If you didn’t know, Swaziland is a place where everything is go with the flow and spontaneous. Nothing has a time or schedule. You could ask someone to meet you at 2pm on Wednesday and they would show up around 5pm on Thursday. Wherever the wind takes you I guess. People love spending time with you. You are never an inconvenience. One time we were walking to a market down the street and ended up talking to our friend Miso for an hour on the side of the road. No rush, no place to be only good conversation. Another day my teammates and I were at the local SaveMor(the grocery store) and we waited inside the kumby(a small bus) for 45 minutes until it was full. My natural inclination would be to check my watch and internally stress myself out because the longer I sat there the more impatient I became. But it taught me that as much as I like having a schedule it is so freeing living without one. Sometimes waking up and not knowing at all what the day is going to look like, but knowing that wherever your feet take you, the Lord intentionally put you there.
I like to envision God giving us a blank canvas every morning we wake up. God is the ultimate artist and we are the brush. Sometimes the canvas that day looks abstract with a lot of different colors and other days it is simple with only a few brush strokes. Everyday has the potential to be something great, as long as we allow God to take control and paint away. And in the end, we will look back on our life full of canvases and see that each day was different yet beautiful in its own specific way. We will look back and see that the Lord used each and everyday to create a masterpiece. It’s like those picture collages people use where you take a bunch of pictures and then when you zoom out, all of those individual pictures create one overarching picture.
It gives me hope in the times where I don’t know what God is doing and allows me to rest in the fact that his plans are good even when I’m unsure. In the times where all I want to do is cling to control but God reminds me to open my hands to Him and let go. Those things that are hard and uncomfortable are what allow us to grow. I’ve found that my natural inclination is to shove all of the difficult and messy feelings under a rug, which never does anything but harm. Becoming more like Jesus isn’t easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It is a slow process of riding the inclinations of our flesh and renewing it with the abundance that comes from God.
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” -2 Corinthians 3:18
A diamond doesn’t start pretty and shiny. It is an ashy black rock that needs to be cut and shaved in different angles and motions. It eventually turns Into the shiny diamond that you see on wedding rings, but it didn’t start that way, it took time and hard work for it to get there. As much as I’d love to say I am a shiny diamond today, I know I am far from that. But I am certainly on my way, until I reach my final destination.
Our sanctification is a lifelong process. It doesn’t matter where you are, the Lord is changing your heart. As I have been in Swaziland, the Lord has reminded me to dig deeper. To continue to prune and sharpen myself even when it hurts. At the end of our lives we want to come out strong and shinier than we started.
“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” -John 15:2
I think we should all learn from the Swazi people that life isn’t all about ourselves and what we want for our lives, but it’s about living each day and taking whatever the Lord gives you and running with it. You may not know when the next kumby will show up, it may be 20 minutes or an hour, but that’s what the Lord had planned. You may wonder where your friend is when you told them you would meet them at 2pm on Wednesday and they show up the next day, but that’s what the Lord had planned. You may miss dinner because you saw your friend on the side of the road and talked for an hour, but that’s what the Lord had planned. When we have an expectation for the day, it will never be met. When you come to the Lord with no expectations, He will blow your mind. Try it sometime. The Lord will shape you in ways you never imagined, just come to Him with open hands. You will start to see that the canvases begin to look brighter and more full of color. And when you zoom out the overarching canvas of your life will be abundantly bright and a reflection of God’s handiwork.
“Like newborn infants , long for the spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” – 1 Peter 2:2-3
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” – Romans 12:2
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you. Once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- in whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” -Ephesians 2:1-3
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are lead by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” -Galatians 5:16-18
