More times than not this past week I’ve found myself having a terrible attitude about ministry, life, the people around me, the food I was eating… pretty much everything. It’s just been one of those weeks. At first when all of this started to happen I was angry. This isn’t what I thought this trip was going to be like, it’s suppose to be full of cute babies, powerful prayers, no one getting mad at each other because we’re all on a “Jesus high” for the next 9 months, and full of tons of spontaneous adventures. But then I was reminded by a squad-mate of mine, Maggie Hobbs, that this is life. Just because you’re on a missions trip with 35 crazy God loving goofs doesn’t mean it’s always going to be flowers and butterflies all the time. There are going to be tough times, there are going to be times when you don’t necessarily want to go out and do ministry that day, there are going to be times where you want to strangle the person sitting next to you, there are times when you don’t feel like cleaning up your clothes off the floor, there are going to be times when you don’t want to sit and talk to God for hours a day, because this is life.
I remember getting here the first week and completely falling in love. With the lifestyle, the cute kids all around you, the street food… everything. I was so excited to spend the next 9 months of my life doing this. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m still stoked about doing this for 9 months, but sometimes it’s not as exciting as it was at first) But now that we’re a month and a half into this thing, it’s just my life now. The cute kids that you saw the first day are the same cute kids you see every day, the star bread that you thought was heavenly the first time you tried it is still there every day across the street waiting for you to waste 5 pesos on it, jeepney and tricycle rides aren’t as fun anymore, because now it’s a normal thing. It’s life. And just like life back home, tough times happen, every day is not a crazy adventure, you’re going to have great days where you really feel God and then you’re going to have those days where you don’t feel him at all. But it’s all a choice. You can choose to have a bad attitude about the ministry your going to do or you can choose to have a positive attitude, you can choose to coast through the trip, or you can choose to live in the moment every single day and soak it all up.
Though this week has been the roughest one yet, I’ve learned something… this trip isn’t going to change me the way I want it to change me if I just coast through, it’s a choice whether or not you change. The same way it was a choice for God to come in and take complete control over my life. It’s scary, and yeah it’s not always fun, but it’s so worth it in the end. And that’s what I want my race to be like, I don’t want to just coast through it, I want it to change me. All of me. For the better. So, I’m done just dipping my toe in the water, I want to completely sink into what God has in store for me.
Whether you’re in The Philippines or in America, you’re still experiencing life. You’re going to have some really great days, and you’re going to have some really bad days, but in the end, it’s up to you what you do with them. Choose joy when you are in a miserable place, choose Him when the pain is hard and you don’t want to deal with it, choose to love when you want to push people away, choose to forgive when people hurt you. We can’t keep waiting and anticipating the day when everything changes, it’s a choice and we have to make them everyday in order for us to experience the change and growth that we want in our day to day lives. Keep choosing joy and keep choosing Him.
