I have to apologize that it has been SO long since my last blog, internet was very hard to come by in Kenya. So here is something I wrote out on May 20th. It's kind of all over the place, but I keep hearing that messy is good 🙂
May 20th…
As I sat in our opened ceiling church this morning I started realizing how much Pastor Mary talked to the Holy Spirit, how much she talked about the Holy Spirit and how normal it was for the congregation.
Seeing and living in cultures that are so different from my upbringing has brought a lot questions through out the past 8 months, the biggest being How I view God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Seeing how others live out their faith, challenges my faith constantly.
A.W. Tozer said, "We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone. We have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost."
Holy cow isn't that true!
I was confronted with the question, Do I really believe Jesus when He told the disciples in John 16: 7-8, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper (or Counselor) will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you." Jesus was explaining that it is better for the disciples to have the Holy Spirit with them than being with Him, who is living flesh talking face to face with them.
I want to live as if I believe Him and I started thinking of how I view the Holy Spirit in my life. I usually make reference to Him as we pray for the day, and I tend to ask for Him to show up when in church and when times seem to be really challenging. The weird part is, I ask God to reign down His Holy Spirit but a lot of the way I pray involving the Holy Spirit is what I have been taught, how I have heard others pray. It has a lot less to do with what I have searched out in scripture, a lot less to do with how I view the Holy Spirit.
To get even more honest, up until about 7 months ago I didn't think the Holy Spirit was all that needed. I didn't expect Him to act, or if I did it my expectations were often misguided. I mean I have never needed Him to provide food or shelter for me. I have never looked at a meal like the Israelites looked at Manna in the desert and thought it was a gift from God and, without Him I would starve.
We live a lot like the Israelites, while they were in the desert for forty years. We have been blessed by God, He is leading us and has blessed our nation. But anytime life starts to get hard we question what His plan is in our lives. Logan laughs at me all the time because I try to plan out what's next instead of just trusting that the Lord for today. When I read about the Israelites in the desert I know that God is going to lead them to the land He promised Abraham hundreds of years earlier, but could you imagine living in that time? For forty years your family is constantly moving usually with just enough to keep them from starving to death. With just a word from Moses that someday you will live in the land milk and honey. It is always easier having the eagles eye view of what God is doing and the hardships He is walking us through. So the question is do we learn from history, or do we repeat it?
Since being in Africa I have been challenged in ways that have really opened my eyes to needing God in a tangible way. I know in the past month that there are times when we weren't safe, there were times when things got challenging to the point of desperation, and there were times when I felt so tired that it physically hurt. But thank God! In this past month I have found that I need God in a way that is real, here and now. I have prayed that He would give me guidance when our team was in trouble, I got down on my face and asked Him bring breath when Erica stopped breathing, I asked Him to protect us when we were stranded on an African highway at night…. and He did. I'm safe because I have the greatest protector! He is my daily guidance and I feel like He is showing me that I still have Him in a box. He's so much bigger than I give Him credit for.
I guess I'm just at a place where I needed to write it out.
I love you all!
And guess what?!
It's month nine and we're in Uganda! As I write this I am sitting on my bed preparing to give my testimony and speak to 400 high school Ugandan boys!
Is this really my life?
(Walking through the IDP camp this month)
