Things we have come to know as the perfect cover ups for our broken humanity on the outside. But what happens when those things that need covering, are on the inside? Band-Aids can protect our scabs and scars from being seen and maybe make-up can provide us with protection from acne or simply make us look better. But I need these things for my heart. Over the past few weeks, God has removed the Band-Aids and make-up of my soul and exposed things that I hurriedly wanted to pretend weren’t there. It was if God was saying, “Cody, this is reality. Let me deal with it.” And I responded with, “No it’s not. I’ll just be putting the Band-Aid back now, okay?” But I quickly realized that what God was telling me was as plain as someone recognizing my scar or scab. I still met those words with a quick denial. I remember at training camp back in July, leadership warned us that inevitably God would break us down in the first three months. Something that I knew going in but it has been entirely different to actually meet that reality head on.
In the midst of a place of such brokenness all around here in Los Guido, in which I have seen, tasted, heard, and felt sin, I have been broken down myself. The first thing was my performance anxiety. If you were to ask me if you have to earn your salvation, it would be an easy answer of no. But what God graciously showed me is that sometimes my actions portrayed otherwise. Not so much that I was trying to earn my salvation but maybe, just maybe, I could prove my love for Him. There was a great divide in my mind of what was secular and what was sacred. I am not talking about the common sacred works of going to church or worshipping, but the things that I have deemed in my own mind as pleasing to Him. This directly conflicted with what I was reading recently in Tozer’s Pursuit of God book,
“It is not what man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything.”
Not only was my motivation off because I wanted to prove my love for Him, but I also thought certain works were more glorious than others. For example, praying for someone that I encounter on the way to ministry. Obviously something we would to be obedient to but the mindset and motivation behind this was entirely off. When I was not doing these things, another Band-Aid popped up and revealed my condemning heart. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus but there was a ton in Cody. When I did pass up that person God told me to pray for, I realized how hard I was on myself. Coming from a culture with an emphasis on performance and a heavy sports background, I took the basic principles that helped me thrive in those areas and without intention, applied them in my walk with God. I turned the will to pursue righteousness, something good, into a frustration when I wasn’t obedient. These thoughts that would enter my head about myself were never from Him. Even after all this, I put back on the Band-Aids and make-up and asked God for a quick fix. Yet another scab was naked before me proving that I didn’t trust God enough to take me the through the process of healing these hindrances. I just wanted to put a Band-Aid on it and move on. I had quickly forgotten what I had blogged about last month, that God is a God of process. Even in the instantaneous miracles of healing or salvation, make no mistake; there is a process behind all of it. The fact was I just flat out didn’t want to go through with it. I saw it, I recognized it, I finally even acknowledged it, but I wanted God to just take it away so we could move onto more “important things.” But what would have happened if Mark and Meg, our contacts here in Los Guido, had the same mindset? If they saw all the affects of sin, the scabs, the scars, and chose to pretend it wasn’t there, and asked God to take it all away so they could focus on “other” things? They would have missed God’s pleasure in sanctification. Since being here for the last few weeks, I can tell you they would have missed a boy named Joseph. When he was nine years-old he gave his life to the Lord, was discipled, and soon began discipling others. At 11 years-old, he was named a leader in the church. Currently, at 13 years-old, he is discipling his sister and bringing his mother to church with a dream of one day becoming a missionary. On Monday, we had the chance as a squad to financially bless him with a passport he desired in order to go to Nicaragua and make more disciples. This is just one of the many miracles they have been blessed to see because they believed in the God that has promises in, through, and at end of their calling here.
And if God had not been so gracious to bring these things to the light, I would have missed many things this month. I would have missed the blessing of meeting Geovanny, a teacher at the school our team was at this month. We had the opportunity to share the freedom of Christ with him and build a relationship that will continue long after these eleven months. I would have even missed Mark and Meg themselves. The best example of following the command to go and make disciples that I ever seen in which the stories and testimonies they shared with me from their twelve years here could never find room in a blog post.
I have been using past tense for my Band-Aids and make-up but the fact is that I am still dealing with these things. And that’s okay. It has put me in a place of “I don’t know” before God. I don’t know how to deal with these issues but I am finally willing to accept that they are there and trust God’s perfect timing. And I think that is what God has desired of me this whole time.
A picture from our school in Los Guido
Iglesia Nueva Vida sending us out
My brother Jamiel. We got so close in these three weeks.
The feeding center where kids from all over Los Guido would come for lunch everyday. The gym is in the back is where all 40 of us slept in hammocks and tents.
