Calama is close to the driest place in the entire world – only receiving .20 inches of rain annually. CRAZY. We are constantly applying lotion, but our skin is just permanently cracked and ashy. We are constantly covered in a layer of dust that resembles the tanned environment we live in. But for me, the hardest part has not been the physical dryness, but the spiritual. Yesturday, the Lord awakened me. He brought forth flowing water and abundant LIFE instead of the dry, waterless, desolate desert.
So to explain, let me take a few steps back. We have been in Calama, Chile for a little over a week now and have come to realize we are SPOILED here. We have working amenities (showers, bathrooms, even a laundry machine), we get to cook our own food (aka mac n cheese and pancakes), we have a wonderful host (who is hilarious), we are teaching English at a wonderful school (with really cool kids), and I am surrounded by the most supportive and FUN team I could imagine. Therefore, the transition to the World Race has not been super challenging for me – we have had time and resources and everything we need. Or so I thought. This environment had seduced me into a state of comfortability and apathy. John Calvin described how I felt best I think –
“Although God gently allures us to himself, as it were by a taste of his fatherly sweetness, there is nothing into which we more easily fall than into a forgetfulness of Him, when we are in the enjoyment of peace and comfort.”
As I was reading Psalm 23 and listening to the Shane and Shane’s song of it, the Lord revealed that I have been intoxicated by prosperity and have been leaving God out of the equation. The first verse of Psalm 23 is “The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want”. But God is a Shepard only to those who understand the need for His protection, who sees one’s own weakness and poverty and surrenders oneself to the Shepard. Someone who realizes that our Shepard cares, protects, guides, and provides. Someone who realizes we have no lack (no want) because of His provision. Even though we have abundance of worldly things, we are empty, famished without a drop of Living Water. And that’s what I needed to remember – that the Lord provides EVERYTHING – my energy, my ability to serve, my desire for Him, my strength, my perseverance, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.
