My first month of ministry here in Ecuador has come and gone. When my team and I began our journey at Camp Hope, our leaders told us things like “I hope it ends badly” and “I hope you leave with a broken heart.” To be completely honest I thought they were crazy. I wanted to leave ministry ecstatic, thrilled about what the Lord had done. I didn’t want a broken heart or a difficult ending. But, as I walked away from Camp Hope for the last time on Friday, with tears streaming down my face and my heart in pieces, I realized just how right my leaders had been.
If you have read my others blogs, you know that Camp Hope was a struggle at first. You know that I found it difficult to love and appreciate the ministry opportunity the Lord had placed before me. But, as I’ve seen time and again, the Lord uses the difficult things to grow us, draw us closer to Him, and reveal Himself more. I prayed the prayer of David found in Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” I wanted to learn how to love like Jesus.
Around the same time as my struggle with ministry, the Lord led me, in my personal devotions and bible study, to read in Matthew. He absolutely blew my mind with this passage:
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
Matthew 11:25-27
I don’t know if you caught it or not, but the Lord reveals himself. This seems like a pretty simple concept. God makes himself known to us. But it is so much more intricate of an idea. God, the all powerful, all knowing, all present creator of the universe (and each of us) REVEALS HIMSELF to us!! How incredible is that! But still, that is just taking it at face value. Let’s dig a little deeper.
As I meditated on this passage, God revealed to me a deeper concept. He reveals Himself DIFFERENTLY to each of us!! My encounters with God are not the same as your encounters with Him, or anyone else’s for that matter. God is never-changing, but He is also infinite. He chooses to whom, when, and how He will reveal himself. This absolutely floored me! I have such a finite, minuscule view of God.
Back at Camp Hope, I considered this concept in a way I never had before. How does God reveal Himself to these children, or anyone with cognitive disabilities? How does He interact with them? What does this relationship look like? As I watched the children laying there, laughing and smiling at seemingly nothing at all, I realized that this must be it! This must be the relationship! God interacts with these children in the purest of forms, in a way that no one else can. He loves them and reveals himself to them in a way that we may never understand.
It is so easy to “put God in a box”, to minimize His greatness to something that we can comprehend. But that’s not who He is at all. God is infinite! And, I can only pray that He will continue to reveal Himself to me.
