Eleven days ago, I was packing up my suitcase and my mom and saying goodbye to Texas in exchange for a week long mission trip to Guatemala with my church in Florida. Eleven days ago, my perspective on my current circumstances was skewed to a point that I couldn’t recognize that God had already provided me with an answer to the questions I was asking. Eleven days ago, I headed halfway across the country halfway looking for an escape and completely desperate to run away from what I thought was the inescapable prison of the trials this life can bring.
In order for you to better understand where the attitude of my heart was when I set out for this trip, I had lost my job two weeks prior at the most inopportune time and was begging God to tell me two things: why and what next? Because I’m launching for the race in January, I’m now stuck in this awkward 6 month gap of waiting. Between 10 days of training camp in October, travel associated with that, and the holidays, I’m overwhelmed by the feeling that an employer isn’t going to want to waste their time with training someone who is so temporary and so unavailable. I’ve been on the other side of management and I know that we wouldn’t have considered something like this a smart business decision. With my thoughts racing and my faith shaking I left for Florida anyway, resting in the fact that I would be surrounded by my church family and people who support me not only as friends but as brothers and sisters in Christ.
24 hours. 1,609 miles. I’m not going to candy coat it and say it was fun. And that was only the first of 4 legs of the journey. The drive was long and tedious, and when we arrived in Gainesville, we hopped onto a bus and took another 6 hour ride to the airport in Miami, followed by a 2.5(ish) hour flight to Guatemala City, concluded with a 4 hour bus ride to Chiquimula. I really wanted to be on this trip. I thought the trip itself was going to answer my questions. I was desperate enough that I had the audacity to assume that going on this trip would force God to talk to me. I’ll admit that I was literally looking for a sign. Neon lights. A blimp. An owl from Hogwarts. I kept my options open.
The first day of the trip as we were traveling up the mountain into the village, I was praying that God would open my eyes and ears to hear Him and experience His goodness and grace in a larger capacity that week. I wanted to learn more about and experience the character of God. As we are being jolted around in the back of a truck, I look out on the gorgeous scenery and recognize the still small voice that I know so well. Taste and see that the Lord is good. That was it. No explanation. Just that simple message played on repeat.
I screamed in my head, “Lord, I KNOW You are good! I already KNOW that! Tell me something else!” Even now as I write this, I feel ashamed that I would ask God for a different answer. As I let this simple message soak in, a verse from Job came to mind. Right after Job learns that he has lost everything short of his life itself, his response to God is, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) At this point my head was spinning and God whispered to me If you know that I am good, why aren’t you living like you really believe it? Sucker punch to the gut.
My perspective still hadn’t changed completely, but I began to realize I was being selfish going into the trip hoping only for my own spiritual gain. I prayed and asked God to help me put my own problems aside for the week so that I could fully focus on the kids we were going to minister to. My prayer more specifically was that God would pour me out and use me as a vessel through which these kids, many of whom hadn’t heard the gospel before or seen it lived out by example, could see and feel His goodness, mercy, grace, and love. I wanted to be empty so that I wouldn’t be leaving myself behind with them but a piece of Jesus instead.
The first day was exhausting. Besides the long ride up the mountain, this village had never had a team come to them before. There were throngs of kids e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. and at times they were literally mobbing us for clown noses and colored paper. If you’ve ever experienced a mosh pit, think along those lines except between three and four feet tall. When we got back to the hotel, the last thing I wanted to do was stay up even later to do my Bible study, but I knew that God needed to say something to me. I was prompted to read James during the week of the trip, and as I cracked open the first chapter I knew almost immediately why.
James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” It goes on to say in verse 12, “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”
It was at this moment that the Holy Spirit began to impress upon my heart to live in a way that reflects that my faith is greater than my circumstances. Faith is unwavering and eternal. God didn’t design it to come and go. It is our weapon in spiritual warfare and what we call on when we are weak and hurting. In contrast, our circumstances are temporary. Trials of this life fade and come and go with the seasons. They don’t last. If we walk with God in a way that says our circumstances are greater than our faith, we are never going to get anywhere because we won’t ever attempt to walk through the storms and the trials. We will either stand still or give up. When we walk boldly in the midst of the storm, we are looking into the face of God and proclaiming that we trust His guidance and that we have zero doubts that He knows what He is doing.
After I changed my attitude, the week blessed me in ways that I couldn’t have ever imagined. I thought I was going to minister to these kids, but I think they ministered more to me than I did to them. To see such desolate situations was heartbreaking, but regardless of the hunger, near homelessness, persecution, and other things they were facing, there were smiles on every face and joy in every heart. Those kids are living their lives in the middle of the battlegrounds and they walk on with their heads high and with cheerful hearts. It was humbling to see how their perspective affected their actions and inspired me to find the joy in my trials.
God promises blessing and as we were waiting for our flight home on Saturday, I was pacing the airport praying and asking if there was anything I missed that week. Anything I didn’t see or hear that the Spirit was trying to teach me. Once again, I hear the still small voice, and it says, This is the field that I have given you.
My first reaction, “God, what does that even mean? Like can you be more specific because I’m confused. Which field? Guatemala? El Paso? Am I supposed to go work on a farm?” And then my mind wandered back to a devotion we had earlier in the week about having faith the size of a mustard seed and the work it takes to cultivate a field and reap a good harvest. The pieces starting falling into place.
Count your trials as blessings. Taste and see that the Lord is good. This is the field I have for you.
I cannot make this point big enough:
The circumstances God has placed you in right now are the field He has given you. He has designed them for the specific moment you are experiencing and is using them to help you grow in your faith and spiritual maturity. And here comes the kicker: if you don’t sow into the field you have in front of you, you aren’t going to reap a harvest and you aren’t going to get a new field. God will leave you where you’re at until you’ve learned the lesson He has laid before you. When you stop comparing your field to someone else’s and start looking at the goodness and grace God has rained down upon you, you too will begin to find the blessings in the midst of your trials.
The answer to your prayers most likely isn’t going to show up on a blimp in the sky. Actually, it most likely won’t come through anything that is tangible. The Spirit works in ways we aren’t looking for. If you’re expecting God to do the same miracles He has already done in your past, you’re wasting your time. Stop fixating on what He has done and start focusing on what He is doing. If you don’t stop looking into your past, you won’t ever be able to see into your future and live in the present. When you stop looking for what you were expecting to happen, you will find the answers you didn’t know you needed.
Taste and See that the Lord is Good.
