need, until God is all you have.”
I heard this quote at church on Sunday, and it got me
thinking. Do I really believe God is all I need? All the time? Have there been
times in my life when God was all I truly had to rely on?
Isaiah 58:11~ “The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs
in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a
well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
I know that God will always be there for me, that He’ll
always provide for me, that He’ll never stop loving me. Still, a lot of times I
try to do things on my own strength or make my own plans, even though God’s are
always so much better.
I feel like this trip as taught me more about trusting in
God’s timing and His plans.
It was a struggle for me to even leave home to come on this
trip. My Grandma Morrow was sick with cancer and I had to say goodbye to her
before I left. I really wanted to stay to help take care of her and feared not
being around my family when she passed away. She passed away 2 months into the
trip. I really wanted to go home to be around family, I didn’t understand why I
had to be so far away. Deep down though part of me knew I was really supposed
to stay. My team was really great and loved on me so much. About a week and a
half later, when they were having a memorial service back home, my team set
aside some time for me to show pictures and tell stories about my Grandma, and
pray for me and God was there through it all.
After 3 months in Europe we headed to East
Africa with new teams. Out into a village somewhere in Kenya we went.
After being there a few days, I broke down again and wanted to go home. I
didn’t think I could last any longer and I thought I regretted not going home
when my grandma had died. My team fought for me, prayed for me and loved on me
so much. That was the first night I really believed that they loved me for me
and really needed me there. One of my teammates told me that it wouldn’t really
do any good to go home. It wouldn’t bring my grandma back. She was in Heaven,
but that there are people around the world that still need to hear about the
love, hope and freedom found in God.
For the 3 months we were in Africa
the two main things we did was preached and house-to-house evangelism. I was
terrified the first time I had to get up in front of church and share a message. I cried
the night before, and my team reassured me that it was going to be okay and
they prayed for me. The next day I got up in front of the church and everything
went great. I actually told my team that it was my favorite day so far on the
trip. Throughout Africa, I learned to trust
that God would give me the words to say. That it wasn’t about me, that it was
all about bringing glory to God and sharing His love.
Our third month in Asia was
‘Ask The Lord’ month (ATL.) We were given the options of staying in Cambodia, going back to Thailand or going to Vietnam,
Malaysia
or La-os. My team and I prayed about it and felt like God was telling us to go
to La-os. We had no idea where it really was and we knew nothing about it. We
soon found out that it was a closed communist country. Meaning, that
Christianity is illegal and it’s against the law to share the gospel. But we
believed that’s where we were supposed to be and God provided a contact for us
to work with. It ended up being one of the best months and I learned so much
about faith from the amazing people we met there.
Now I’m 10 months into this trip and in my 11th
country. This trip has been exciting, challenging, crazy, fun, hard and
fantastic! My team and I were talking the other day about being tired. We’re
all a lot more tired than at the beginning of this trip. We’ve traveled thousands
of miles, we’ve met tons of people, we’ve been broken and built back up
numerous times, and we’re tired. It would be easy to use the excuse about being
tired for not being so involved in ministry nowadays. It would be easy to just
sit back and try to relax a bit. It would be easy to not open up and get to
know new people. It would be easy to coast on through the next 5 weeks.
When I get home I want to be totally exhausted. I don’t want
to look back on these last couple of months and regret not giving it my all. I
want to love on my team and the beautiful girls we’re with this month with all
I am. I want God to continue to use me because I know He isn’t done yet. I want
to make the most of every opportunity.
I can’t do it on my own though. I need
God to fill me up with His abundant love more and more each day. I need Him to
renew my energy as I sleep. I need Him to give me the right words to say. I
need His joy for every situation He has me in.
Philippians 4:12-14 & 18-21~ “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took
hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But on thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is
ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me
heavenward in Christ Jesus…For, as I have often told you before and now say
again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their
destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their
shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And
we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power
that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our
lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.”
