Well, I have not blogged in a couple of weeks now for the sole reason that not much has changed, or so I thought. My team wakes up late (since our ministry is in the evening) and we have been going to sleep late as well. I thought everything was going alright, and on the outside everyone on my team looked content. However I was forgetting my purpose on the Race during this mundane season of ministry, and spiritually I have been turning on the inside.
Since there is not much to add in explaining my daily service to A Mane English Center, I want to share with you how this “turning” feeling is causing me to stretch and search for God. Before the Race I knew of the term TRUST, but I never had even the slightest bit of it, and to be honest my journey of trusting in the Lord has just begun, and it’s fairly grueling. These questions have been bombarding my mind.
Why God? Why have you forgotten these people, and allowed Buddha, Mohammad, other terrible idols, and the endless slew of false gods to ravage Your great name? Why was I born in a place of wealth and spiritual prosperity, when young boy in Thailand has been completely blinded to his identity in You? Cast to live in the mucky, sewage-filled slums and determined to change his name to Paula. You see, he wants to change his name so that one day he can become a girl, possibly to sell his body, and he is deciding this all at a whopping age of 12. Why does this kind of evil exist? Why can I choose where I want to live, when I want to travel, who I spend my time with, and the crippled man in Guatemala cannot even find food for the day? Why do we struggle to choose You over sin Lord, when my soul craves to do only good for You?
Romans 7: 14-17 and 24-25 says, “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me… What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We know where our salvation is, we know who loves us, and who created us, yet these questions never cease! These utter evils in the world never stop perplexing, they are driving me mad. Where is God? What is He doing? I myself can feel Him, and I want nothing more than His love and plan for my life, but why don’t these people feel the same?
You see, I am currently making a commitment to the Lord by reading the entire bible. I have such a desire for Him that I desire to know every part of why He loves me. Yet, while reading the Old Testament, I am shocked with fear and questions of who my God is. Why He created us, and why He takes us on this journey of such beauty and sorrow. I know my God is mysterious, and choosing to follow Him and stick with Him is proving to be the hardest choice I have ever made, and ever will make. I understand that it will be all of my life that I fight for Him, and it’s always when I think I can’t take another step that God reminds me.
In all this chaos and confusion and feelings of doom, God has so far always brought me back to His mercies and grace. In such powerful ways that I can’t deny Him.
The gift in all of this mess is my redemption in trusting the name of Jesus. Praise God for His son! I don’t understand much, not even why I know Jesus and others don’t, but I do know that what He did for us breaks my heart and gives me an unexplained passion to live. This passion wasn’t natural, it was paid and fought for, just as Jesus fights for every one of us. It’s through the battle, crawling in the dark, shivering in my shame, and coping with the piercing pain that I choose true life. I fight for my faith, and trust, and love.
No matter how hard it is to trust and know God’s perfect plan, I will never cease to search for the Father’s love in my life and for the people I meet. I don’t have answers, and it hurts, but I am developing a lifestyle of freedom and peace through trust in a savior who knows all of eternity and who desperately wants us to know Him. It doesn’t make sense, but I want every part of God and for my life to be a testimony to His work and love. I pray that my ears never stop listening and my eyes never stop searching, and that through my wandering I will be quick to answer His call, and bring all the glory to His name.
Teach me to trust You, Lord, and take me where I need to go.
