(I wrote this back at the beginning of my time in the Philippines)
I sit here in Manila, with a plethora of ministries at my fingertips and options galore of ways I can go out and serve people. Yet each new ministry I try, just isn’t what I long for. Passion and life don’t rise up in me. I know that everything must be rooted in love – if it is not compelled by love it is utterly worthless. So do I have no love?? I don’t think that is true, although I have learned that I can’t love unless the Father fills me up (things you learn living communally). But my point is, that nothing is really making me come alive inside. I feel disconnected and lost at times. Sometimes, I feel like I am just doing good things. I didn’t come around the world to do good things. I am not a humanitarian. I am a Christ-follower! So these are the questions that have been plaguing my mind lately….
How can I truly affect this community for Christ? Is it visiting the homes, talking with women? Is it playing with the children or taking care of babies? Is it going to the medical clinic or planting trees or having women’s bible studies? Maybe those things are all I can do and I have to trust Jesus to work in their lives for the rest.
I think those things are necessary and good because the build relationships and propel you to making an investment. It is breeding ground for the love Christ has for these people. It engages you with their stories and their lives (very good and very necessary).
But I have been struggling with how I can move from simply doing nice things to bringing a true love and passion for Christ to each life I encounter. It is not in me to settle for just doing things. So I have been studying Jesus – What did He do when He entered a town? How did He talk to people? How did love them? What happened in the end?
Does it come with a powerful and passionate teaching guided by the Holy Spirit? Does it come when we speak the truth that we know? Does that really get inside the people? Does it come with miracles? I don’t know. But I do know that I need to pray BIG. I need to go for things that will not happen unless God shows up. I need to see that power at work. And I also know that it doesn’t come without prayer. My prayers are deeply and significantly a part of what God does on this Earth. He chooses to work though me!
So I am going to that place – a place where it is out of my hands. I am making myself vulnerable before the Lord. And I am still trying to understand exactly what I am to do on this Earth. As I go, I am realizing that everything must be rooted in love and everything must be for His glory.
Please keep me accountable to this higher calling (even as I am in Latin America). And please share your answers, questions and thoughts with me. And I pray that together we will not let comfort surround us. That out of our intimacy with Christ, boldness will flow.
Stay tuned for thoughts as the month came to an end.
