So the countdown is getting smaller and smaller, the days keep passing, in fact, it’ll be 7 weeks from tomorrow that I will be getting on a plane headed to the first country! CRAZY!
Everyday the Lord gets a kick out of teaching me something new. He patiently thumps me on the forehead day in and day out to make sure I’m aware that I should be paying attention to his everything. I’m currently going through one of my “I like to read” phases, they don’t come very often, ha and am working through a Revelation bible study. The two fell in alignment this week with each other and I thought it was cool, that the first thing I thought of when I read Revelation 7:15 was the book I just finished.
The book is called This Beautiful Mess: practicing the presence of the kingdom of God by Rick McKinley. It’s a great book of straight up thoughts, ideas and hypotheticals that are all related to what it looks like when the kingdom of God is advanced. My favorite excerpt from the book reads as follows:
Americans tend to assume that we know what people in the rest of the world actually need. Genuine relationships can help set us straight on that. Once we commit to knowing others, we’re likely to realize that what they say they need and what we think they need may be different. We ought to lay down our arrogance and humbly assist them with their needs as they perceive them. They know their world, their people, and their culture. We suffer with them by letting them decide how we can best assist.
When we engage these relationships in a way that truly comes alongside to weep with those who weep, we start to taste the kingdom. We taste it in a way that is bitter and sweet all at the same time. It breaks our hearts to feel what others feel on a daily basis, and it grows our hearts when we experience their reciprocal love. We are one family of kingdom people following the King. We suffer with.
This is essentially the very essence of what our job will be for the next eleven months of our lives. To sit with them and love on them and show them where true worth is found. To help them feel unconditional love and see compassion in how we treat them. To give them the chance to experience everything that God is, but on their terms, in His timing, through our relationships with them. How amazing it is that God allows us to be such an intricate part of His plan, giving us perfect purpose in bringing glory to His kingdom.
How does this tie in with Revelation?
Revelation 7: 15-17
“…and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
God totally has a tent! When all of this is over and the earth is no more, He will protect us in His tent and bring relief to all oppression any child of His ever had to face, regardless of status.
I totally have a tent! I know for a fact that God is giving me the opportunity to use my tent to show others what He has to offer them. He’s putting me in a tent for eleven months to help feed the hungry, and bring water to the thirsty and help them find rest in all that He is. He’s putting me in a tent to give them the opportunity to realize that they too can taste that same relief in the future. They will finally know what it’s like to have someone look upon them with nothing but unconditional grace and love, and revel in His merciful ways when that day comes and they have chosen Him.
All I know is that my job is to help them see that their every need can and will be fulfilled in His perfect timing…and to throw the biggest tent party those countries have ever seen!
