I think the title for this blog is appropriate because it encompasses both aspects of my life and possibly squad life for this week in the micro and macro realm. One being, I’m learning a few things about what I have to surrender and the other being how I’m reminded that the gospel turns everything upside down. The theme of surrender is starting to hit home for me because God working into areas of my life where I’m not letting him operate. I had to deal with some social pains this month because there were a few instances where I felt that I was not fitting into community on my squad and my typical response is escapism into music. There was even a point when I started craving the solitude of my former apartment back home before I had to slap myself back to reality. Throughout all of that, God was constantly calling to me to go to him and leave it at his feet but I kept refusing to do so, putting up futile resistance. And now I’m learning more about what I must surrender. In one way or another, me and everyone on this squad had to come to a complete surrender like the British at Yorktown to what Jesus did when he came in and turned our world upside down. While our squad was together we have been learning a little about each other and hearing testimonies. I get to hear from others about how Jesus came into their lives and turned their lives upside down. Not only that, but what people on my squad have been through in their lives is a reminder that our worlds have been changed by Jesus.
Our work here in the Mayan Jungle of Guatemala is at a close. The time I spent here was one of having to apply Godly discipline and learning lessons to carry on through the rest of the race and also being reminded about what it is I signed up for. Last month in Honduras was like being on the frontlines of communicating the word of God and giving food to kids with God-given compassion. Teaching and communicating the gospel along with very deep thinking are strongpoints for me. So last month was not that hard for me.
Here in the jungle, I felt that we were in more of a support role for the gospel than we were last month. Being an obscure servant was something I found very challenging this month but later when I saw how we were helping the ministry function it gave me more thankfulness and satisfaction that I’m involved in a process of training missionaries to be sent out who will make disciples. Before the race, I got a lot of my self-worth from making disciples and I would beat myself up about it if nothing seemed be happening. That invited a lot of performance-based believing and self-condemnation into my life and it felt that God was more distant from me because of that.
Seeing how my efforts here are being tied to these missionaries around me who are being trained to go out with the gospel has made me feel more confident about how I’m connected somehow to every person they will reach because I served them. We only do that because something changed in our lives first because Jesus came in and turned everything upside down. My self-worth cannot completely come from making disciples but from the identity that Christ gave to us. Hopefully, this world will be turned upside down through these missionaries who are being trained here. It is my hope to see the world turned upside down for Christ because of the efforts of the Latin and South American missionaries we served and spent time with over this month.
