My father in Heaven is a lot like me, or me a lot like Him…
I am the type of girl who does things at the last minute. Every school project or paper I will do the night before or even that morning. I sometimes study for tests… I woke up 20 minutes before I had to leave to teach last year and on occasion didn’t write my lesson plan out until that day. It has worked well for me, I made Deans list, my kids learned, I am hardly ever late… no big deal.
Well I should have known better when God decided to teach me all sorts of lesson here in the final month of the race. I shared a little before, but I was ticked about out ministry this month. We are in some middle of nowhere village, super small house, worst food I have had on the race, no translator, no English, uncomfortable beds, ministry for an hour a day… if that. I was mad, and did not want to be here. I cried a LOT every day for the first week and seriously wanted to quit, it didn’t matter how close I was to the finish. I was done.
So fast forward a few days, I am out chipping paint off the house and God starts to speak to me. I had already walked away from the project twice crying because it was stupid and barley working. The third time I was about to give up and God started to show me how some pieces came off very easy, and some I really had to hack away at. He then was saying… “kind of like the crap in your heart”
Oh…. Ok God.
But I knew he was right. He has done a lot of chipping away at my heart this year. Some things like desires of my flesh, shame of the past, came right off. My patience and “going with the flow” took a little longer, but of course I still have more junk in there. This month He brought to my attention about my joy being circumstantial.
Yes, I will admit it, and sometimes I get a bad case of it.
Of course Romania was great! I had two beds to myself, wifi in my room, the ministry had tons of kids, we cooked food we liked and wanted, people spoke English, we did what we wanted, no living with the contacts, what is so hard about that? It’s so much easier to be joyful when everything is going great… right?
“Rejoice in the LORD always, again I say rejoice…” Philippines 4:4
Ok God, but what about when things get hard?
Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trails of various kinds… James 1:2
Ok well, what is the point? I know my joy comes from the Lord, what has happened to me? I started off the race on fire to serve and now the thought of doing anything makes me cringe. I used to get excited about manual labor or playing with kids and now I can sleep ’til 9 and would rather watch a movie (I NEVER watch movies!)
At some point I switched and I was no longer getting my joy from the LORD, I was getting it from things that bring satisfaction for no more than a few moments. No wonder all my joy was lost, it was not really joy at all.
Something needed to change, I couldn’t go back to America like this. It will be like a kid on a sugar high if they go to a candy store all day, everything will be fun, great and exciting, but you will crash and vomit when you get home. When the excitement of seeing old friends, eating at Chick Fil A, having internet on my phone or driving around in my car fades, where would I be? Where would my joy be then.
Where it should have been, and was the whole time… in the LORD. It was a hard lesson to learn, I am not convinced I have aced the exam yet, but I am glad God brought it to my attention before I got home. Once I smartened up I realized how much the team and I have laughed. (I think we have laughed more this month than any month on the race.) I realized how beautiful the three girls we live with are, how much I love to pray, how beautiful the moon is and have how much I enjoy conversations with old ladies that don’t speak English.
No, what we are doing here is not what I want to do, but that’s ok, because I get my joy from something greater than ministry. The food here I will never willingly eat again but my joy is greater than a bowl of Borsch, its more than the pain in my back and stronger than the smell of the outhouse… my joy is in the LORD, His joy is my strength, and will carry me through.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Pslam 51:12
