Before I begin, here is a ministry overview for this month:
This months ministry looks like a lot of different things. We help out in a free kindergarten that our host, Ambassadors for Christ, has set up for families living on the edge of Trujillo, in the mornings. Tuesday night’s we lead a bible study for the mothers of the children who attend the kindergarten. The mother’s attendance at this bible study is the ‘tuition’ for their children’s enrollment in the kindergarten.
Friday evening we have helped out with a Bible college that our host, Sara, has at her house every week. And Sundays we are involved in leading the church service for the community. As well as some door-to-door evangelism and work projects such as painting and moving rocks, lots of rocks. We are living in a nice, modern area of Trujillo, but our ministry is done in an area called ‘The Miracle’ on the outskirts of town.
Carrying benches from the kindergarten to church Sunday morning
Do you pray with an unauthentic heart?
I’ve spoken in front of groups before, a number of times, and each time I always felt a sense of peace on what God wanted me to focus on.
This past week however was different.
I volunteered at the beginning of the week to speak that Friday in front of the Bible college. I figured it was plenty of time for God to reveal what He wanted to me to speak on. Throughout the week however, in praying and spending time in God’s word, I was coming up with nothing. This continued all week, and I now found myself sitting on my sleeping pad, Friday afternoon and still had no idea what I was going to talk about that night. Although I knew I still didn’t want to pick a random topic from my head and not have it be something Christ inspired.
I was confused and honestly frustrated with God.
I was wanting to follow God’s plan. I wanted to bring glory to Him.
So why wasn’t He showing up? Why was He being silent?
As I kept reading passages all over the bible in hopes of something jumping out to me. I remembered something that had stuck out to me while reading through Psalms the past few months. Something David, a ‘Man After God’s Own Heart’, was vulnerable enough to set an example in.
He yelled at God.
“Why do you stand far off, O Lord? Why do you hide in times of trouble?” Psalm 10:1
“Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Arise! Do not cast us off forever. Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?” Psalm 44:23-24
When I read those verses (and the many many others throughout Psalms) I thought that was pretty gutsy of David. Didn’t he know the whole, ‘God loves you” “God wants what is best for you” “God will never leave you”? I mean come on, even I knew all that, it has been conditioned into my head since I was little. But there was something about David’s raw honesty that stood out to me. And to be frank, I was a little upset with God because I didn’t want to get up in front of these people and look stupid because I didn’t know what to say. So I took a whack at David’s style.
I called out my frustrations to God without sugar coating or Christian-ifying anything.
After I was finished, I felt a strange sense of peace. And I felt Jesus whisper to me, “That is what I want you to bring to them tonight, but you couldn’t stand before them and speak on it without feeling it and submitting to it first”.
Now, I know there are a lot worse things to be frustrated with God about than not knowing what to speak on in front of people. But God used this to reveal the wonderful truth of being completely honest with him and sometimes that means getting a little heated.
He already knows your heart, your frustrations, even your doubts. Why withhold them from Him and pretend they aren’t there? Do you think it’s more disrespectful to reveal your honest thoughts about something to the God who knows them already? Or to choose not to open up and get your frustrations out to the God who already sees them building up and creating a void between you and Him, simply because you won’t voice it.
When we choose to not be completely honest with God in our prayers, when he already knows our heart, it is more insulting to Him than it is glorifying.
In learning from David’s example in this, we must also follow his example of when he cries out in frustration and confusion to God. He always ends with reminding Himself of the truths he knows about God and he chooses to have faith in that situation, that God will come through.
“Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Arise! Do not cast us off forever. Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression? We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love.” Psalm 44:23-24
It’s okay to not understand why things are going the way they are. And even the ‘strongest’ Christians have doubts. It’s better to cry out for answers to the God who holds the world in His hands, than not try at all and be left with no answers because you never honestly asked.
Maybe it’s time for you to get real with God. I mean really knock down, drag out real.
I know it was time for me to, in more ways than one.
