Being in Penang, Malaysia, on month 7 of the World Race, it can be hard to keep my spirits up. We are over halfway through this crazy thing, and we are facing burn out, fatigue, and broken hearts. It’s hard to search for Jesus in a world full of Allah, and Bhudda. Where spreading the light is illegal. Where the rainy season often contributes to the physical haze that matches the spiritual atmoshpere. Here, we are faced with exhaustion. I am homesick for people, places, and for freedom.
It is hard to find encouraging moments.
As we watch the homeless lady across the street huffing paint to numb the hunger.
As we walk amidst signs proclaiming Alah as the only true way.
As we watch girls get pulled into bars for free drinks because the owner “likes foreign girls”.
As we live next door to a brothel.
As we learn about women who have contracted HIV from unfaithful husbands, thrown to the streets by in-laws and forced into homelessness.
I write to be honest about what the World Race is. To shed light to the things that don’t make it to instagram. The in betweens that aren’t quite as glorious as thw #11n11 pictures. But I also want to write because I have hope. I want to share that there is no darkness that Jesus can’t overcome.
In small ways, and big ways, the Lord has shown up this month. I feel like a trailer for Love Actually….but love really is all around us. The ability to overcome is in each and every one of us ( Luke 17:21 “the Kingdom of God is within you.”). We are already victors.
My favorite part of the entire bible…the best part of the Story for me, is the last thing Jesus says on the cross. In greek, the word is tetelestai. It translates to “It is finished.” The grief that my team and I feel about the brokenness of this world is real and legitimate. But essentially, the significance of the cross, the significance of tetelestai, is hope. It is finished. We never again have to live without a relationship with our Creator, unless we choose to. We never again have to live in chains of sin, or our pasts, or the things in our lives that have hurt us. It is finished. We are paid for, covered, righteous. And that is the hope we get to spread.
That is why God is still good.
He gently lays it on our hearts to buy some food for the woman across the street, rather than sit with pits in our stomach, wondering what to do.
We hear multiple Muslim owned coffee shops playing Christian popular worship music, because the owner just googled American music.
When we fill the streets with joy and prayer, covering brothels, welcoming the Holy Spirit into the country that is trying it’s best to ban it.
When we meet and witness to friends who say they’ve heard abut Jesus from other missionaries, from their Christian roomates, from their brother.
God is still soveriegn. God is still good. There is a sadness in this world that is overwhelming. But we have a God that is more overwhelming. The cross means that we are already victors. We are chainless. We have been given authority. We need to stop walking in defeat. It’s time to walk in victory and choose to see love, even when everything feels hopeless.
