I’m a bulldozer.
Well, at least when it comes to goals or ideas that I’ve committed all my grit and determination to accomplish. Or if I feel the need to defend a just cause that is being pushed to wayside immorally.
I shift my determination into gear and go 110%.
I desecrate the goal, or defend the cause, usually accomplishing what I set out to do, but sometimes crushing the beautiful flowers that lined the path in front of me as well.
I’m a go-getter.
Efficient.
Concise.
Quick.
Done.
Yet, the more I live on the race, the more I’ve seen that the rest of the world is not like this. And neither is the Christian life. In my walk with the Lord, I crave the three step program: “if you do this, then this, then this, then you will be healed from all ailments and never struggle again!” Count me in!
I’ve always said that if my heart was a physical building that I could walk into, I’d clean up all the gunk immediately, inscribe Bible verses all over the walls, and be the perfect imitation of Christ.
I’ve struggled with the lack of physical effort to grow closer to God. It’s not a bulldozer action- it’s a slow, steady, roundabout, inefficient stroll, with the occasional stop to smell the roses, or to sit at the stream… Or in my case, pop up a tent in the desert because I got too far ahead of myself when the Lord asked me to sit with Him and then I got lost and found myself in the middle of nowhere, and God comes and finds me and leads me out but it takes some time, so in the meantime we camp on hot sand with little water and that rattlesnake staring at me like I’d be a delicious meal… You get the point. I’m an idiot.
At this time, I bet you’re asking yourself, “Diana, what are you actually trying to say?”
To which I say, “I wasn’t the one who thought it’d be a good idea to give a blog to an external processor.” Hahahaha
No, but there is a point to all of this, I promise.
Coming onto the race I had a goal that I was bound to accomplish. I was going to read the entire Bible in the 11 months I was away. I buckled down, committed wholeheartedly, and in typical bulldozer fashion started plowing through large chunks of the Bible one day at a time.
And everything was going great- my lists were being checked off every morning, I was truly spending quality time with the Lord, and I was feeling accomplished.
My head knowledge was growing, but my heart seemed to be stuck in the same place. I kept thinking about the verses like, “write this law on your doorposts”, or “bind this on your fingers” “write it on your forehead”, “meditate on these words day and night”. And while I was indeed meditating on the words of the Lord, my information was changing daily, and so the information wasn’t given appropriate time to seep down from my brain to my heart to become a piece of how I operated.
So, I did the only natural thing I knew how. I lamented my sufferings to my squadmate, Caleigh.
“I just want scripture to become inscribed on the walls of my heart, But I don’t know how to get it there.”
“Diana,” Caleigh said, “if the Lord asked you to camp out with Him on one specific passage, a chapter, a verse, or a word, would you?”
I knew it was bad when I answered, “For how long?”
“For as long as it takes to sink in.”
It was like the Lord passed me a shovel. “Time to bury that 11 month goal.”
Well crud.
That’s how I came to be sitting on the flight from Rwanda to South Africa, staring out the window and meditating on the verse “Search me and know me. Test me and see if there is any anxious way in me.” I quoted it, I ruminated on the meaning of it, I prayed it.
I’ve heard people tell me to be careful what I pray for… I’ve never learned hahaha
Fast forward three hours, and I’m standing in line for customs, near the front, unzipping my backpack to pull out my wallet with my passport in it and it’s GONE. Like a crazed maniac, I began to dump everything out of my backpack, reaching down to the bottom of my bag- nowhere.
And I remembered I took it out on the plane, but I couldn’t remember if I put it back.
Hastily, I shoved everything back in, briefly told my team to go through without me, and began swimming upstream to the end of the line, (to my squadmates’ chorus of “um, Diana, the line is the other way”- gotta love their sense of humor hahaha) where my leadership stood to make sure all the fools like me made it through.
I explained the situation, more than a little ashamed of myself, and my buddy Jess and I made our way to the equivalent of a South African “Help” desk.
Now at this moment I want to emphasize the peace that I felt surging through my body. I was not in panic mode, although all things considered I maybe should have been. I stood at the desk and waited for the kind woman to look at me, while the thought, “this is a test” passed through my mind.
Again, be careful what you pray for…
“Test me and know my anxious thoughts”, like being left behind in a South African airport while the rest of the squad gets to sleep in a hotel, or not being let into Bolivia… or not even getting to Bolivia.
No problem.
I knew the Lord was in it all.
When the lady was free, she heard our story, then called the airline. They searched by my seat- nothing.
At this point, I’ve accepted my fate, and I’m about to ask my friends to dig through my big pack and pass me my sleeping pad when my teammate Kayla waves me over from the other side of customs.
“Diana,” she said. “I don’t know if this is the Holy Spirit, but I really feel like it is somewhere obvious. Have Jess check your bag, just in case.”
I slid my bag over to Jess.
“Will you check it, just for another pair of eyes, to see if it’s somewhere I missed?”
Sure enough, thirty seconds later…
“Is this it?”
*facepalm*
For the record, it was wedged in the pocket behind my computer in the corner of my backpack.
Okay, I know, no excuse.
But God is good.
And so is Jess, who immediately looked at me and said, “You know, we don’t have to tell anybody about this.” I just laughed.
It turns out as soon as one of my squadmates heard that I had lost my passport, she prayed, “Lord, may it be somewhere obvious and may it be found by Jess.”
…
…….
…………
Sometimes the Lord tests us, not to be cruel, but to show us that our devotion to Him is more than we even know.
His tests are a gift. His peace is a gift. He always has everything under control.
And I don’t think I’ll ever forget that verse.
