As soon as I stepped off the plane in Bangkok, Thailand, I knew this was going to be a challenging month. Immediately after walking outside into the humid Asian air I began to sweat profusely. This was not going to be fun, but little did I know that the heat would be the least of my worries.
The first week of being here I quickly experienced the spiritual oppression that is in this place. As I described it to a teammate, “It feels like I’m alone in a stuffy cardboard box and as time goes on it feels as though someone is crumpling the box from the outside. And I’m stuck, with no way out.”
In preparation for coming to this country people warned me that there would be spiritual warfare. Which I have experienced at different times, and in some ways I know what that looks like. But nobody could have prepared me for the oppression. I feel weak and powerless, like Superman holding a block of kryptonite.
So as the month went on, I became weaker and weaker. I felt that the life was literally being drained out of me. Yes its hot and we have a crazy schedule and of course I used those as excuses but they weren’t the real problem. I wasn’t spending time in the word or even just sitting with Jesus. Things I have worked on and grown to crave. But before breakfast was too early because I was too tired to wake up and after dinner was too late and I was too tired to stay up.
I neglected time alone with Jesus and slowly but surely the oppression began to increase, which led to frustration and bad moods, which led to constant exhaustion and a total lack of desire to do anything. Every morning I would have to drag myself out of bed, and I began counting down the hours, and the days and the weeks.
Now here we are and the month is almost over.
As I reflected on the past few weeks I got frustrated because I couldn’t see what God was trying to teach me. I feel more distant from him than I have the last few months and I didn’t understand.
Then this morning I laid on my bed face down, with my headphones in and just said, “Jesus, I want you. I’m tired of being in this place, please speak to me.”
He reminded me of month 3 in Costa Rica, when we had little to, nothing to do as far as ministry goes. We had no WiFi and we were in the middle of nowhere. It was easier to seek Jesus and find him. I had nothing else to do, of course I was going to read that book, have that discussion or just sit quietly with Jesus.
But here I am, in Thailand, where its hot, exhausting and I’m waking up at 7:30 every morning and going to bed at 9:30 every night. My days consist of teaching English for most of the day, sometimes driving an hour into town for errands and then soccer ministry from 5-7pm. Even in the small breaks in the day I’m either too tired or too claustrophobic in our tiny dorm room to sit and hear from the Lord.
This isn’t the World Race. This is real life. We get busy, we get tired.
But we have to choose Jesus.
Sometimes its easier than others. But in our everyday lives it doesn’t come easy, we have to fight to choose God, every day. Otherwise we will end up in a deep, dark, lonely hole that’s very difficult to get out of.
I often ask myself if this month was a loss or a waste,
I really don’t believe it is though. Its been difficult for sure and there have been many moments that I missed Jesus. But He is still there and He is still good. He’s teaching me to fight for my relationship with him. If we just sit around and wait for it to be easy, we will be waiting forever and have little to no relationship with Him.
Jeremiah 29:13
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart,”
and it goes on to say in verse 14,
“I will be found by you“, says the Lord.
I’m choosing to fight for my faith even when its challenging or messy. Because Jesus is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and because I know that He is already fighting for me. (Exodus 14:14)
