Riding back on the bus through Bosnian countryside
On the World Race, and I think missionaries in general, we learn just as much as we attempt to share with others. One person I talked to recently noted that very well it may be the tough times…the open learning process and struggle that shares truth with people that need to be discipled…in every nation. We just came back from Bosna i Hercegovina on an amazing adventure to share Christ, but I want to share the other end of the last blog I posted first – something else God has been sharing with me during my time in Bosnia. Because I don’t think I’m the only one that deeply struggles with these questions. The following is a journal entry that I wrote with Jesus on my bus ride back into Croatia last night while travelling through beautiful mountain country at sunset.
Jesus – I want to be yours, and you to be mine. And as part of my relationship with you, I want you to select my beauty – a reflection of you – while I’m here on earth. As my gift – to love.
I’m sorry for coveting what isn’t my gift – or my gift yet; maybe before that gift is ready. For mistrusting you and cheating myself out of someone beautiful you want to give me and to draw me … and her … into greater intimacy with you. Whomever she is – is precious – and wonderful – and beautiful to me – for exactly the way you’ve created me and her!
You have created me to see beauty the way I do for a reason – and I think you want to satisfy my desire in that way for that reason. The beauty in my wife, if that’s what you desire for me in this lifetime, will draw me closer to you; I will see you in her.
In the end, the greatest gift you will give me through all of the gifts you give me is the ability and desire to deeply love you and those around me.
If you see best, the wife you will give me will not be a distraction from you, but intimately part of the love between me and you. And I will be part of the love between you and her.
How do I deal will all of this desire now, though? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m learning to ask Jesus to show me His beauty when I pray. I love cuddling with my creator in my sleeping bag in the morning – crazy, eh? And once again even today, God is releasing away the stress in me through a thunderstorm. I don’t know how all of this is supposed to work. But I think God may be able to satisfy our longings even here on earth in just the way we need when we give up crying for what we don’t have, and simply give our desires to Him to satisfy in whatever way He knows we need best now.
I think God created us uniquely and for a purpose. And those uniquenesses and purposes He desires…WAITS to satisfy in the MOST PERFECT way possible in His way and His timing! We see beauty the way we do because He created us that way, and waits for us to draw into Him so He can satisfy us once we stop struggling to fend for ourselves and simply receive what He is waiting to offer us.
Bosnia was amazing, because we chose to let go of our expectations to allow our creator to work. I look forward to figuring out how to blog that experience as we prepare to head through the United States for the first time in 9 months on our way to Guatemala!
Jesus, my heart is fickle. I want you to set my gaze upon where you want it. Right now, I REALLY TRUST YOU; I cannot trust myself. Please take my eyes where you want them to be, set them upon where I want to be – where you want them to be. Commit my heart to the beauty you want me to know. I want you, and I don’t know what’s best for me. Take me, take my heart. Now more than ever, I’m done trying to figure this out on my own.
Photo: Forest in the clouds in Bosnia
