Avoiding God is a lot easier than I thought it would be. I mean come on, I’m on a year-long journey around the world to seek after Him, how could I avoid Him? Right? Wrong.
It’s so easy, here’s how: Daydream instead of praying, read something on my kindle instead of my Bible, choosing sleep over a morning quiet time, doing ministry but with the wrong attitude.
Going on the World Race doesn’t magically mean that your relationship with God is going to be wonderful. You’re not automatically going to be closer to Him, want to have quiet time every morning and pray constantly throughout the day. It’s a choice, the same as it is at home.
You CHOOSE to grow with Christ. You CHOOSE to rely on Him rather than yourself. You CHOOSE to let Him guide you every day. You CHOOSE to turn to God for the love and grace you need for your teammates. You can also CHOOSE not to, it’s up to you.
I chose to avoid God for a few weeks. I just decided that I was upset with God and that I wasn’t going to talk it out with Him right away. I chose to be stubborn and sure enough one day turned into a week and then two weeks. I was a mess, maybe it wasn’t all that visible outwardly and I still did ministry, but my heart wasn’t right and I knew it. You don’t need to be alright with God to do ministry, I mean come on, let’s be honest here. How many of us at home have gone into leading our Bible studies, small groups, Sunday school and various ministries with the wrong heart? I know I have.
What’s crazy is that at home, I’ve felt myself grow distant from God and for way longer than 2 weeks, but never have I felt it as acutely as I did here. Life on the race goes at a crazy pace, what God does in our lives here in a week may have taken us a year at home. What happened a week ago sometimes feels like it happened a month ago. I felt anger and frustration take root deeper than it had been before, I felt less and less of a desire to spend time in prayer or my Bible, I didn’t reflect love or patience and I was so easily distracted. What made this even worse was access to wifi (yes after almost 7 weeks of limited internet I now had wifi available). I was so distracted by life at home and things that were happening while I was gone, I just didn’t have time to spend with God anymore, instead I needed to waste time online.
I could feel the distance growing, I couldn’t respond to emails or even blog, I mean what was I going to write about? How I was CHOOSING to be distant from God?
It finally hit me a few days ago, I was a mess emotionally. I just had one of “those days” nothing seemed to go right, I just wanted to cry when I went to bed, I was confused about what was going on around me. Stuff was happening back at home, stuff was happening here in Nepal and my heart was just so heavy and I just wanted to run away from it all. I woke up early the next morning grabbed my journal, Bible and a notecard with a verse and a word of encouragement from back home (the box of notecards from friends and family had arrived the previous day in a package and were exactly what I needed). My verse and note for the day were the following:
“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.” Psalm 143:8
-Every single day He will show you the way
I could tell by the handwriting it was from my mom. It was what I needed. I spent some time in my Bible and journaling that morning but didn’t quite let it all out, that was yet to come. That afternoon I found myself in a coffee shop cross legged on the couch scribbling furiously in my journal as tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t care who saw, all I knew was that I needed to pour out to God what was weighing heavily on my heart; to cry out how desperately I needed Him, how I couldn’t wake up another day feeling distant from Him and just go through the motions again while my heart and mind were in turmoil.
That day, in that moment, I felt Him pull me closer and take my hand. He asked me to let Him lead me and after those two weeks I wanted nothing more.
-Jess
p.s. blogs about our ministry in the jungle coming soon!
