After sharing some of my past blog posts with one of my teammates, she brought to my attention my tendencies to bring out a God lesson from the most surprising situations. After we talked, I realized I have a passion for finding God in moments that maybe others don’t. With that in mind, I must have rubbed off on her because she brought a God lesson out of our task for this month and it got me thinking about sharing with you all.
For month 10 on this crazy World Race, my team and I are living in Transnistria. You may be wondering why you don’t know this country that I speak of. Well that is because it is a sliver of a country between Moldova and Ukraine. The people split from Moldova and are only really recognized as a country by Russia. Anyways, we like to call it Narnia. J This month we are living at a construction site. Think I am just over exaggerating. No, we are literally staying at a construction site with bulldozers, unfinished buildings, piles of rubble, holes here and there, and LOTS of mud. We are partnering with a church here that is in the process of building a new church building and rehabilitation center…with our help. We, the 6 girls of FreedomBound 3:17, are working with another all girls team from our squad and a team from another squad (K-squad) to do whatever is asked of us this month. Our first major task was…
Finding the bricks.
We are thinking there once was a building here in this location that was torn down to make the rubble of where we live, which also contains bricks that the church wants to recycle and use again in their new building. We are the search crew. There are piles of dirt, buried walls, dirt paths and rocks upon rocks that we were to search through for bricks that made it through the demolition of the previous building.
At the first hearing of our task at hand there were no objections or ideas of what it would be like. The reality of our task came quickly the next day when we headed out into our “front yard” to find the bricks. Hour after hour passed and we would stumble upon one brick in a pile of broken tile, and another buried under a mound of rocks. The small bits of hope that one brick would bring us would propel us to keep searching for more. We soon learned this task would greet us every morning for a couple days. The agonizing search was suffocating the bits of hope we found during the days, but God was hard at work revealing a life lesson…once again.
I found that I have this “searching for bricks” mentality when I read my Bible. I spend sometime reading my Bible each day searching for the little bits that will open my eyes to something new or speak to my situation just perfectly. But you know, I have the same experiences in my Bible reading that I do with the construction work we have this month. I find that there are days or moments that I find a “brick” or a nugget from the Bible that is exactly what I needed to hear, but there are many moments in between that I just dig and dig and dig…maybe not finding a “brick” in the beautiful rubble of the Bible. There are those moments that a brick is found and it propels me to dig more into the Bible, but I have to push through the hard digging and not finding anything. Just like my work on the construction site I know there were many times I had to dig past many rocks and piles of dirt to find that brick, and I know God wants me to do the same with His Word. It is all important and will all be used for something in my life.
Matthew 6:33, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
But with all of these ideas circling in my mind I have to check myself. I have to ask myself if I really believe that reading my Bible is all about me finding the “good” stuff that speaks so clearly to my situation or is it about walking through life with God to learn where the bricks are in His Word. I realized this lesson when I heard that a fellow Racer looked at the task of searching for bricks in this way. She started to pray that God would show her where the bricks were on this construction site. Maybe that is what I should pray before I open my Bible?…
So as I go out day in and day out in search of these bricks to help rebuild a rehabilitation center in Moldova, I stand in awe of the work being done not only for this church building but also in my heart as I learn to read the Word with perseverance and hopefulness. We are finding bricks to rebuild a building with strong, sturdy materials, and Christ wants to build us up with strong, sturdy words from the Word.
Matthew 7:24, "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock."
Also, some of my squad mates are still not fully funded and need donations. If you feel the Lord is still leading you to donate to the World Race and continue the work going on around the world through these racers please let me know or you can visit their blogs at:
http://celestehouston.theworldrace.org
http://anthonypinto.theworldrace.org
http://jessicacalvin.theworldrace.org
http://chelseamiller.theworldrace.org
http://robertolivas.theworldrace.org
