After my first week of being on the World Race I have noticed many things that are different then I had first presumed. I had many ideas stored in my mind about what the World Race was going to be like and more so what the beginning of a year long mission trip would be like. As Christians we tend to think that there is one way that everything happens. One way that we worship, one way that we pray, one way that we do outreach, one way that we have small groups, one way that we experience the Lord while doing the work he has laid before us.
Coming into the first week of the World Race I was expecting to be warmly greeted by what I would describe as the missions honeymoon. A period of time in the first few weeks or months of a missions experience where you don’t miss your family or your home. Where you wake up every morning full of love and excitement. Where every breath that God has given you that day you just can’t help but praise him endlessly. This was not the greeting that I received.
I was welcomed in by loneliness and a desire to go home. My family knows me to be a little kid myself and to always play with children but I have not held a single child since I’ve been here. Everyone that knows me would tell you that I am a raging extrovert who has a difficult time spending ten minutes alone but while my squad mates hang out in the dining room I find myself wanting to be by myself. My friends know that I love to play sports but while my team plays soccer with the local kids I never have the energy to join in. At home I am talkative but here I am almost always quiet. I am not myself here.
Let me first say that this is not a lack of hospitality or faulty ministry of my host. My host here in Mokhotlong, Lesotho is absolutely wonderful and they have a beautiful mission that is a direct gift from God! Secondly, this is not a fault of my team. My team has served me and walked with me through the good and the bad. They have been a treasure to me and I love them greatly!
I have been looking to be full when I see kids to play with but their smiling faces only remind me of my niece, nephew, and CityLight kids on Sunday. I have been looking to fill up on good food but I just want to have a home cooked meal with my family. I have been loved well during team time but it just makes me miss my friends in Omaha. The wonderful things that are provided to me everyday here just make me long for my home. I have been looking to be filled by replacing the comforts of my home but when they fall short it knocks me on my back and when I try to get up it pushes me back down. This has taught me a very important lesson. The reason that this is happening is not the lack of a particular feeling but my wrongful source of fulfillment.
I have been looking to the things that God has put in my life and what he has done here in Lesotho trying to fill up on the things of this world but “they are a shadow of the things to come, the substance belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:17) Christians tend to chase the experience of the world that God has made to know him intimately. Seeing his creation is not a bad thing but I don’t know an architect personally because I’ve been to the top floor of his skyscraper. I am not best friends with a potter because I have drank coffee from his mug. I do not intimately know Michelangelo when I gaze at the Sistine Chapel. It does help me know aspects of them like that the architect is a genius, the potter has great skill, and that Michelangelo is insanely patient. These may all be true but I do not know them on a deeper level.
This is what I have tried to do this past week. I have tried to see God’s creation and works and say that I know him intimately. I have settled only for a portion of his character and wondered why that has not been enough for my soul to be satisfied and filled with joy. Though these things do provide us with a portion of our fulfilment we are will always be left wanting more. But where to go from here? It is not a matter of just trying to be happy when we don’t feel joyous rather how we respond when we are not delighting in the Lord.
When our tank is on empty and we don’t want to push on that is not a matter of pure will power because we are not the one who can fill us. God is. It is he who gives joy and satisfaction and to him be the glory. But then we can chase intimacy with Christ with all our hearts and not find what we thought. We think that if we desire him enough we deserve to be filled with joy but again that is not how it works. As John Piper puts it in When I Don’t Desire God, How to Fight For Joy: “No one stands before a beautiful sunrise and says, ‘Now I worked hard to get up this early; you owe me happiness by your bright colors.’ No. We stand there, and in humility we receive. And if the joy comes, it is a gift.”
The Lord has shown me that I have been looking at his creation and wondering why it isn’t enough to give me joy. He is slowly but surely breaking my grip on this world so that my hands may openly praise him and receive his joy. It hurts. A lot. I find myself daily wanting to go home but that is not what my Father has for me. He knows infinitely more than I do therefore I will daily say to him, “Not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42b) It is for him to decide whether I walk through trials, and it will be for his glory to bring me through to the end.
Please do not read this blog and think that I have only been moping around day in and day out. God has been working through me regardless of my state of joy. Daily God has used my squad to do the works that Jesus has set before us and he will bring them to completion by his will in his own timing. The blind have seen, the hungry have been fed, people have been loved, and I have led worship in a prison all by the name of Jesus. This blog is to inform you on how to be praying for me and to encourage those of you who are walking through a season similar to mine. And know that I will gladly walk through despair for the glory of his name knowing that Jesus has walked this path before me and is walking with me still. Thank you.
