As I entered Nove Zampky, Slovakia two days ago, I officially began my 10th month of ministry on this World Race. Its hard to believe I only have two months to go before I return back to California to do God knows what. (This is probably the first time in my life I’ve ever used the expression correctly). I have one last favor to ask of you. Already indebted to each of you who have covered my trip with prayer or provided financial support, I have recently been bombarded by God with lessons on how I need to trust him to provide. Despite my natural inclination to try to control the situation and make things happen the way that makes sense (or cents) to me, God is constantly showing me how I need to give up control over my life; How I need to stop limiting God to the foreseeable outcomes I can predict with my own brain. With that in mind, I am asking each of you to help me raise the remaining balance for this mission. Any amount, regardless of how small (even 5 bucks), would be extremely helpful towards helping me reach my goal and finish this month fully-funded.
Against my desire to try to convince you, I am going to trust God to provide and instead share what God taught me in my morning devotion out of Luke 9.
Those of us in the church are very familiar with the story told in Luke 9. In a nutshell, Jesus sends out the 12 disciples and tells them not to worry about bringing anything along for their journey. Immediately after, Jesus feeds 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. They are both stories we’ve heard dozens of times in sermons and frankly, are stories I’d normally want to skim through because I feel as if I’ve already learned everything there is to learn about those stories. Once again, God surprised me this morning with some fresh insights on those old classics. (Its amazing how that works–how I can read the same passage once a month for a year and I would probably take away something completely different each time, depending on what’s going in my life and what God wants me to focus on).
I would think food and money pretty much encapsulate everything (daily need and security to obtain more things I need). Clothing already seems a little superfluous and would probably satisfy the same concept that a bag or staff would have fallen into. So why mention them?
To me, a staff represents travel comfort and would seem like the modern equivalent of comfortable walking shoes. But God pointed something out to me–a reason why a staff is different from the other 5 items. Unlike everything else, a staff is something that must be carried. It requires the use of a hand and keeps that hand occupied. Perhaps God was telling them (and us) that they (we) are going to need to be ready for anything and that anything that hinders our flexibility to go wherever he leads should be left behind. God wants us to not make any assumptions about the journey and to be ready for everything.
The word “bag” hit me even harder. I realize that even though I try to willingly surrender everything to God, I am quick to re-accumulate certain areas of control in my life. With a bag, the disciples who left with nothing can regain some semblance of control by being able to store up different donations that they receive along the way. For instance, when they leave one rich man’s home who had plenty of bread to donate, the disciples might be tempted to store up some of the extra bread for when they visit poorer families who are unable to provide food. I found myself falling into this pitfall this past month as I keep surrendering aspects of my life to God, only to re-section off little pieces for myself (Ananias and Sapphira anyone?). I can confidently admit that I doubt I have ever given God 100% of my life for any extended period of time. Instead I continue to give him pieces and even though I might give him much bigger pieces as a result of this mission trip, my attempts to cling to any aspect of control in my life shows an inherent lack of trust that God will provide.
The second story was the story where the disciples are placed in a position where Jesus asks them to feed 5000 people with food that wouldn’t even feed a large family. The disciples are unable to fathom how to accomplish such a feat because frankly, its impossible. In their own limited mental capacities, they are unable to appreciate how God can work miracles that work outside of their logical comprehension. This is a lesson I need to remind myself daily, make that hourly. I keep trying to put God into this box and try to predict how things could work in such a way that makes sense to me. But God doesn’t work in such ways. The majority of the stories in the Bible could not have been successfully predicted by the characters involved. Instead, God took them on a wild adventure in which, through faith and obedience, they were able to achieve outcomes that would have seemed completely unexpected.
I want to leave you with a true story that demonstrates this point. Let me ask you a question: What would you do if God told you to stand on your head in the middle of a crowded street corner?
Well, thats exactly what God asked one Christian businessman to do. The businessman, Frank, felt a strong prodding from God that at 10am, he was supposed to go to a busy New York street corner and stand on his head. The idea seemed completely stupid to him. Why in the world would God ask him to do such a thing? How could such a idiotic task possibly advance God’s kingdom in any way? Frank fought with God and tried to get out of it, but, being a better man than any of us, he decided to be obedient. He went to the intersection and proceeded to stand on his head. People stared at him and assumed he was probably a crazy person, but Frank ignored the opinions of men and did as God asked–having absolutely no clue why God would ever ask him to do such a thing. Suddenly before him, a car swerved off the road and parked on the sidewalk nearby. A thirty something woman leaped out of the car and sped across the square in his direction. She proceeded to burst into tears and tell Frank her story.
She was an atheist on her way to jump off a bridge and end her life. In a blurt of frustration and desperation, she yelled at God, “God, if you really exist, show me a man standing on his head at the street corner.”
The woman ended up abandoned her suicide mission and eventually became a Christian. Sometimes God just doesn’t make any sense to us. Sometimes His ways just don’t fit into our comprehension and we choose to make our own path because we fear a lack of control. But know what, I’m talking to myself especially here, God actually knows the big picture. God actually has all the information and can make the right decisions. If I would just trust him and stop looking down at my map every 10 steps saying, “God, I don’t think this is the fastest way to get where I want to go.” If I would just have confidence that he is going to take care of everything: whether its my career, my wife, my ministry, my finances…God has it all under control.
(And thanks for any donations!! Just click the button on the top left of this page that says “help support me.”)
