It’s a relentless pursuit // a passionate pursuit // I will not stop chasing after You
This powerful song by Kim Walker-Smith has been, for lack of a better term, my “theme song” for this month. I’ll be straight up honest with you guys: I came to Guatemala with very little excitement or anticipation. I had just finished my first month in El Salvador, and it was wonderful. I missed everything about El Salvador – my host family, our ministries, the neighborhood we lived in, and the beautiful things the LORD had done in my life.
But the LORD is always doing a new thing. And I clung to that promise and tried to look forward to Month 2 with a hopeful expectancy. What ended up happening was that my cough returned, and because we were now living in a higher and colder altitude, my body felt physically drained. The first few days were difficult because I felt extremely lethargic and without any energy. Some of my squad mates were also experiencing similar symptoms. Because this month is an “All Squad Month,” this meant that all 29 of us are living in community together AND doing ministry together. That’s a lot of people; and especially when you just came off of a month of it just being you and your team of seven. As extroverted as I am, it’s been difficult to be constantly surrounded by people and feel like I don’t have any personal time to read or write or play my guitar without constant noise around me. Add to that that my cough returned from last month – and I was getting a bit discouraged.
Our wonderful ministry contact here, German, took me to see a Cuban doctor in a different city. This doctor was his own personal friend, and German told me that the doctors in this small town of Santo Domingo Xenacoj wouldn’t be able to help me. One of my squad leaders, Ashley, came with me, and we drove to a city thirty minutes away (although it seemed much further with hectic and often dangerous traffic). The Cuban doctor had a great sense of humor and gave me three different medicines to help get rid of this wretched cough once and for all. But let’s just say that the combination of these three had me constantly falling asleep and often a little off my rocker … It may have to do with the fact that one of them had codine. Some of my friends saw how quickly I would fade after taking it, and how much I seemed to ramble as well.
Even though I could tell my cough was improving, I felt this sense of shame that I was missing so much ministry because of all these new hours of sleep I was now needing. At one point, I believe I voiced to my team that I felt “useless.” Part of that might have been the medicine talking, but I think the enemy was actually trying to get me to think that way. I was so quickly forgetting how the LORD was working in me. I was so quickly forgetting that He was doing a new thing in me, and that everyday I was learning to trust Him more. Yesterday morning, Thursday, February 19, I had a couple of hours in the morning to journal, pray, worship, and play my guitar to my heart’s content on this little hill in our backyard. As I worshipped my King, there was a warmth from the sun and a gentle breeze that brought me unexpected peace.
I began to play and sing “Relentless Pursuit” on my guitar. I prayed and wrote in large letters in a page of my journal: “You’ve never failed and you won’t stop now,” from Hillsong’s “Oceans.” I was praying for peace – I didn’t want this blessed peace to leave me.
There’s a line in a “Relentless Pursuit” that says, “I am not afraid to run after You, to run with all of my strength, run into You.”
But the truth is, sometimes I am afraid. I’m afraid because running after Him means forgetting everything else and leaving everything else behind. It means He may take things away from You. It may mean that He’s going to wreck me in places I don’t want to be wrecked, so that I may see how much I need Him, so that I may be more intimate with Him.
So I began to declare that. I began to declare that with full faith, I was going to run to Him, pursue Him, knowing that this has not failed me yet. I reminded myself of everything the LORD brought me out of last year. I reminded myself of those dark places I never thought I’d get out of last year, and how the LORD brought me through them.
You’ve never failed, and You won’t stop now.
So here I am, more than halfway through Month 2, and relying every second on the LORD to give me strength, peace, and joy. I am content knowing that He has me right where he wants me. I am continually blessed by my friends and family back home who speak life into what I am doing and for helping to give me wings. At the same time, I don’t wish I was back home, because I know the LORD has me here on this journey.
So I choose to to run into You LORD, knowing that many days won’t be easy, knowing that You’ll continue to strip away things you don’t want in my life – but also trusting that You will keep no good thing from me. And in the end, the result will be beautiful.
