This month we have been working in coffee shops trying to make friends and build contacts. It’s not manual labor, it’s not children’s ministry, it’s not prison ministry. And yet, I am so exhausted. And I don’t fully know why. Some reasons I can think of:
We are halfway through the Race and I am getting burned out.
We are living in very tight quarters this month and alone time isn’t a thing.
My quiet times (intentional time with Jesus – usually praying and reading the Bible) haven’t been very “quiet” because there always seems to be a distraction.
But I know it is more than all of that. When we have “off” time during the day, I can’t seem to focus my mind to be productive. I try to blog, read a book, read my Bible, talk to the waiter at the coffee shop, or even play solitaire. But nothing gives my mind rest. Naps make me more tired than when I started so I don’t nap. I can’t unclear my mind.
I sit. For hours I just sit, sitting, staring into my empty coffee cup. I am restless. My heart has no peace.
We had church tonight, Saturday. Two of us were asked to speak for our team. To give a testimony or just bring a word for the church. I had planned on speaking about our time in Thailand – about how God allowed us to see 8 people come to Christ during our month. Surprisingly I didn’t feel nervous at all. But God had other plans for me about what I would speak about.
Worship was all in Albanian but I knew most of the songs by the tune. I was able to sing along with most of them. One song in particular, All In All, is one of my favorites from my childhood. As we sang, God made the line “When I am dry, You fill my cup” stick out to me. Suddenly my heart was beating out of my chest.
God whispered to me “This is what I want you to tell everyone today.”
My heart was crashing and now I was nervous. But God I had to speak in five minutes! I hadn’t prepped a ton for my giving my testimony but now I was going off of ZERO PREP. But I couldn’t make the pounding in my ears stop so I knew I had no choice. I began praying that the Holy Spirit would speak through me and allow people to hear what they needed to hear from my message.
When I went up there, I went up with no Bible and no notebook. Erion, our host, was translating for me. I began by admitting that God had changed what I was going to share about. Then I told them what God had told me. That I was tired because I was dry and I had not been letting God fill my cup. I had not let Him be my All in All. Even though I was still reading my Bible and praying everyday, I was not allowing Him to take control of me. I was not remembering why He put us on this earth in the first place – to tell people about Jesus.
I had spent the last six months pouring out. I thought resting on our “rest days” that we get once a week was enough. I thought not resting during our debriefs (a few days at the end of each month where the whole squad comes together to share about their last month) wasn’t actually hurting me. I thought not having a pastor that I understood each week wasn’t affecting me (even with translation, it is still usually difficult to understand the pastor’s message). I thought having time alone with God everyday was enough. I thought manual labor or children’s ministry were the only ministries that you truly needed to rest from. I have been so wrong!
I had forgotten how to rest. That may sound strange but it wasn’t my body that needed rest, but my spirit. My spirit needed a rest. It needed to be poured into again because I was empty. And my emptiness was showing. I was frustrated with my teammates because of our small living situation. I was getting frustrated at waiters when they couldn’t give me change for my big bills to pay for my coffee. I was frustrated when our friend was trying to help us but it wasn’t in the way I wanted. I was a mess. And I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Praying wasn’t working. Reading the Bible wasn’t working. Reading Christian books wasn’t working. I didn’t know how to figure out what was wrong.
But when I got up there in front of the congregation at church, suddenly, something inside me was changed. Whatever analogy you want to use is fine: a switch was turned on, or my cup became full. But while I was speaking, I was flooded with crazy and incredible peace. So much peace that I actually began choking back words and quickly tried to end my message before I started blubbering for what would have seemed like no reason. God’s spirit swept over me and filled me up again. I had been pouring out but now I was filled again. God indeed was my all in all again.
Once I had finished I sat down and felt so much clarity. It was like the wall that had been between me and Jesus was gone. A wall I didn’t even realize was there! I could reach Him again. My heart was so full and bursting over, I didn’t know what to do with myself the rest of service. After service we had planned to go play basketball with one of our new friends. I asked if I could skip and go home to have some time with Jesus. My teammates said yes and I basically ran the half hour walk home. But on the way, God showed me the mountains.
He had done this before in Nepal as well. I had been struggling with finding God in Nepal and felt like He was being silent and ignoring me. After a bad night of feeling that way, I had woken up in the “jungle” and went to the roof for breakfast. However, when I got there, I saw mountains in the distance! How had I never noticed my beautiful and beloved mountains before?!? God told me that even though He seemed hidden from me, just like the mountains, He was still there and had not left me. Wow. Thank you Lord.
So as I quickly walked home looking at the mountains in the horizon, I noticed more mountains in the distance that I had never noticed before! I literally don’t know how I had missed them, unless clouds had been covering them the whole time or something. But today I saw them and God told me that He was with me again. He hadn’t exactly been hidden from me like He was in Nepal, but He wanted to remind me that He was there and still loving on me. God loves talking to me through mountains because He knows how much I love them.
When I got home, the only thing my heart wanted to do was worship. I climbed the outdoor stairwell as high as I could (the roof is unfortunately someone’s apartment but I was as close as I could be to the roof) and began worshipping to songs on my iPhone. I probably looked crazy with my arms raised to the sky and singing at the top of my lungs but the joy that had overtaken me could not be contained. As I worshipped from that height (being high up in the air is my favorite thing) I watched the beautiful sunset slip away. I hadn’t been able to see the sunset in almost a month and it made me want to cry to see its beauty again. God was just loving on me nonstop and I was soaking it all in.
Galatians 6:9 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
As I was reading through Galatians a few days ago, God pointed this verse out to me and said it should be one of the two verses I memorize this month. I wrote it in my notebook and have been committing it to memory. Two different people in two very different ways have brought this verse up to me today. No coincidence. I knew I HAD become weary in doing good and didn’t want to do good anymore. I didn’t want to help children or meet new people or tell people why I was traveling the world. I just wanted to be a normal human being who was in a different country for fun. Not someone on the World Race traveling with 50 other people. I love my squad, but we tire each other out. But we wouldn’t trade this time for anything. I needed a reminder that God is my everything, my All in All. I needed God to “fill up my cup” so I would stop growing weary in doing good.
Thank you God for giving me peace and clarity right when I needed it. Thank you for answering my prayers and loving on me in the special ways that you do. If you, my friend, are growing weary, do not give up! God is right beside you and will fill you up again so that you have the strength to continue on in His work. He is proud of you.
