“When all of us, different kinds of people, walk together in unity for the glory of Christ, the gospel looks really big.” – Matt Chandler
Sitting on my 13-hour flight, I read this quote from the book “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” There I was thinking to myself “mhmm, yes, that’s so good… that’s what real church looks like. I understand that.”
HA… I didn’t understand.
Five days later I sat down, and was humbled by the vastness of the gospel.
I left America thinking WE are going to save these people, WE are going to love these people, WE are going to bring Jesus to them, WE are going to show them what church looks like.
Little did I know these people were going to teach me, love me and show me Jesus more than I ever could.
Saturday night we were invited to join in on a prayer meeting with members of the church we are serving this month. After introducing ourselves, they asked if we wanted to sing a song with them. Through (VERY) broken English and translation we landed on 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman.
I closed my eyes to pray but my thoughts invaded and my heart dropped at the realization of how different my life is for the next 11 months. The people are different, the language is different, the culture is different, the food is different, the traffic… (OH MY) is different. Even the cats look different!!
Everything here is different.
As my heart rate started climbing, worship broke out with repeated “Hallelujahs” and “Amens.” I felt God whisper, “look up, they are no different than you.” I opened my eyes to fellow brothers and sisters with palms open, hands raised, singing praises to our Jesus.
In that moment I was reminded that besides our external differences, our hearts are all filled with the SAME God. The desires of our hearts are all to live and follow the SAME Jesus. Our SAME God has called us to bring His kingdom to Earth. Our life purpose is the SAME, and for that reason we “bear with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit…” Ephesians 4:2-3ish
God you are so BIG, we are so small.
God thank you for real faces and stories to the real people I have been praying for. God thank you that no matter what language or where we come from we can all in ONE voice sing together and worship you. God thank you for being bigger than we can ever fathom.
I’m forever humbled,
Katie B
PS. Thank you to all of my supporters and people praying for me. I really couldn’t do this without your prayers and support! Urgent prayer request: I may or may not have eaten dog so please pray for my sanity!- HA (but really…) I love you all
S/O to my Ozone fam, I miss and love you humans!!!
