For the past month, I have been having a hard time with ‘being here now’. With being in the holiday season, thinking about people from back home, and what I plan to do when I get back home; I have thought a lot of being back home and not being here on the World Race in Peru. Over Thanksgiving, I am very glad that I chose to ‘stay present’ with the people around me. If I didn’t choose to do this simple thing, I would have missed out on the fun and community that I experienced over Thanksgiving.
I feel like I have grown in my walk with the Lord. I have enjoyed my morning time with the Lord. It is harder to choose into doing it, because there isn’t a set time anymore to do it. I have been slowing reading through the New Testament and it has been really good to see new things that I haven’t seen before. I also have taken up writing down my prayers in my journal. I like to write down my prayers, and at the same time it is nice to be able to look back on prayers that God has answered. Also, over this past month I have been able to read several books. This is mostly because I was sick for a few days. They were:
1. A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards
2. Crazy Love by Francis Chan
3. The Way of the Heart by Henri J. M. Bowen
These books were really good. God used ‘Crazy Love’ to help me to not stress with doing treasurer things. The day that I read part of the book, I was feeling done with being treasurer. I wanted to stop. The day was hard. With getting change for the other guys, buying food, calculating the team budget, and paying our ministry host, I was done. I typed down on my phone the reasons I wanted to be done, the reasons I should stay, and reasons that had me in the middle. I also wrote down the things I could do about it. ‘Crazy Love’ stated this:
“God can see that my intensity and anxiety are ministry related. I worry because I take his work seriously.
Right?
But then there is that perplexing command: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4). You’ll notice that it doesn’t end with “… unless you are doing something extremely important.” No, it’s a command for all of us, and it follows with the charge, “Do not be anxious about anything” (vs. 6).
That came as a pretty staggering realization. But what I realized next was even more staggering.
When I am consumed by my problems-stressed out about my life, my family, and my job-I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God’s command to always rejoice. In other words, that I have a “right” to disobey God because of the magnitude of my responsibilities.”
This hit me like a train. I had never seen stressing about things being a sin. This has changed my perspective on many things. I decided to continue on with being the treasurer for my team. I know days in the future will be hard, but it is what I do with that is the key.
With ‘choosing the present’, I will also choose to rejoice in the Lord always. I am glad God showed me this earlier than later, because this will change a lot for the next 6 months on the Race.
