I’m in Cambodia, living at an orphanage with 43 awesome kids in the middle of the mountains. So much is happening and I promise a blog about my time here will be coming shortly, but for now I’m going to take you through what I’ve been processing since leaving Thailand.
I loved our month in Thailand. Suffice it to say, it changed my life. I just can’t shake the things our host Pat taught us. Instead of feeling guilty for being stuck in my Thailand mindset, I’m going to embrace it. I’m going to take everything I’ve learned and live it out every single day. Because what Pat said, and what we learned, wasn’t just a ‘one month lesson’, but they were life altering lessons that I never want to forget.
I’m going to categorize a month of mind-blowing simplicity into four sections, four tools to “How to do Life According to Pat” if you will, and honestly, this is the only way I want to live and where I want my focus to be every day. These aren’t just reminders to help me for the remainder of the Race, but these are tips to really keep me on track to how God has called me to live every day of my life.
1. Living Like Christ – Death to Self
This is probably the easiest to categorize and the one thing Pat wanted us to really understand. It’s not about us anymore. There are so many verses in the Bible that talk about our life post-Christ, and how after we decide to follow Jesus, our life is no longer our own, but a life to serve and glorify God.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2:20)
“And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” (Luke 9: 23-24)
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)
“knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.” (Romans 6:6-7)
Pat made it all seem so simple. Of course we put other’s before ourselves. Of course we are going to take time out of our day to help this person. If the Bible said to do it, or to live life this way, Pat just did it. He really pressed the importance of qualification on us as well. We don’t have to be scholars, we don’t have to have all of the answers and over-complicate things with theology, we just have to be obedient.
2. The Simple Gospel
Pat made the Gospel so simple. Every night we read a chapter of Luke together on the floor of the kitchen and had discussion about it. Stories I’ve heard all of my life, like Jesus healing the blind beggar (Luke 18:35-43), or the Prodigal Son, Pat would explain them in such simple terms. “What we ask for, we shall receive.” “Repent and come home to your Father and he will forgive you.” You don’t have to do anything. Jesus is mercy. Jesus is love.
Pat was a firm believer that whatever the Bible said to do, you did. And whatever the Bible said, don’t do, you didn’t. Simple. The Bible says,
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35)
So in Pat fashion, he welcomed 9 boys into his home who were outcasts in society, addicted to drugs and had no one else to mentor them. He goes into the villages bringing food and nourishment to the elderly who have nothing. He goes to the unreached places where the Bible calls us to go and does what God asks us to do. Simple.
3. One Life at a Time
If you’ve read any of my previous blogs from Thailand, this is one theme that is recurring. Pat was amazing at slowing things down and focusing on one project at a time, one detail at a time, one life at a time. He was quick to stop and take a moment to sit with people and love people. He set his own objectives and schedule for the day aside and really mentored to people. He allowed time for divine appointments to interrupt his days and chose to welcome any disruption of his schedule with grace and love.
We started ministry with Pat by not leaving at our scheduled time, but instead to wander the streets for two hours to look for a lost man. We ended ministry with Pat not going to the scheduled 13 houses to visit and deliver milk, but instead only ministering to three people.
Pat helped us to wrap our heads around divine appointment and to really press into the idea of slowing things down. God doesn’t work events into our worldly schedule and sometimes we actually need to look up from our ‘planned’ life, take a breath, and see if God has something else in mind for our time.
4. “Don’t be Weird”
We as Christians tend to over-spiritualize and over-complicate things when we don’t have to. “Don’t be weird” is probably my favorite Pat phrase that I heard him talk to us about. His description of weird Christians was basically ‘white-washed tomb’ Christians that think they have it all figured out, when in reality they’re lukewarm and farthest from Truth. Aside from the lukewarm bit, Pat really talked to us about the waiting aspect of Christianity when it comes to God’s calling. So many times God calls us to do something: go on a mission trip, volunteer somewhere in the community, donate here or there, raise money for a fundraiser..
Whatever is is, there is always a waiting game. ‘Well let me pray about it for far longer than I need to..’ ‘I need to make sure I don’t have anything planned for that weekend yet (months in advance)‘ ‘I need to first raise half of the funds before I fully commit to something.’
This lack of action and commitment is not what God has called us to do. He called us to go, to do, to be.. God didn’t say, “Go here… Go there… Help him/her.. after a month of praying, after you have free time, after you have enough money..” No God just made a command, and as believers, we have to trust that in our obedience God will provide our needs to be met.
The lack of commitment, obedience and faith that our generation has is something that really bugs me. When God calls, we have to have faith and obey.
Example:
When Jesus was speaking to the first disciples, Simon Peter and Andrew, who were fishermen, he told them “Put down your nets and follow me.” The Bible tells us that Simon Peter and Andrew “immediately left the boat and their father and followed him.” They didn’t say, ‘after we finish today’s catch..’ or ‘let us go home and gather our belongings..’ or ‘first we have to let our father know and get things in order..’
no.. they immediately left the boat and their father and followed him. No questions asked. That’s the kind of obedience God calls us to observe. That’s the kind of obedience Pat taught us in Thailand.
Those are the four things I learned and the four things that I want to take away with me for the rest of my life. I want to continually live a life where I am dying to my selfish ways, living for Christ, putting others before myself and my own agenda and being totally obedient to God’s will for my life.
In the word’s of Pat…. so simple.
