Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing
of your faith produces steadfastness. James 1:2-4
Pain is something I’ve experienced far more of on this race then i’d personally prefer. From physical, emotional, and spiritual pain I’ve had the joy of experiencing a wide spectrum of hurts and difficulties or “trials” if you will. Yet I still hate this verse! How in the heck am I supposed to count my trials as pure joy? That doesn’t even make any sense at all! Pain sucks, of every form. I will admit though it’s in the shadows of these struggles that I’ve learned and grown more in the Lord then I could’ve had I not gone through some of the stuff I’ve gone through. For that I count my pain a privilege.
This race I’ve experienced the loss of family members and loved ones. Death hurts, it doesn’t matter where you’re at in the world, it still stings. not being able to be there intensified my heart break seeing as I couldn’t make it to the funerals. A sweet little message to your family and friends saying “i’m praying for you” just doesn’t seem to hold much weight in my eyes knowing that the people I love are thousands of miles away suffering and all I can do is tell them i’m praying… This brought me spiritually to a weird spot. Almost a sense of feeling guilty that I’m here and they’re all there dealing with what I can only imagine as hell here on earth. The loss of a son or a brother doesn’t seem to bring a comforting feeling of, Oh he’s in a much better place we’ll see him again one day. Although these things seemingly true, reality is they are there right now totally torn and broken apart missing their loved one in what seems like complete and total darkness when all you want is that one simple question answered, why? What do you say to that? What can you say? Seeing their struggle compared to mine broke my heart even more. Welp God all I can do is pray…
What did I learn through this process? Well a whole range of things. A, I bury emotions when things become hard or difficult and I don’t feel like dealing. B, I try to make everything on the outer surface seem fine so that I can perform “ministry” well or so that people wont worry about me. And C, I have absolutely no idea what or how the grieving process works. Thats a broad spectrum of feelings and emotions that are easier dealt with in the open as opposed to being covered up and saying with a smile on my face, Oh i’m fine! How are you doing? Months later the day came when my “emotions” boiled to a head and I found myself overwhelmed with heart break, pain, worry, stress, fear, and whatever else you can think of that sounds good and negative. Thanks to our squad coach Clint Bokelman, he walked me into what the grieving process looked like.
I got alone with the Lord and instead of me telling him what I thought I knew and what I thought I needed I allowed him to show me. He showed me where and why I was hurting which seemed obvious but then he took it a step further. He showed me different periods of my life when things would seem to knock me down and I would just brush it off or throw it on the back burner as opposed to dealing. He showed me a bunch of unnecessary stress and worry that I had been carrying for so many years. But he never left me there. In the mysterious way that he does he began mending my heart. He began breaking me of chains I never knew I had. Yeah this is a process that I’m still in. Who knows for how long. What he has done though is used “death” one of the hardest forms of pain I think as humans we will ever have to experience and is bringing Life! Someway somehow he’s taken my junk from years past and intertwined them with the loss of loved ones and brought liberation. In the process of learning more about myself he’s showed me more of who he is.
You know as men, the world tells us that emotions make you weak. That it’s not ok to express how you feel. That you’ve got to come across as tough and strong and that you’ve got it all together. In a sense yeah I agree but at the same time there’s just something about being honest with where you’re at and how you’re feeling. I’ve received an astronomical amount of Godly strength just from being open and honest. I’m not trying to toot a self righteous horn. I’m just trying to get my point across of the fact that honesty and vulnerability has gotten me through situations that i’d never be able to get through on my own. Anybody can tough a situation out but it takes some humility, some real strength, to come to your brothers or your sisters and say Hey this is where i’m at. This is my struggle. This is where I need help. Or coming to the end of yourself and having no place to go but hitting your knees and saying, God Help Me! I need you man. I don’t know where else to turn or what else to do. That’s a hard place to be. Especially in a world that tells you to deal with it on your own but it’s in these places of brokenness where God can begin to work. I’m not saying that he wants us to suffer but in a sense it’s almost like he’s saying great! I’m right here check this out. Watch what I can I do! There’s so many hurting people in this world it’s no wonder we are to count our trials as pure joy. They give God an awesome opportunity to blow our minds.
This race has also shown me brokenness. Coming into the race my definition of brokenness was very shallow. Yeah you’re going to see brokenness. Cool, so like homeless people and hungry children? Yes homeless and hungry children. How about a family with about 6 kids in slums in India with nothing more to eat then sautéed bananas from the community banana tree, while their dad sits in their hut drinking up all of their money. Or 9 family members dying from poisonous mushrooms in Nepal because they didn’t have anything else to eat. Or numerous lepers using shoes on their hands to walk around because their limbs are slowly rotting away. Or naked children walking up to your car holding a naked baby, not really holding their hand out just starring at you with days of dried snot on their noses covered in dirt. How do you prepare for this? It’s easy to read but these memories are forever. I can’t see this stuff and just go back to America and pretend like this isn’t really happening everywhere I turn. It’s painful. It’s heart breaking. It hurts and it’s real. This is what it looks like to take on the heart and mind of Christ. This is why he came and this is why he’s here.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18
Through all the pain and suffering I’ve experienced personally and through others in this world. I’ve come to one extreme revelation that has altered the course of my life. We think about God and we think about how magnificent he is. How huge and how mighty and powerful and wonderful he is. It’s absolutely one of the most mind boggling things for me to think about. It’s unbelievable how impossible it is to try to even slightly comprehend the magnitude of our Father. Much less that he would even find the slightest little bit of worth for us itty bitty little humans. As huge as he is it’s crazy to think that the human race might be one of the greatest thoughts he ever had. Someone said this once and it blew my mind. Or in Psalm 139 it talks about him knitting us together in our mother’s womb. Each and every one of us were that delicate and important to him. That’s crazy to me I don’t care how elementary or basic it sounds it will always blow me away but all that aside I came to one of the most mind boggling revelations of the fathers heart for me.
So a few weeks ago my team and I had this real cool opportunity to get away from ministry for a week and hit the woods. Our intentions behind this trek was to allow God to minister to us so that we could better minister to others. We also needed some team unity and were looking to grow together. For me I always find and learn so much about myself in the struggle of physically being pushed past my limits. Especially when you’re in a spot where you can’t just quit and finish later or turn around and go home. So we found this awesome 5 day trek on line, one web site said it was a very hard hike. The other web site said it was moderate. So I took the average and figured it’d be kind of tough. That it was. I think it was a little harder then any of us expected. It was probably the most beautiful hiking i’ve ever seen in my life though. At the same time it was extremely hard. We hiked through all kinds of terrain. Glacier, river beds, grass, sand, mud, cow terds you name it we hiked through it. And about 3 days into the hike tired worn out ready to be done. God shows up. Again I started thinking about how massive and beautiful he was. I mean these views were out of this world and those stars at night felt like they were so close I could just reach up and touch them. Then he says to me. You know son just as big and mighty as you think I am, I think you’re pretty strong too. I don’t know why but that broke me man. Sometimes I get so down and out about myself about what I can or can’t do and God, thinks i’m strong. It was so simple and soft coming from him yet so profound to me. In the midst of pain my Father thinks I’m strong! (insert smiley face) What does life have to throw at me that I can’t get through?
This life of mine has seen a lot of pain and suffering. Not just on the World Race but i’ve had stuff thrown my way for as long as I can remember. What’s cool to think about that though is God thought I was strong through all of those trials too. I mean I’m not dead yet. Although I do question often how i’m not. Either way i’m no one special God thinks we’re all strong. The fact of the matter is this life IS going to be hard. It’s not always going to go our own way. There will always be road blocks and pain and struggle and even death. My encouragement to you though, more then anything, is never to think you’re at it alone. As crappy as the world seems sometimes there is and will always be someone out there willing to help. Even if thats just someone that will sit there and listen to you verbally process your junk. There’s someone there. And if you find yourself out in the dark by yourself hit your knees man. Give him a chance to blow your mind!
