I have never had a more difficult time writing a blog then now.
“Being home… what’s it like?” Each time the question is asked I never seem to find an answer that fits. How do you explain it? Where do you begin?
I wish I had a pause button for life—pause to recoup, pause to digest all that America is, pause to remember what my life was, pause to just be with friends and family, pause to prepare myself for this next step in my journey of life. I suppose this is where the discipline of balance comes into play—recognizing what my mind, body and soul need. And doing this specifically to allow myself to be lead by the Lord and not by the world.
A Nigerian man we lived with in Serbia best demonstrated “Waiting on the Lord” to me. Gabriel needed to go back to Africa for a very important engagement (months later we found out it was because he was getting married!) but he was waiting for the Lord to tell him when to leave. He stayed in Serbia beyond his original leave-date, for this very reason. He was one of the most influential people my team had met.
This past year I learned that to devote my life to God and to truly live for Him, I needed to rely on Him. I need to give up my independence and always lean on the Lord. I need to NEED Jesus.
A woman in the Kalahari Desert was the best real life demonstration of this I had ever seen. She was a grandmother who had no job, no money and no food for her or the young grandchildren she cared for. She told me she prayed every day for the Lord to provide for her . . . and every need she had was met.
In South Africa I observed an example of how scriptural knowledge will never save you through a woman who lacked faith. One day my team appeared to be tested on the ins & outs of the bible by an elderly woman who refused to believe that the Lord could heal her. She told us that He healed her in the past from an illness but the Lord still needed to heal her leg. She failed to recognize His glory and she lacked knowing His love for her. She was a mirror image of Jesus’ disciple Thomas—if Thomas had never admitted who Jesus was.
I understood why the disciples wanted to shoo away the children from Jesus. But I also experienced hearing myself saying, “No, let the little children come.” This happened often in India when we’d walk the villages to pray for the people—all the while holding the hands and being lead by the children. They seemed to “get in the way and slow us down” but sometimes what wasn’t recognized by us was that our love for them was to be an image of God’s love for them. Having the faith of a child is the willingness to run up to the Lord, to hold hands with Him, walk with Him and to find joy being in his presence and to never be shooed away.
So, “Being home… what’s it like?” It’s the same. It’s a culture that physically and mentally has more, but it’s the same. I still see the poverty, the poor at heart, I notice the rich that ignore the poor, people walk around with unbreakable pride, Pharisees get in the way of Jesus and idols get in the way of Kingdom work.
A gift I obtained this past year is better eyesight. I was blind but now I see… better. The other day I heard a story/parable that explains this best; my parents leased a new white, Subaru a few years back thinking that the model and color were unique. But once they purchased theirs they began to notice their exact car everywhere. At times they’d see more than one of these exact same cars—in one glance.
This illustrates one of the main things I came to understand—that once a person begins to grasp what Jesus offers this world, it’s difficult to not be aware of it. It’s impossible to ignore it and the more a man or woman recognizes this, it becomes something that never leaves them.
