“Who are you?”
“What are you doing?”
“Why would you let this happen?”
“Where are you..?”
These are only a few of the questions that have flooded my mind for the past month and a half. And to be truly honest I am still in the process of answering them. Ever since launch, our leadership team has taught us that the Lord is going to stretch us in ways that we can’t even imagine; and they used the process of making silver as an example. In order to make silver the metal has to be put into the fire, heated to extreme temperatures, taken out and cooled down, and then placed straight back into the inferno. Once all the impurities have been removed only the silver remains; and that is exactly the plan of the father. He desires to strip away the shame that we hold on to from our past mistakes or experiences. The dirt that seems to linger no matter how hard we try to wash it off. The feeling of not being worthy to be called a child of God based on a cycle of mistakes we feel like we can’t break away from. In order to be able to see ourselves through the eyes of the Father, we have to experience the fire and the stripping away of things we have held onto for so long.
Like I said, we all have our own fires that we go through in times of our lives. And this is mine.
God’s character.
At the beginning of month 1 I had an epiphany. I had gone my whole Christian life avoiding certain parts of the Bible that went against the image of God that I wanted to keep. I wanted to view the Lord as only loving, just, caring, and forgiving. Therefore, when I came across chapters that showed the Lord’s anger for people or their sins, or the wrath that God had for them, I simply stopped reading. That’s something I didn’t realize that I had been doing my entire life; and so when I came to that realization I broke. I felt all the anger that I could possibly feel and I directed it solely at God. Any bad thing that happened, any hardship I was experiencing or hearing other people going through only fueled the fire that was already burning inside of me. I was so angry at the Lord that I would refuse to talk to him. I would refuse to pray to him because to me it was like I was no longer talking to a friend, but to a stranger. I was doing my best to work through that struggle the majority of time I spent in Panama, and I thought that I would be doing the same here in Costa Rica. But the Lord had other plans for me.
Since the first day after arriving in Costa Rica, our ministry hosts here at Ocean’s Edge have done nothing but pour out love and knowledge and grace to our entire squad. Every morning we get to be apart of a Bible study that is all about teaching us the true identity of the Father, and who we are as his children. Because of these Bible studies I feel like I have finally made my way out of the fire, and the anger that I was holding onto for so long has melted away. Now I am finally able to get a glimpse at the true face of God. A father that cares about his children. A father that lets us scream at him only because he knows that is what we need in the moment. A father that sees us packing our bags to leave him, and choosing to pack his own bag so he can walk alongside us. That even if we were to get in a boat and try to sail away from him, he would cause a wind to blow us right back to him. Not because he desires to control us, but because he simply desires us. That is the Character of Christ, I am so thankful to have the privilege of getting to know him a little more everyday for the rest of my life. Ever pursuing a Father that has never stopped pursuing me.
P.S. I was referencing a song in the last part of this blog and I really want you all to take a second to listen to it!
“Runaway,” by Jess Ray
