Hello everyone, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope all is well and you’re enjoying the holiday season. This is the first Christmas I have ever been away from my family, and as much as I would love to see you all I still had a good Christmas.
My Christmas consisted of staying up to three in the morning on Christmas Eve celebrating with the Church we are staying at. That might sound a bit abnormal but is more of a snapshot of what this month has been. I have been staying in a small Church in a small city in Northwest Malaysia. The culture of the people we are around this month is very different then back home. We stay up very late, wake up very late, lounge around a lot, and have almost no concrete schedule. We typically don’t know what we are going to do until it is time to do it.
Even though Malaysia has a small Christian population we still got to go around Christmas Caroling with the Church. We went all around the city with about 40 of us singing Christmas carols at houses, eating food and praying for people. I was designated the role of Santa Clause, thankfully for only a night because playing Santa in 80 degree heat isn’t something you want to do longer than you have too. Looking back this month has been interesting as we wind down to these last moments before heading to the Philippines. I just found out I will be tenting on an Island with another team in a rural area that hasn’t had missionaries before. So I am excited for the adventure ahead.
Something I have been learning lately is having more of a trust in God’s word alone regardless of what is happening around us. I got to speak to the whole squad about this at the end of Thailand. It is easy to become fixated on the storms we face instead of the one who has power over them. In the book of Numbers the Lord sends people to spy out the promise land. Upon return they are terrified because their enemies appear more powerful then they. The Lord rebukes them because their eyes were fixated on their enemy, and themselves as well as those around them instead of the Lord.
I spent sometime looking up on how the Bible tells us to deal with our struggles. Almost everything had to do with the Lord. Fixing our eyes on him and rejoicing in him for what he has done, is doing, and will do. Jesus has many good things to say about those who believe in him: We are free, alive, loved, members of his family, and will reign with him forever.
Perhaps we don’t always feel it, but our confidence isn’t even based in how we feel, but what God’s word says. Even Jesus felt “sorrow to the point of death” and cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When everything was against him he still trusted that he would be delivered because God’s word said he would.
Everything else we could possibly put our faith in except the word of God is quite literally wasting away. Our enemy is going to do anything to make us doubt, fear, and take our eyes off the Lord. We aren’t going to understand everything, but we don’t have to. Jesus tells us we can have peace in him in the midst of storms. Yes storms are among us, but so is Christ.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
PS: Thank you for all the prayers I have been in good spirits and hope God returns the blessing:)
