NEPAL | Small Village
Nepal has been a great new place. After 3 long months in Africa, we are back in Asia, which seems better than before, in a new country and on a new team. There is a lot going on with traveling so much and meeting new people every single day. Even our off days are filled with shopping and exploring leaving little time for rest. I find myself slipping into habits of sleeping longer and desiring to be by myself in order to get some peace and quiet. But, my time in the village made me realize that I was wrong.
Last month, my old teammate Matthew Poole taught me a song called “Light the Fire”. The lyrics are as follows:
I stand to praise you
but I fall to my knees
My spirit is WILLING
but my FLESH is so WEAK
So, Light the Fire (light the fire)
In my soul (In my weary soul)
Fan the flame (Fan the flame)
Make me whole (make my spirit whole)
Lord you know (Lord you know)
Just where I’ve been (Where I’ve been)
So, Light the fire in my heart again
This song, came to mind when we were fasting for the church one morning. Shova and Bharat told us that we were going to pray individually for one hour and then come back together. I immediately in my head began to freak out at the length of time I would have to sit in prayer and then guilt filled me inside with the thought that I couldn’t be alone in prayer with my creator for that long. I realized that the past few days I had skipped my morning quiet time in exchange for more sleep. It was when I processed all of this that God reminded me of this song. “My spirit is willing, but my flesh is so weak.” It is from the verses in Matthew that talk about Jesus praying in Gethsemane and He asked the disciples to watch and pray. When He comes back to check on them, they have all dozed off. Jesus has asked them to do one little thing in a time when His “soul is sorrowful, even to death.” Such a crucial time and his best buds are sleeping on Him.
As a kid, I always thought the disciples were so aweful. How could they do that to Jesus? But, now I get it. My flesh is extremely weak. Human flesh is weak. BUT…our spirit is willing. I need to realize that if I continue to rely on my own abilities I will fail, I must rely on God. I must continually run to God to “fan the flame” in my spirit. I must seek the spirit in order to continue this thing called life. I can’t attempt to seek God on my own, because my flesh will never succeed. I NEED God. When I am tired and unable, God is there, and in HIM (not me) do I find the ability to keep going.
