You’ve probably been wondering where I’ve been all month (at least those of you who don’t have a Facebook). Honduras has easily been the month with the most down time so far and yet, it’s the only one I haven’t written a blog for yet. Irony is a funny thing. I could make excuses like we didn’t have access to good wifi (or any wifi) very often, which was true, but honestly, I really don’t have a legitimate excuse. So I sincerely apologize for the lack of communication on my part this month.
My team and I have spent the last few weeks in the remote mountains of San Juan, Honduras. We stayed with a pastor and his family and helped minister to his congregation all month. This included prepping the church and preaching on Sundays, meeting with church leaders to teach on prayer and leadership, venturing into the mountains to pray over and relationally reach out to the community, and sharing our testimonies with and praying for people calling into a radio station reaching over 200,000 people.
This month has taught me a lot about the importance of learning how to rest, empowering others, and letting go of control. At the end of our month in Nicaragua, I had begun to get somewhat burned out by the ways I made completing tasks a priority over the relationships with my teammates. Instead of empowering them, I took control over certain situations because, as ugly as it sounds, I trusted myself to complete certain tasks better than I trusted them to handle them. Another thing I found myself doing was inviting them to replace my gifting instead of pushing them into their own unique gifting, which is just as bad as taking over control. The Lord showed me that I was more concerned with my own success and failure than I was with the personal growth of my teammates. I wanted things to get done because if they weren’t, it would make my team look bad. It would make me look bad. And that looked a lot like failure to me.
Why am I so afraid of failure? Because, in some way, I still link that to my identity. But the truth is, I am not defined by my failure or success. Not only does failing not make me a failure, it often produces more growth than success ever could. In failure, I learn more about who I am in Christ and how that really is the only thing that matters in the end. My identity is found in Jesus Christ, my Savior and Lord. I don’t have to be successful. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to have it all together. I don’t have to always be right. Who I am is enough because He says I am enough. My worth was settled at the cross, and He has deemed me worthy.
In the end, it often comes down to the choice of obedience. As one of my squad leaders put it, the Lord doesn’t call us to succeed, He calls us to obedience.
Funny what a month in the mountains can teach you. In a way, it was a much needed, God-ordained season of rest for my team and I, and we soaked up every minute of it.
