Yesterday
I was frustrated. I was annoyed. I was losing motivation. You see,
the 2 weeks we’ve spent in Phuket and on Bangala Road trying
desperately to show the bar girls, bar owners, and even random French
guys here on business the love and the hope
of Jesus has taken it’s toll. I’ve had 2 scheduled meetings end up
in no-shows and countless invitations to meet my girl Pearl (name has
been changed) for coffee or lunch has resulted in nothing. Every
night we head to the bar and I spend hour after hour with Pearl,
playing Connect Four, drinking juice, and hearing her
talk about how she’s worked in the bars since she was 16, how she has
a 4 year old son who lives hours away with her parents and how she
really just wants to open up a fitness gym but she doesn’t have the
money or resources. Every night I walk away from that bar while my
heart breaks for Pearl. I feel helpless as I leave her at the bar
awaiting a customer to come buy her for the night, praying that God
will keep her safe so I can see her the following night.
Last
night I was just over it. We are in our last week of ministry and it
just seems like there will be no fruit and everything I’m doing is
pointless. I was listening to music and writing in my journal,
trying to work through my feelings. I wrote about how I’m feeling
unmotivated. I wrote about how I didn’t want to listen to the lies
that I’m not doing anything useful but it’s hard not to. I wrote
about how I know God has a plan for Pearl and Bangala Road but I’m
annoyed because I’m not going to see it unfold. I wrote about how I
literally and truly love these girls and my heart is breaking more
and more for them.
At
this point I started to get even more annoyed because it’s all God’s
fault that my heart is broken. If it wasn’t for Him than this month
would have been a breeze and I would have left with my heart in tact.
But then I stopped. Something that was playing on my iPod finally
caught my attention. It was a Chris Rice song and the chorus was
this:
“Blessed
are those who have not seen and yet believe.
Blessed
are the hands that keep giving but never receive.
Blessed
is the heart that gets broken but keeps holding on for another day.
Because
that’s what it means to live by faith.”
And
then, like a swift kick in my butt, I got it. It doesn’t matter if I
see Pearl get out of the bar. It doesn’t matter if I lead my French
friend to Jesus. It doesn’t matter if I can get the ladyboy to be ok
with the man God has made him to be. That’s not what God’s asking me
to do. He’s asking me to get out there and keep pressing on. To
keep giving, to keep loving, to keep breaking my heart time and time
again because that’s what faith is.
I
want to ask that you pray for me along with my team as we end this
week of ministry. Pray that we keep pressing on, pushing through the
hard times, the frustrating moments and the lack of motivation and do
what God has called us to do…live by faith.
