We’ve spent several weeks now moving back and forth through Honduras, staying in places we didn’t want to and in pretty crappy hostels. Some of us have sincere aversions to entire cities because of bad experiences or feeling spiritually oppressed or like we are wasting time. Sometimes it just all seems to come together. It’s usually after a long period of asking why and going through things that don’t make any sense and are really tough.
You know what? Forget it; no more introductions or prefaces. God is on fire. God is a consuming fire. He’s consuming us daily and He’s consuming others as well. He’s consuming Dustin and Sheldon and especially Adam. They know it and so do we. Does that mean we are doing something right? Heck no. Does that mean we are righteous and worthy? Not a chance. It means that His grace is sufficient for us. It means His love is truly Almighty and He is a warrior. These Army guys and girls we have met and hung out with are warriors and protectors also. They speak of giving their lives for one another without hesitation. They volunteer to be away from their families for a year or more at a time and go through incredible hardships. It’s no secret that some people receive special training on how to survive if taken captive and interrogated… tortured.
I can’t even look at that word without breaking down into tears. It really troubled me and I had to fight to type it. It’s taken minutes for me to start this next paragraph. The bond I’ve already developed with these guys is incredible and it has absolutely ripped my heart out to think of what they have subjected themselves to just in training of defense of someone else’s life, for my life, for yours. Something has been struck in me and I’m not going to stop writing until it’s out. Sometimes I feel so inadequate. I look at how kind everyone has been to me and I think what a failure I am because I’m not as kind and giving as they are and I’m the one who has the Joy of the Lord. I feel like that for a little while and then the Lord will bring one of them to me and they will say how much they have needed someone to come along in their life and be something new and fresh and complete. And then I realize I’m not a failure. I’m being used by God. I’m decreasing and He’s increasing, both in my own life and in someone else’s.
When I think about the sacrifice a soldier makes for a civilian, it’s the same thing as Jesus did. God himself was tied up and beaten… mercilessly. He was absolutely torn open by clubs and whips sewn with jagged pieces of rock and bone. He was beaten for me, so I wouldn’t have to suffer a blow. Look deep inside and discover that you believe what’s written: that the wages of sin is (indeed) death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23). He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and He gave everything, everything, for you. What a concept! A love that surpasses all. Find a quiet place to truly meditate on and ponder that fact for a while… the fact that God is a God of unfathomable love and mercy… see if it doesn’t change your outlook a bit. See if it doesn’t humble you.
I just looked back at that word I had trouble typing and the movie “The Passion of the Christ” comes flooding back as I stopped again to weep. I weep because it’s so real. Sometimes Jesus is ethereal and mystic to me. I wish I could portray the emotion and heart that I’m pouring out into this. Not because I want you to see me, but because I want you to see what’s going on in me. It’s hard for a person who’s set up in a tangible world to absorb an intangible Savior from thousands of years ago. God’s been putting the faces of Van and Emile, Rob, Corey, Rachel and Vijay, Dustin, Sheldon, and Adam in my mind’s eye. Their sacrifices are very real and tangible to me. That’s what the whole point is, anyway. God is in everyone and each one of us is a special creation of His, created in His image. Perhaps for the first time ever, I’m truly seeing the face of God in someone. I can see exactly how God rejoiced in knitting them together in their mother’s wombs; how he boasts righteously that He knows the exact number of hairs there are on their heads and that the thoughts He thinks for them are more numerous than the grains of sand on the seashore.
He’s given me the ability to share in His joy and love for His own creation. It’s been very special for me. I can see how God clothes the flowers of the field and the birds of the air in radiant beauty and that not even King Solomon could dress himself in such splendor. And then to understand that if He clothes things like the grass that is temporary in such splendor, that He will certainly clothe His precious creation (you) so much more elegantly and eternally… it makes Him even more real and lovely.
