where I am and where I need to be. The Lord’s sweeping purpose in our sanctification is much clearer month 2 than it was month 1, and the character and refinement the Lord has redeemed us for stands out in unfiltered clarity. So I find myself much more quiet this month, much more patient, my resolve sharpened to a point. I find myself taking in things I never thought to take in, and seeing attitude and character reflected in a way that mirrors the man I am and the man I need to be made into. I find myself called to losing battles as much as possible, gently, patiently, diligently ceding more and more control to a God who has purposed every second of this month, every single interaction, from the red rock and golden grains of a place I honestly didn’t care to be, to the patience and gentleness of our hosts, to the boldness, diligence and compassion required to make lasting relationships with an entire Aboriginal community, prefaced by picking up thousands and thousands of pieces of trash and shards of glass from their streets and their front yards.
I find the Lord telling me to wait. I find Him telling me to focus intently on Him, every ounce of my energy. I find Him telling me to peacefully worship Him in collecting trash this month. I find Him leading me into a season of boldness and reliance. I find Him telling me to give up my ministry this month entirely to Him, and let Him do all the work. I find Him reminding me of all the things I have to learn from all the people He’s put me with. He’s telling me to watch and listen, to learn as much as possible, to grow in patience, grow in gentleness, grow in kindness, grow in intentionality, grow in listening and discerning, grow in trusting. I find Him telling me to grow in areas I didn’t think I needed any more growing in. I find Him reminding me that once He can trust me in the small things, He’ll trust me in the big things.
I find Him stripping me down and cutting me open, to build me up as only He can, to only His specifications.
I love the way the Kingdom works, the way He’s showing it to me this month. I love the slow patient cadence of His lead, the prayers He leads me to pray over the people we meet, the conversations we have, the land we help restore. I love the story of redemption He’s brought to the people we’re working with, who have had almost everything stripped from them. I love the things He tells me, and the clarity of hearing He’s blessed me with. I love the visions He shares with me, of people knowing the Lord, all clean and made whole, of Him dancing around me almost shaking with excitement shouting at me, “Danny just you wait you have NO IDEA!! I’m gonna change you so much you won’t even recognize yourself. You’ll be patient, and slow to anger, and you’ll never say anything harsh or judgmental, and your heart will never be there again. You’re going to be so gentle and kind people will wonder what happened to you. And you’ll be filled with my joy so much that people will be drawn to it. Just you wait!!”
I hear these things, and I see these things, and I know these things. God’s doing a work so thorough, so drastic, so deep, in my heart and in my character that I can only wonder in amazement how I ever got to be so lucky. And as I find Him in all the small things, paying diligence to all the small things, I can feel Him changing all the small things; into a big thing; into a new thing.
Love, Danny
