Volcanoes have seemed to be a central theme of our travel in Nicaragua. The thing that I find so intriguing about them is how unexpected they are. Just as I talked a little bit about in my G R O W T H blog, the Lord has been showing me so many new environments yet they’re centered around the same thing. This relates so much to the truth of the gospel around the world. We may worship differently, we may enjoy different foods or use different toilets (lol) but one thing that remains consistent worldwide is the God that I serve.
He is consistent yet it looks different and can sometimes even be a little unpredictable.
The past 3 weeks I have been to 4 different volcanoes. I visited the active volcano Masaya, watching smoke billow out from the earth. I swam in crater lake, created by a volcano decades ago. I hiked up Mombacho, the huge volcano just behind where we live. And last week I hiked up another active volcano and went sledding down the side of it, dressed in a huge orange jumpsuit.
Each volcano looked drastically different. They’re all volcanoes but on the outside the facades change. One was full of billowing smoke, another has become a lake surrounded by luscious rainforest. Another has become a cloud forest with people living all along the main road. The last one, covered in black ash and expected to erupt any day now… not joking.
Yes they look different but at the root they’re all the same thing. This relates to serving God worldwide. It looks different depending on where you are and what you’re going there to do. But ultimately, at the end of the day – it’s still a volcano – I’m still serving the same God in whatever new way He is calling me to do so.
It’s going to look different when I return home. To be honest, it looks different every day and that’s the joy I find in serving a God who is alive and active and with us. It brings an adrenaline rush just like hiking up a volcano that could explode at any moment.
