So far on the race, each country has been a whirlwind of meeting people, wandering around cities until you find a restaurant that’s actually in budget OR flour, eggs, butter, meat, and veggies, starting up conversations with people you meet on the subway, at a coffee shop, or your hostel, and looking for opportunities to talk about Jesus. Though our ministry has looked vastly different in each place (read stories from China, Nepal, and India here), there are a few things we have been able to count on.
1. We will eat (ish).
2. We will have somewhere to sleep.
3. We will do ministry as a team.
And then we got to Ethiopia.
Lest you think that I haven’t been eating or sleeping, let me reassure you: we have been eating and sleeping—in a six-bedroom house, no less, with strong wifi and our own kitchen, which, despite it’s lack of a working oven, will function very well to host a thanksgiving dinner, thank you very much.
(Those of you not on the Race probably won’t grasp just how astonishing our accommodations actually are. For reference, over the past three months we’ve been living in single bedroom mixed-gender dorms, tripping over packing cubes on our way to the bathroom at 2am, and catching rats by the day (at last count, we had caught 9/10 rats and 3/3 mice in India). One night in Tibet we slept in one giant room on wooden boards. In Nepal there were so many bugs landing and crawling on us that I wore long pants to bed in 95 degree heat. The bathroom is oftentimes little more than a hole in the ground with a piece of plywood to guard the door (if you’re lucky), and you can forget toilet paper or soap, unless you brought it yourself.
Oh yeah, and in most places, you are also eating with your hands. Sorry ‘bout it.
But get ready for the craziest thing… the Expedition route is actually considered high-class! Yep, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, this is nothing compared to what regular race routes experience. But I digress…)
Besides our incredibly comfortable accommodations, Ethiopia has been strange for another reason. In the last two and a half weeks, we have only done one ministry-related thing.
Yep, you read that right. One. And even that could hardly be called ministry. We were supposed to be working with high-school aged musicians, but the power went out about 15 minutes into rehearsal and didn’t come back on until 15 minutes before the service started. We ended up sitting in a slowly-darkening room for an hour and a half, just talking.
We’re supposed to be the Expedition route: brave adventurers, pioneering new paths for the gospel. We’re supposed to be making connections for future race teams. We’re supposed to be reaching the unreached. But despite our best efforts, the Lord had other plans. Plans that don’t involve telling massive amounts of people about Jesus, seeing entire families come to faith, or having ground-breaking conversations. Plans that actually focus inward: on ourselves and each other as teammates.
In short, the Lord called us to not do ministry this month.
This may seem strange to those of you back home. Sitting from a place of comfortability, it’s easy to judge people who transplant their lives overseas. How many are they reaching? How many converts have they won? What inroads have they made for the gospel? If it’s not enough, or the right kind, I might rescind my support.
I say this because I am one of those people. In that space, however, the Lord reminded me that even Jesus didn’t start his ministry until he was 30 years old. That means for 29 years, he simply existed as a human being. He learned the trade of carpentry. He functioned as an adult in society.
Jesus spent 29 years being filled up by the Father and 3 years ministering, leading up to the most important job in the history of all missions work. That’s about 10 years spent with God for every 1 year of ministering.
And yet, how often do we flip that proportion, and spend 10 years ministering for every 1 year being filled by God?
In reality, the more filled we are by God and His plan and purpose, the more effective we will be. That means if we need to take a month off to be filled and to have him work in our hearts, then we need to take a month off. And not in 7 months, once our current initiative is finished, but right now. God created time, yet how often do we attempt to subject him to our ministry schedules?
Still, it’s hard for me to believe the Lord could allow me to not work this month. And I say allow because the minute that my team shared their convictions (the Lord has been speaking similar things to each of us) I felt something release in my spirit. Oh please let it be true, I thought. Let me rest.
For the past year and half I’ve been in almost-constant soul pain; a situation which has been exacerbated, rather than soothed, so far on my Race. My pain roots from a combination of circumstances, some of which were my fault and some of which weren’t. The details aren’t important, honestly. What are important are my reactions and the effect they produced in my life. A lecherous infection was sucking the life out of my spirit, and it was high time for some cleansing fire to draw it out.
So yes, this month is indeed a time of rest from ministry, but the Lord hasn’t stopped working. He’s been speaking louder and clearer than ever before: exposing faulty perceptions, revealing my intentions, calling me into deeper understanding, and excavating old wounds—in short, the spiritual equivalent of deep cleaning.
At the risk of making this blog wayyyy too long, I’ve linked separate mini posts for each revelation. Click on any of the links to read them!
Realization 1: Kill ‘em with Kindness?
Realization 2: Older-Brother Syndrome
Realization 3: Stinkin’ Thinkin’
More than anything, though, the Lord has been speaking to me about forgiveness. Over the course of my life, I’ve realized that there are different stages of this process. These stages don’t happen all at once; in fact, they can take months to years, depending on the severity of the pain. And that’s okay—I think that’s why Jesus tells Peter to forgive people 70 times 7 times.
To fully forgive someone, I have to…
… release my right to enact justice.
… release my desire for them to understand how (much) they’ve hurt me.
… give up my right to feel and act like a victim.
Release my right to enact justice.
Releasing my right to enact justice means turning the offender over to God’s judgement, which was ultimately met on the cross. If the offended person accepts Jesus, then his death covers them just as much as it covers me. And even if they don’t accept Jesus, I still may not see justice. No one gets away with anything in God’s kingdom, but releasing justice means releasing the timing as well as the act. The truth is, I may never see justice on earth the way I feel it should be done, and even when I get to heaven, the consequences will likely be different than I expect. And as I mentioned in Realization 1, if I demand mercy for myself but refuse it to others, I’m holding God in contempt.
Desiring justice is not wrong. But to forgive someone, we have to release our right to enact it ourselves. Romans 2:1-4 says we don’t have a right to justice, because we’ve committed the same crimes: turning away from God’s law and worshipping created things rather than our creator, whether that be money, power, self-sufficiency, our jobs, etc.
The real question is: Am I willing to trust that God is just and good? Do I trust that he’s a Comforter and a Defender? If so, I can confidently release justice to Him, trusting his timing and understanding.
Release my desire for them to understand how (much) they’ve hurt me.
My offender may never understand how much they’ve hurt me. And, as I realized in college, if I’m going to stand in front of God and demand that the person who offended me feel the effect of the pain they’ve caused me, then I have to be willing to feel the affect of the pain I’ve caused others.
I don’t think I could do that. If I felt what I had done to others, I would probably crumble. So if I’m going to receive the effects of God’s grace for myself, I have to be willing to extend them to others as well.
Give up my right to feel and act like a victim.
When the sentiment “But I have a right to feel upset!” goes through my mind, odds are I’m probably living—at least a little bit—like a victim. In my life, victim-living looks like telling my sob story to anyone who will listen. It looks like constantly attributing struggles in my life to what’s been done to me instead of things I’ve done. It looks like being unable to see past the pain in my life.
People do things to hurt us that aren’t our fault. But as a result, we can fall into believing lies about ourselves, the situation, or others. When we accept these lies as truth, we become just as much at fault for the pain in our lives as the person who hurt us. Believing a lie is sin, because we’ve accepted something other than God’s truth. To get out from under it, we need to repent of believing the lie and ask that God would help us cling to his truth.
This belief shift often happens without our knowledge. But the good news is that God is not sitting in condemnation over us (if you feel condemned right now, you’re not listening to the voice of God). He understands how difficult it is to stay focused on his truth, but he also needs us to actively repent of believing the lie. His truth is what saves us, not our own effort.
This is often the forgiveness step I get stuck on. But living like a victim will ultimately shackle me to bitterness, anxiety, and shame. To be free, I need to first recognize the lie, then ask God for help believing his truth!
To be honest, each of these different parts of forgiveness is difficult. I’m at different points with different people. The key is recognizing where I’m at and making a conscious choice to move forward. Which part of forgiveness am I struggling with right now? Which part do I need to ask God to help me with?
The crazy thing is… the above revelations are a glimpse of only the first week in Ethiopia. Suffice to say he’s been restoring, equipping, and training me in righteousness, all with a healthy balance of exhortation and encouragement. This kind of healing is what I hoped the Race would bring. And while it wasn’t on the timeline I expected, God was still faithful to work out the details.
Isn’t he always?
