we left budapest, hungary yesterday evening around six. one insanely random radio, three border patrols, four passport stamps, and twelve hours later, we arrived in sofia, bulgaria. the k squad is all meeting up here for a few days to just be together and get some cultural briefing before we head into turkey. it’s an exciting occasion given the fact that we have yet to be just the forty five of us. the bus ride last night was pretty miserable. lindsay and i played ‘would you rather’ for a good portion of the trip, attempting bits of sleep in between. overall i would say i probably slept for an hour. so when we arrived at our hostel this morning and i heard that i was only getting a four hour nap before ATL-ing the streets for the afternoon, i was anything but thrilled. actually, i was pretty frustrated. and i felt justified in it. because i was tired, dangit.
before hitting the streets i opened up to second corinthians to read about how God’s strength is perfected in the midst of our weakness. i continued reading to verse fifteen.
“and i will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the the more abundantly i love you, the less i am loved.”
hm…very gladly spend and be spent. for the sake of souls.
as i was reading this i was very convicted. because my attitude this morning was more of a ‘if it feels good and doesn’t cost me too much, then maybe i could labor for some salvations.’ i was not in a very gladly state, to be sure.
thank goodness God gives us perspective. thank goodness He gives us encounters in the middle of sofia, bulgaria to get our hearts right. thank goodness He loves us enough to put us in our place. i’m glad He is teaching me to die to myself. i’m glad that my heart breaks when i see someone eating out of a trashcan. i’m glad my comforts have been stripped. because i didn’t sign up for comfortable. and i didn’t sign up for easy. granted, i thought the hard part would be being on a different continent than my friends and family, not having ‘stuff’ at my beckon call. i thought the difficult part would be packing a wardrobe into a backpack and learning how to survive on peanut butter and jelly. thank goodness God is bigger than me.
thank goodness He is determined to get me to a very gladly state.
and thank goodness i’m ready and willing to do what i need to do to get there.
yes, jesus, do what you need to do. by whatever means necessary, make me more like you. again, lord, i’m surrendering my rights, my expectations, and my desires. very gladly, lord, i give you all of me.
