Well hello! Sorry it has been so long since my last blog. There has been a lot of transition happening and it has been hard to gather all my thoughts or find space to just write. As many of you know my squad and I are now in Cambodia! It took us 4 days, 35 hours of flying, and 5 flights to get us here. I was lucky enough to be able to spend the day after my birthday with my family in LA during our 24 hour long layover. I felt so known, celebrated and loved. Thanks to everyone who reached out and made those travel days special for me.
We have been in Cambodia for a couple weeks now! WOW I can not even believe that. Now I know that many of you are curious about what our living situations and what ministries look like, but for that info I would encourage you to check out some of my squad’s blogs! Some suggestions I have are:
Madison Taylor’s Blog (Life in Cambodia)
https://madisontaylor.theworldrace.org/post/life-in-cambodia/
Kinze Campbell’s blog (Ministry Week Outline!) https://makinzecampbell.theworldrace.org/post/ministry-week-outline/
Nathan Chandler’s Blog (The Heavy Stuff) https://nathanchandler.theworldrace.org/post/the-heavy-stuff/
Louisa Currie’s Blog (Susadai:) )
https://louisacurrie.theworldrace.org/post/susadai/
As for this blog I wanted to share with you what the Lord has been revealing to me. Currently I am rereading through the book of Matthew and right now I am in Chapter 22. In this chapter Jesus uses a parable to talk about the Kingdom of Heaven and he compares God’s Kingdom to a wedding banquet:
1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
The first thing that hit me in this passage is how much I love the imagery of the kingdom being like a wedding banquet. A celebration for all of eternity! That is what I most often picture heaven to be like; one big table where everyone comes and sits to celebrate at.
The second thing that hit me is when the king asks his servants to go and invite “anyone you find”. What sticks out to me about this is that these servants were not asked to only invite a certain group of people, they were told to go out and invite anyone and everyone. This means that they had to invite every person they came in contact with. What if we approached life that way. Every person that crossed our path was someone the Lord wanted to invite to the wedding banquet? Oh how much different the world would be.
I think part of the reason “inviting everyone” hit me so hard is that lately I have been so focused on how I am a daughter of the king and all that comes with being a worthy daughter. So when this passage talks about how the king’s servants go out and invite everyone, “the bad and the good” I realize that this is also what God is calling me to do. Think about it, Jesus is God’s son and yet in God’s upside down kingdom Jesus says over and over again that he came to serve not to be served. So if Jesus is a servant of the King as God’s son that means that I am also a servant of the King as God’s daughter. This passage then says that as a servant of the king I need to go out and invite EVERYONE to the banquet (not just the comfortable people). I need to die to my flesh and allow the Lord to work through me for ANYONE. I don’t get to play the role of Judge (Thanks God!) which means I don’t get to decide who is worthy to come to the banquet. My only job is to invite people to come. This applies to each member of my squad, as well as the random people that cross my path.
Inviting people to the banquet is not always going to look like me proclaiming salvation and the name of Jesus. Inviting people to the banquet could be as simple as eye contact and a smile. It could be giving someone a hug or sharing a meal together. Inviting people to the banquet is less complicated than I think we like to make it out to be. If I am living out of my true identity as a servant daughter of the king then living my life that way means that I will naturally invite people to come to the banquet table.
So here in Cambodia that is my prayer for myself and for this squad, that we be obedient servants of the king. Servant sons and daughters who invite people to come and sit at the banquet table. To step out in obedience and seek out the people who are uncomfortable and to show them that Jesus’s table is the best one to sit at.
Merry Christmas I love and miss you all!
