In writing this blog I wanted to share something I’ve been processing through this week. As humans I think we often find ourselves closing in on our minds. For some, including myself, it is a chore to live with your mind wide open. I have my own notions and ideals about how things are supposed to work or the way society moves and I forget to look outside. I become blinded by my thoughts and my perspective becomes tainted by the world. When we forget to look up, out, wide, far, heavenward, inner turmoil commences. I wrote a poem about how I feel this concept presents itself in my own life called “Virus”:
I find myself looking down. Following the ripples of the copper dirt, scanning for once fluttering pattern, forgotten. Or peering within, picking and pulling at the strings of my heart. Overwhelmed I collapse, crumbling arms and legs tangled. Inside myself. I am a living virus, eating away at my own flesh.
I look up. I see that the mountains aren’t so far away. My valley isn’t so steep as I once thought. Maybe I am not yet thrown away, but salvageable. Salvageable for salvation. I untangle the knot. Each strand at a time. I reach for remedy to the festering disease in my soul. I float, open, free, and drift heavenward. The mountains aren’t so far away, I see.
Each of us has a choice. We may choose to close ourselves off and to close in, or we can look up and seek heaven’s face. In looking to heaven we are able to actually see truth. Amazing! I believe this choice in my own life is something that is going to be a constant cyclical decision. It may be daily that I notice I am accepting my own truth and perspective rather than looking for God’s, but it is worth it to make the conscious decision to keep my mind wide open if in the end it produces serenity and freedom.
A more practical example of this I’ve found with the ministry we do here in Swaziland. As I mentioned in my previous blog, my team and I go to what is called a care point for ministry. Our days are full of holding children and building relationship with them. The outpour is honestly taxing. In a society that has been overcome in many ways by hopelessness, orphan hearts, gut-wrenching illness, etc., it is difficult to have perspective. We want to love fully and show people Jesus in hope of a broken society being rewritten in love, but the reality is that we will likely not see tangible fruit from our labor. It is easy to believe that this ministry is worthless. I in my own strength and pursuits will not change Swaziland, or even the tiny care point we visit each day but the Holy Spirit working in me and through me is what is going to touch hearts and reshape lives. It is looking outside of myself to our Father in heaven that is victorious.
I hope this is encouraging to some of you. Thank you for your constant prayer and love my friends.
