At the start of this month in Ethiopia, I had another chance to do one of my favorite kinds of ministry— ATL (“Ask The Lord”). About the 4th day of ATL, I felt the Lord tell me to do another silly thing (as has been His custom lately)— not talk for 24 hours!
Now if you know anything about me, you know I am not a quiet person, and I’ve never been short for words. So you can imagine that this was not an easy task to undertake. But by this point in the Race, I have grown to care more about what God expects of me than how easy or difficult it is.
To make matters even more difficult, though, the Lord wasn’t just calling me to give up talking for 24 hours. He wanted me to live in complete silence, so music and movies were out of the question as well! Wow! Talk about difficult! And my boundaries for communicating? I felt like the Lord only wanted me to use gestures and the limited sign language that I know to communicate. So writing it down was out of the question as well.
But I’ve come to learn that the Lord doesn’t just ask us to do weird things for nothing. There is always a lesson to learn, even if that lesson is “growing more in obedience.” Here are a few of the things I learned from this day (some of them being very specific to me).
For starters, I believe the Lord used this taking fast to remind me of Him and show me how frustrating it is to try to communicate and not be clearly understood. Being misunderstood is honestly one of the most irritating things to me, so naturally this day was the day the Lord wanted to help me heal this. There were so many things I needed to do that I couldn’t just “get up and do” on my own, such as going to grab lunch (we have to use the buddy system in the area we are in). I needed to communicate it, but without my ability to talk, it wasn’t easy. I was limited to miming and gestures only.
Similarly, God Himself longs to speak to us, be we don’t always hear Him or understand what He is saying to us. He is patient to get us to understand Him. He is persistent because He knows it is worth it to communicate with us. The frustrations I felt showed me just how much more room I have to grow in patience, especially in communicating.
During my day of silence, I accidentally spoke a few times, the first time being when the housekeepers came in. I left the room and told them “sorry,” feeling like I needed to justify my actions. This made me realize how much I rely on my ability to talk to justify myself to others. I felt like the the Lord was reminded me in that moment that there really is no need to justify myself to people because HE has already justified me. Some people may not understand me or my actions sometimes, but that’s ok. There’s not always a reason to explain myself.
Other than those things, I saw just how hard it was to feel connected to the people around me. I become aware of how important it is to have a good, godly community and keep in good communication with that. You really can’t do life on your own, and you don’t realize how important it is to you until you “don’t have it.” I can’t just wait around for community to happen to me either. I have to be intentionally seeking them out.
Through this struggle, I couldn’t help but think about how lonely we can sometimes make the Lord feel (if He were to ever feel lonely). The people He created to be with Him don’t always choose Him and seek Him out. So in His love for us, He reaches out over and over again. Are we giving Him the space and time needed? Are we understanding Him?
Most of all, I felt like the Lord was using his whole experience to prepare me for reentry back home. Here’s a hard truth I’ve been told by many people who have gone through the World Race and the reentry period: people won’t always give you a voice or be able to provide all you need. People won’t always understand how much has happened and how much you have grown. They won’t always give you enough space and time to articulate what all God has done in your life the past 11 months. People may only give you enough time to say “it was good” before never asking about it again. People won’t understand all the time. And that’s ok.
God wants me to remember what matters. Even when no one else can see the changes and the growth, He sees it. I don’t need to fully express it and justify myself. It doesn’t make it any less real or true. I need to learn patience in communicating. And I need to remember that it’s ok that people won’t always give me “what I think I need”— space, time, and an open ear. That should just remind me of how much more I need the Lord to supply all my needs.
This next month, I have to fly back to America for training camp (for my trip next year). I’ll get a little bit more of a glimpse of what to expect when I come back home in December for a longer period of time. I know it’s gonna be a complicated time— reverse culture shock, struggling to find words to articulate what all God has done, etc… But I’m learning more and more to trust God and lean into Him! Please be praying for me as my time on the WR comes to a close in the next 2 months.
In all things, be blessed!
AG
