“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Galatians 6:9
We are on our way out of month 6, and as the saying goes “Time flies when you’re having fun!.” We are officially over the halfway point of our race. We have shared the gospel, loved and held orphans, we’ve experienced first hand all sorts of spiritual warfare, and now even trudged through knee-deep snow daily to pray for the Lord to do big things in a small gypsy village.
We’ve had an exciting 6 months and are no longer novice world racers. It’s interesting, I've learned, what being at the halfway point can do emotionally. We’re no longer in the honeymoon phase of being missionaries, and I’ve begun to feel how long a year truly is when you’re away from all you know and love. We are in the thick of it. We are out of the exciting beginning and not yet to the end, which is why Galatians 6:9 has been such an encouragement to me recently.
We took a major leap of faith in trusting that we were called to the World Race, and now we’re trusting again that Lord’s purpose will prevail! Only He knows why we’ve been to the countries we have and only He knows what He is doing and changing in our lives through this year.
Each Sunday morning we have our own church service at our house and a few weeks ago our teammate, Matt, spoke on Abraham sacrificing Isaac. He talked about how we often think that when the Lord asks us to make a sacrifice, consenting to do it is equivalent to the actual sacrifice…that somehow our journey in making the sacrifice will be enough. His point was that no, Abraham getting all of the supplies, building a fire, and essentially going through the motions still didn’t prove his true heart. It wasn’t until he actually tied his precious son up and was ready to kill him, because his Lord told him to, that God said, Wait, stop!” The interesting connection that Matt made was for us to consider what we left behind as our personal Isaacs. Our family and friends who have loved us and supported us every step of the way, but whom we then leave in order to be obedient to the Lord's call are what we are called to sacrifice for this year. In the same way Isaac must have been terrified and utterly confused, our year of abandonment may have seemed crazy to some.
However, it’s this illustration that has reminded me that 1. We are beyond blessed to have the friends and family we have to consider leaving them a sacrifice, and 2. He has asked us to make this sacrifice. He has asked us to be willing to miss holidays and weddings and even the little things that we aren’t even aware that we’re missing. Through this I’ve become content to know that He is enough. He is worth it. He has asked this of us and although difficult at times, we choose to honor Him because we know that His plan is bigger than ours. We know that whether we get to actually reap the harvest ourselves or not, we must not become weary in doing His work. We are at the halfway point, but we are only at the halfway point. We have 5 months left of this special call and that is 5 months of sharing His love with the nations!
