This morning, as every morning so far in India, I wake up soaked in sweat.
As we walk from ministry to ministry throughout the day, the sun beats down on our heads, hot and angry, and I sweat some more.
At night, if we have time to use the bucket shower, we wash and dress in a humid, unairconditioned house and I fall asleep sweating, laying on top of my sleeping bag.
This has been my month so far in India. There is heat and dust and long, long days of ministry.
Don’t get me wrong I have loved India. Seeing as it was the country I feared the most on the Race, I was surprised when we landed and I felt a sense of peace and excitement I was not expecting. I love the colors and the interesting people and the culture so different than my own.
(Having not gotten sick so far probably plays as role in it as well.)
But coupled with this love has been difficulty and hardship.
This has also been the most challenging month on the Race for me so far. I’ve realized that the honeymoon phase of the Race is over. It’s no longer a romantic adventure traversing the globe with a backpack and the gospel.
I am tired of having no home. I miss my family and friends and not living out of a backpack.
I am tired of constantly living in community. Of trying to prefer the others over myself. Of never doing anything alone.
I am tired of reading my bible, listening to worship music, praying desperate prayers in hopes that it will make me love God more. That like a light being flipped on, I will all of a sudden feel whole and content in my relationship with the Lord.
I am at the end of my rope. The point of no return. The edge of a cliff. I have done all I can do to be close to God and I have failed.
And I have realized something.
I cannot change my own heart. I cannot transform my own soul. All I can do is present myself, my shortcomings and strengths, my feelings and actions, to God and trust that His promises are true and He will change my heart and transform my soul in His timing.
…So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)
Lord I cannot do this on my own. I am tired and hot and yearning to be home with everything I am. I don’t feel you, I don’t want to pursue you and I am sick of waiting on you to move in me.
I need you to be what keeps me on this Race. I need you to be the energy I need to love on my team at the end of a long day of ministry. I need to be filled up with your love so I am able to pour it out on others.
Despite the fact that I feel so far away from you, I will continue to trust that you are the only thing worth having faith in, that your timing is perfect and that your promises are true. I will wait on you and hope that you will change me beyond recognition. Here I am.
Amen.
