A year ago today, I was in Rwanda, Africa. This picture is taken the
last day spent working on this building. For three weeks my team of 7
labored on this building 6 days out of each week. 17 of those 18 days
were spent shoveling dirt, moving dirt, flattening dirt, and mixing
dirt. The last day we finally received a new assignment: scrape dried
chunks of cement off windows and doors. It sounded like a nice and easy
plan for the last day of work. (We couldn’t have been more wrong).
Scraping cement with wooden blocks and small squares of sandpaper is a
lot harder than it sounds. We scraped windows for, although what seemed
like 2 days straight, was actually 8 hours. I received this picture in
a nice frame as birthday gift a few weeks after returning back to the
states. My good friend and teammate Julie sent it to me along with a
note explaining her reasoning for choosing this photo:
I
really liked this picture. I just think it’s really neat that this was
one of our least favorite days of work, yet we all worked together and
were able to remind one another that our focus needed to be on the
Lord. There is no human on earth that could have possibly motivated us
to scrape cement off windows for eight hours straight. The only true
and worthy motivation was God. We may not know why, but for some
reason, God wanted us to scrape windows that day.
I think my friend Julie has a couple of noteworthy points here…
1.
Motivation.
What is your motivation? One of my struggles is that I often find my
motivation in the thoughts and opinions of others. I find myself
worrying and caring what others think about me, and trying to earn
their approval is what motivates me. I know it isn’t right to find my
worth in what others think about me, but Satan uses this against me to
try and make me feel unworthy. Where do you find your motivation? Is
your motivation in God? Does pleasing and giving glory to God motivate
you? It should. God is more than enough!
2.
Lack of Control. I think we could all learn from the last line of Julie’s note:
We may not know why, but for some reason, God wanted us to scrape windows that day.
You fill in the blank: I may not know why, but God wants me to
________. There are a lot of times when God asks us to do something
that may not appeal to us, may make us uncomfortable, or we may even
disagree about. The question is, are you willing to obey? No matter
what the cost, are you always willing to say, “yes, God”? Proverbs
1:33: ”
But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.” There is no reason to be afraid! God promises us security in him if we listen to him.
For
fellow world racers, and for followers of Christ, I pray that we would
find our motivation in the Lord. I pray that we would not let Satan
distract us from what is truly important and that we would recognize
that God is more than enough for all of our needs. I pray that we would
gain life by giving it back to God. I pray that we daily recognize our
need and dependence on our Creator who can best control our life. I
pray that we surrender our control and listen to the Lord, and that we
become safe and secure, without fear or evil.
