We are now in Malaysia! There will be a blog about Thailand soon. There will also be more about what Malaysia has been so far with the city and ministry, but today I feel like the Lord is telling me to write about what he showed me this afternoon.
While in Thaliand I reached a good place of living in joy and gladness at all the Lord has before me. As our time in Thailand came to a close, old insecurities began to rear their ugly heads once again. I was not surprised; when we are at a good place walking in obedience with the Lord the enemy will try everything he can to pull us off this path or distract us from truth. Sometimes he does such a good job that it builds in you over time and you don’t even realize until it comes to a tipping point. This happened for me in the first days of being in Malaysia.
Today Jac, my lovely teammate, was in charge of team time, and she took us to the waterfront. We sat on the edge of a walkway and watched as the waves came rolling in against the white sand. The water was a soft mint shade; the sky was misted over in a cloud of blue just barely a shade off from the water. It was beautiful and perfect. I hopped down onto the sand and searched for sea shells and stones of all colors and tones. I stood with my feet in the water, watching as it washed over my feet and pulled back into the deep. God reminded me of his grace for my insecurities, and sin that seemed to just keep coming back. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. He was showing me that he pulls those things that are not mine to carry away from me, washes me clean, but also immerses me in his love and grace. Some of the waves came crashing in almost violently on the shore, while others sofly ripple in. These represented the times when the Lord has had to break down walls, and when he just whispers truths. Both are necessary. The things that I have a hard time seeing in myself, He says are already there. He has spoken them over me. He breathed them into me before my life began. He chose to remind me of this in the most gentle way today. Who are we, that we get to serve such a good God?
What would it look like if we as Christ followers chose to simply obey, and walk into whatever the Lord asked of us, in complete surrender. What if we treated his word for face value, and acted as though we knew he would catch us on the other side? No sitting in fear, anxiety, or doubt. Wanting more of Him every day and running hard towards him, not distracted by the right or left. if every Christ follower in this life leaned into that, what would our world look like? What couldn’t the Lord do through us? The answer is nothing. We put limits on what the Lord can and can’t do in and through our lives because we are to afraid or stubborn to ask for it and lean into.
‘Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all that we ask for or imagine.’
Ephesians 3:20
Let us not sit back, and be complacent. My prayer for this month is that the Lord would do great things in our ministry, but also that I would walk out of Malaysia so rooted in who I am in the Lord that it would change those around me. I want to walk closer to him than I ever have before. I’m dreaming big for this month, and I hope you do too.
