I sometimes wonder why you hear so many more stories of God moving in a person’s life on missions trips than you do from anything else. My best guess at the answer is this: when you’re stripped away from distraction, routine, and comforts of home, you’re forced to rely on God, instead of leaving Him as an afterthought. You pay more attention to what’s going on around you, you pray for things you wouldn’t have thought of before, and give thanks for what you easily look over otherwise. It’s not so much that God moves more on a missions trip, but rather you are more willing to allow him in.
Which brings me to Guatemala, almost a year ago. I’d spent the first week working with an elementary school and middle school, running a business curriculum with half of my team. I would give directions each day, run around checking in on groups of kids, and then help prepare for the next session. It was something I was good at, but not being able to work directly with a group students was a disappointment to me. I never connected with anyone longer than a minute or so at a time, and I didn’t have the courage to start a conversation once our structured activities were over for the day. I knew a little Spanish – enough to chat for a little while about basic things – but I rarely used it. On top of that, I had thrown my back out earlier that week, sidelining me from soccer, baseball, or anything else where I could get involved without really having to talk.
I felt like a failure – it was as if I didn’t even belong on my team, even though ironically I had shared a devotional a few days previously about all of us being different parts of the Body of Christ. In that team’s body I was feeling like the spleen – it serves a purpose, but you could easily get along without it and wouldn’t notice it if it were gone.
I have ADHD and dealt with moderate social anxiety for a long time. It was hard to start conversations, jump into activities, or be in large crowds when something loud or busy was going on. I’ve had to leave rooms when it was too crowded or too loud. I can’t always verbalize my thoughts the way I’d like to, my attention span can be short, and when I’m interrupted or distracted, it can be as if my brain resets and it takes me a minute to remember what I was saying. (Have no fear about the Race – I’ve since learned to embrace my quirks a lot better than I used to, but at the time it was still holding me back more than I would have liked.) And at the time I resented it with my entire being. I hated that my brain worked a little differently that a lot of people, I resented not going on medication while I had the chance (although looking back I don’t regret my choice not to), and I was angry with myself for not being as useful as I thought I could be. I spent most of the first week getting more and more frustrated, but little did I know that something was about to change.
We had a day off on the Sunday between our two ministry projects that we were taking on during the trip. During our team devotions that morning I realized something that should have been obvious before: I rarely, maybe never, prayed for struggles with anxiety. To hide it? Sure. To control it? Maybe. But never for it to be lessened or taken away – how did I miss that?
Fast forward to later that night. We were at a church in the city, and for most of the evening everything was pretty normal. It was an English-speaking church with a few other missions teams attending, and the service was pretty familiar – music, scripture, a message – nothing out of the ordinary. Or so I thought. Somewhere between communion and walking back to my seat near the front of the room, something happened.
As the music washed over me while most of the attendees were still in the communion line, I started to feel the symptoms of a panic attack I knew all too well – the fight-or-flight combination of rapid breathing, heart racing, hands and feet going numb, the choked-up feeling in the back of my throat that would keep me from explaining myself if I felt the urge to bolt from the sanctuary… But there was an extra feeling there that usually wasn’t: the urge to pray fervently for my anxiety to be taken away. Not hidden, not controlled, not unnoticed – just taken away. What I thought was going to become a full-blown panic attack was gone as quickly as it had come, and I sat in my chair after the benediction trying to process what had just happened.
I happened to be sitting next to one of our trip leaders, who was pretty familiar with my tendencies and was always very understanding of them. “Do you need to get out of the big room?”
Without giving it much thought I simply responded “No.” That was unprecedented. And as long as we’re on the subject of unprecedented, I decided to make a bold move and start a conversation with someone from one of the other teams. Suddenly I was able to introduce myself, make small talk, and speak without tripping over words or fidgeting. My teammates noticed something was different right away, and something was. For the rest of our time in Guatemala I was no longer limited to the box anxiety had put me in, and the walls have been coming down ever since. I needed that night to finally admit that I could not face my struggle alone, for my limited human pride to give way to an unlimited God.
I am not an uber-spiritual person – I don’t see every single small event in life with Holy Spirit goggles. But that night I felt God move in a way I never had before, and I am living proof of it. No, I didn’t walk away from church having made a miraculous 180 and suddenly a confident extrovert, but it was the catalyst for change, and let me tell you it’s been a long time since I’ve felt the urge to flee a crowded room. That’s good enough for me.
My self-doubt and insecurities do not come from God. But he has the power to remove them, or to use them for his purposes. Trying to build my own walls to protect myself only leave me feeling frustrated, fatigued, and trapped, but the strength of God allows me to stand up, press on, and fight another day.
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” -Ephesians 6:10-18.
