My time here in Gordon’s Bay with Tom and Cindy is less about it experience and more about example. They are living out the life of Jesus more in the way I feel God is calling me to do than some others.
The longer I continue on this year long journey, the more confident I am about the place God is calling me to in the near future. I am feeling drawn back home to
Des Moines,
Iowa, though for how long, I have no idea.
I really don’t want to be out here to simply ‘experience’ the poverty and harshness of life of others just for the sake of it. I wonder if I have wanted at times to see these things to only make myself feel better. Has be there been an subconscious, warped sense of entertainment to seeing poverty, and automatically comparing there lives to my own, in pity or even justified compassion?
That is not the heart of Jesus and I am more interested in having the heart of Jesus than I am about just seeing the world. God has brought me to this place and time to draw me closer to his heart, to himself, that I would know his heart more and more.
If I am to live in
Des Moines, confident that it is indeed where I am to be, my life will obviously look different than those who are obedient to the Lord’s voice to live among the poorest of the poor in the world, in Africa, Asia or
South America or anywhere else.
I have had an idea in my head that this is obviously true, but have always struggled with getting the reality and truth that it’s okay into my heart. I know that my ‘ministry’ is at home, when I return, (with intermittent short trips abroad, I think), and although I have admitted with my mind that call is as important as one to townships or the bush in
Africa, I have forever fought a sense of inferiority. That perhaps I simply didn’t
want to be a missionary to the poor and give my life to them, and am just looking for the easy, comfortable way of being a ‘missionary.’ Call myself a ‘missionary’ to my home field. But the truth is, I AM. I will be. Except I certainly won’t run around calling myself that – that would be a bit awkward and pretentious – definitely not my desire! 🙂
There has been a misconception, and though I imagine it is held by more, I can only speak for myself. I have somehow believed that if I stay in the states that I am not surrendering my life, my all, to obey Jesus and ‘go into all the world, making disciples.’ I will live within the modernity of our world at home, with more money and amenities than the majority of the world – how is that justified against what I have seen, and what I know?
It’s a matter of our hearts. Is my heart after Jesus? Am I really willing to surrender it all? I can be in
Des Moines, working at Court Ave, absolutely surrendering my life. It will be different, but not easier than across a couple of oceans. Abandonment and surrender here will involve the full abandonment of my time, my resources, my own pleasures, and my understanding of church.
In abandonment of these things and surrender to Jesus, I become instead devoted to investing my time first, in seeking after God in a way I have yet to grasp, and secondly into investing into people’s lives as the Lord directs me, even when it’s hard and demands time I think I am personally justified to as a single, young woman.
It is the same with my own pleasures – my self-seeking pleasures. I have to be and want to be willing to immediately drop what
I want when God speaks. I want to choose to be obedient the moment he speaks, especially when it requires the sacrifice of my time and own desires.
In regards to my resources, I want to be no less reliant on the divine provision of my Father than if I were elsewhere in the world. I will obviously be making money, holding a job – but I am willing to give away what I have made in an evening at work when the Spirit speaks, if that is the money that I need for bills? If my life is to be one of obedience when He asks, then I have to be fully reliant on his provision. I want to be willing to give to one who has less than me, even if I don’t feel like I can otherwise meet my needs. Jesus promises us in Matthew 6 and 7 that God provides for our every need, more than He even provides food for the birds, clothes of beauty for the flowers; that just as a good dad would not give his kid a snake when he asks for a fish, or a stone when asked for bread, our Father gives us what we ask, and will provide for our needs. I believe this.
The way I view church has already drastically changed. Not from what I have sensed within myself deeply, but from what I have practiced and with what I am familiar. Familiar now doesn’t even equal comfortable anymore. That doesn’t go to say church is altogether negative – I definitely do not believe that. However, I do believe God has something quite different in mind than our formats of church. (This is an entirely full blog on it’s own!) I desire for ‘church’ to be much more organic than we know it. It is simply living out this life with one another, not a weekly meeting to be taught – though that can be a vital part of it – but rather a traveling on the journey alongside each other, becoming vulnerable where we have learned to put up good face. Discipling people who haven’t yet ‘said the prayer’ by loving them to wholeness and restoration, by revealing Jesus for who He truly is. I can’t say that I have a hold on what this practically looks like. To be honest, I don’t think we should even have a ‘hold’ on the practicality of living life with Jesus. He’s really not all that practical. Just read the Gospels. And then the epistles. 🙂
I have more thoughts on this aspect, but I will leave that for now. So, anyway, all that to say, my time here with Tom and Cindy has been a great example of how to live life in the western, working place world. Tom greets the gas pump guys with a hug, because he has spent time getting to know them each time he gets gas. (Here they pump the gas for you, and wash your windows, kind of like the ‘olden days’ so I hear.) There is no need for a customer to ever leave the vehicle, but Tom does, just to spend time with the guys, speaking life into them – discipling and loving them with the love of Jesus. When God says give the last of his money to someone, because they have less than him, even when it leaves him with no bill money, he gives. Its more about obedience to our Father, trusting in his divine provision than about keeping stuff to ‘fall back on.” God keeps providing.
I watch Cindy interact with the gals in the grocery store, engaging in conversation with someone simply because she is breathing Jesus, and her eyes and ears are open to see and hear when someone needs to be engaged, embraced or simply encouraged with a smile. It’s awesome to watch and inspires me to do the same.
I’m learning, and I can see for myself how much I have grown, but there is still a decent bit of me that is afraid I will not still ‘get it’ when I get home. I pray my intimacy with Jesus goes deeper still, and my obedience and love for my Father even greater, that this fear would soon become irrelevant, because I learn to make the right choices. Making these right choices are not a chore, but a joy, because I love Him and my desire is to be obedient and make my heavenly DAD happy. It is a joy – even now, and that will only grow.
