Nine months ago I picked up my pack with all the “necessities” for a year of living anywhere and everywhere. Since then I have traveled via trains, planes, buses, boats, rickshaws, foot, and taxis on three different continents; slept in 37 different beds; prepared food, cleaned dishes, washed laundry, and bathed all by hand; consumed varieties of food that I wouldn’t have even considered edible prior to this trip, including the various parasites and worms that came with them; and experienced some of the sweatiest days of my life. So, to answer your question, “No, the world outside of the U.S.A. is not the easiest place to live”…….thank goodness.
I have dealt with obvious external discomforts out here. Fortunately God understands that I am an object lesson kind of learner, so he used the external to draw parallels with my spiritual life. So, now I am sitting at a regular kitchen table, drinking a cup of REAL coffee, utilizing the endless wireless internet, while my laundry is in the washing machine, planning when I will take a hot shower. And as I sit here, physically comfortable as can be, my spirit is rattling the cage inside of me. It freaks me out how comfortable I feel. So much of where we are reminds me of home. And it
doesn’t mean that washing machines and hot showers are bad, or that I don’t love home, but rather my senses are heightened in recognizing how complacent we can become when we are comfortable. THAT freaks me out.
I recently read a blog that contained this quote “Anything you are afraid to lose owns you”. It occurred to me that even amidst the most uncomfortable circumstances where it appears that I have sacrificed so much, I can still be holding onto things. Sincerely giving our lives to the Lord has little to do with the external, and so much to do with our hearts. So, it is possible that I sit in the hot Kenyan sun feeding poor children and widows, but not actually be submitting to the Lord. And it is possible to be sitting in an easy chair drinking coffee and be fully submitting to him. I do not want anything to “own” me. I do not want to be afraid of losing anything, but rather I want to willingly give them to the Lord knowing that they are in better hands.
So, environment aside, I am aware of God’s call on my life. I WANT to live outside of complacency. I WANT to live in a place of spiritual dissatisfaction so that I am always hungry for more. I WANT to be uncomfortable.
