Last Monday I was enjoying children’s ministry to the fullest when I realized that my teammate Lyle had been gone for a while. With ministry being next door to our host’s home, I couldn’t think what could be keeping him so long. He finally returned after 20 minutes and pulled me over to the side and said there was something he needed to tell me, our toilet is clogged.
My heart dropped.
Because unlike toilets at home, the toilets at our host’s home did not flush in the conventional sense where you press down on a handle and you walk away scot free.
No, we had a bucket.
So after a full afternoon of ministry, the last thing you want to hear is that your toilet is clogged. Lyle began to explain that after 15 minutes of working on the thing he decided to ATL (ask the Lord) on how to deal with the situation and he tells me this: that God told him to rest from the issue and let Carter deal with it because he will be able to fix the problem.
How do you argue with that?
So after a full day of cleaning up a flooded room and running after children, I had the privilege of unclogging a toilet with a bucket. Luckily when I walk into Lyle and Jonathan’s room their was a plunger so my chances slightly increased for walking away with a victory. After 20 minutes of plunging and flushing with a bucket I finally got down to the root of our problem… the toilet bowl smell refresher bar had broken off the wire and fallen and had been flushed.
This meant that someone had to reach their hand into the abyss and fetch it out.
Gruesome details aside, I was able to remove the bar and got the toilet to work again after using gallons of water in a bucket. I had conquered my foe, got my round of applause and it will go down as one of the worst experiences of my time in Honduras, and I am okay with that. I had won.
So why this story?
Because about a week later I was sitting in church trying to listen to the sermon given in Spanish when it hit me that the clogged toilet had been an accurate representation of my spiritual life and probably represents a lot of other peoples as well. We become clogged with so much crap of this world and then we wonder why we can not here from God and wonder why we are struggling with our relationship with Him.
That has been my experience in Honduras, spiritually. I had built of this blockage of worldly crap that was keeping me from communicating and hearing from God clearly and feeling connected to him. Coming unto the World Race, I was so focused on getting ready and preparing for the Race that I put God on the back burner. Though He is THE reason I am supposed to be going on the Race.
Oh, the irony.
This month has been filled with challenges and frustration with hearing from God. I guess I did need to unclogged that stupid toilet because I needed the grossness of that situation to see the grossness of what I had going on in my life. I had tried so hard to connect with God without letting him deal with and remove all the things that have stopped my connection with him.
But God is good.
John 15 talks about The Vine and The Branches. Verse 2 says “He cuts off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, while every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” I never knew how painful but how needed it is to be pruned and have unfruitful branches cut from me and it has hurt but I know that God has a plan that works out well for me. I can see the blockage being removed the great feeling of growing closer with God and I can not wait to see where my relationship with God goes from here.
I know this blog is not what a lot of people expected about my check-in for Honduras but I believe there are a lot of people who need to realize that there lives have been like the clogged toilet or the unfruitful branches and need to let God take control and remove the blockage and branches in order for you to reap the fruits that He has planned for you!
P.S. There is a blog coming about the good things of Honduras so stay tuned!
Love you and God Bless you!
