Wow. I never thought God would be able to teach me so much in such a short amount of time. I am so overwhelmed by his love and mercy for me everyday. I have gotten frustrated with him and I have learned so much about who he is and the relationship he wants me to have with him. He wants it to be a two way street. He wants it to be a real and thriving relationship. He wants to communicate with me. He wants me to listen. He wants me to exist within his presence.
I’ve wanted to hear the God’s voice for a long time. I often hear people say that they hear God talk to them but I had never really experienced that for myself. When I would hear this I would be come jealous because I thought that God didn’t talk to me like he did to other people.
So then comes Haiti, a place that blew what little expectations I had right out of the water…but that’s for the other blog I’ll be posting. From the beginning of the month I started questioning whether I should I take my malaria meds this month or not (sorry mom). I had heard people say “yes, take them it’s Haiti for goodness sakes!” And others say “I’m not taking them, you’ll be fine.” To be honest, I had no idea what to do. Then someone said, “Why don’t you just ask God what to do?” My reaction to that was basically, “why would God even care about something so trivial in my life?” But because I still had no clue what to do, I decided to ask God about it and when I did I felt like he kept saying over and over again, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” I can’t explain how I knew that it was what God wanted me to do but somehow I just knew. Then my first week in Haiti I only got one bug bite and I can probably count how many I have gotten thus far on only my two hands. God really does have me in this. God really does care about the trivial things in my life, just like a friend would. He wants me to trust him and put my life fully in his loving arms.
But of course, like any relationship, frustrations came with asking and listening to God. Sometimes he doesn’t answer that clearly or it seems like he isn’t answering at all. Take the other night for instance, the squad was doing some practice in listening prayer and we all were asking God to give us a word or picture for another person. I was getting nothing so I started arguing with the Holy Spirit and getting frustrated because he wasn’t giving me anything for this person. Then I heard it’s okay to argue with me and be frustrated…that’s what I want you to say, for yourself and the other person. Turns out it was definitely what we both needed to hear.
Last month taught me that God is always speaking to us in some sort of way, we just have to take the time to discern and listen to what he is trying to tell us. Like any true friend, he won’t leave me because we are going through somewhat of a rough or dry patch. He wants me to learn to be content knowing that he is always there no matter what. God never forgets me. God sees me. God hears me. Haiti was a place for my relationship with God to start to grow into a true two-way street relationship instead of me just always doing the talking.
