Today is my last day in Guatemala. This month has seemed like an eternity in passing, yet the time has flown by all too quickly. It has been so easy, yet so challenging. I have loved it and hated it. I have loved my team and, at times, wished for a different one. I have enjoyed the weather and despised it all the same. I have tried to embrace everything and failed terribly. God has done so much, yet not enough.
In some ways, I feel as though this month has been wasted. I feel like I should have gotten more from this month, that I should have more to take away from this experience. I feel like my team should have a stronger bond. I feel like I should be more changed and look more like Jesus. I certainly should have given more. Looking back, I held back too much. There is so much selfishness in me that is in the way. There are fears and insecurities as well, but it is my selfishness that has kept me from investing more in the people around me and giving all I have to give in all things.
As I think over the last few weeks, I am amazed by how much God has pursued me. God is relentless. He will not stop pursuing until He has it all. He will not stop until He has our full hearts and God has been doing just that with me. He has been digging and digging deep. He has been resurfacing the pain that everyone encounters as a result of living in this broken world. He has been bringing up the sin – all the stuff we like to keep buried so people will think we are ok. If others think we are ok, then maybe we can convince ourselves we are ok. This is a lie and God will not allow us to walk with Him and remain in this way. God has also been bringing up the sins against me. He has been bringing up the selfishness, bitterness and anger and even rage that is hidden within my heart. There are things that have been buried so deep that only God could find them and bring them out.
God is brining up all the ugliness, EVERYTHING that is not of Him. He is breaking me so He can heal me. He is taking so He can give and fill my heart with His Holy Spirit. There is no room for God when our hearts are full of sin. There is no room for God when we live with the heart we have always had. He certainly cannot use us for His glory in this state. God makes all things new and this month God has been uprooting and breaking and healing and making me new. The process has only just begun, but the Lord has already broken. He has already healed and He has already set me free in part.
Thanks to our Squad Leaders' incredible sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, God has been using them to call out the things that are not of Him and to speak truth and life into our hearts. God gives them glimpses of who He has made us to be and the Squad Leaders speak these things over us and call them out in us.
I have already experienced so much and can sense I am on the brink of even greater healing and greater freedom, but I want so much more. I want to be so much more. I want to be better than this. I just want more of God. I want to walk in the fullness of life He has promised to give. I want to walk with Him.
