This entry is straight out of my journal. God told me to post it as a blog, so be blessed by it as you read!
It’s real, raw, honest, and mayyyyyyybe a bit long 🙂
Sometimes, I’m completely amazed by my heavenly Father’s grace. Today, I was just so grumpy. We left for the village at 6am, and I did not feel rested at all. I didn’t want to do anything but sleep. We got into a van to drive over an hour to the village we would pick up kids from, then go another hour to the village where we would be having our big party/ outreach/ celebration with all the kids from the villages we met this month. I had an adorable little boy sitting in my lap as we crammed more and more people into the small bus. I tried to muster up the strength to smile, play with him, hold him steady on the bumpy dirt roads and just stay awake. I tried to muster up love for these children who were squishing me, heads covered in lice. I tried to muster up love as I thought about approaching a village party where there would be a hundred more kids to love.
I realized very quickly that my love runs thin. It’s not sustainable or everlasting.
Only God’s love beating through me is sustained.
I slipped away from the group as soon as we got to the village and sat against a pole, closing my eyes, trying to block out everything and just sleep. Trying to be numb and invisible, so that maybe the kids would leave me alone for a little bit and I could rest and work up the ability to love them well today. As the children arrived, I started to doubt if I would even have the strength to stand up and share the gospel with the kids like I was committed to do.
Amanda and Allison started doing the Hokey Pokey and other dances and songs, while I pleaded with God to give me some sort of energy. Or an escape route. I picked up my Bible in response to what God had been telling me- to use the Romans road as I preached today. I remembered no details of it at all from my childhood, but
I opened to Romans and God began guiding me to verse after verse, in perfect order. It felt like I was in the movie National Treasure and God was showing me all the clues and pieces, one leading to another. As He did, my heart of gratitude grew and grew! How do we forget these fundamental truths of our faith!?
-While I was a sinner, Christ died for me!
-It is by grace I have been saved!
-There is no condemnation for those that are in Christ!
I stood as it was time for me to preach, and was filled with a while new perspective of and love for my Jesus. I was filled with a desperation for these children to really know the truth I was about to preach!
So, I shared the gospel. Leaning on God’s words in the Bible for all strength!
I realized in that moment that God’s ‘weakness’ is stronger than all the strength I could pull out of myself. HIS words would speak to these children, not mine. His love would speak to these children, not mine.
It hit me that the word “rest” may have been God’s way of trying to humble me in this area for so long.
When I felt restless, held back, or like I could have been doing so much more than God was letting me do this year, I was really saying that I myself could do anything. That I never got tired. That my love for others would never run thin and my body would never fail me. Basically, that I was invincible. Basically, that I was like God, the only one who is perfect.
But the reality is obviously that I’M NOT GOD.
I DO get tired. I DO need rest. My love DOES run thin. My flesh WILL fail. And I am NOT invincible. Not even a little!
However, I don’t think any of this is equivalent to what I feel if I give up:
-That I am not enough.
-That I’m lazy.
-That I’m complacent.
-That I’m weak.
-That I’ve failed or that I’ve disappointed God altogether.
No, this all just means that I’m human. That my flesh WILL struggle and fail until I am only a spirit, free of earth and eternally with my Father in heaven! Maybe I do fall short sometimes, but
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23.
I can look back on this Race now and finally put to death the lies of inadequacy I’ve believed all year! I can lay down the pride that has kept me from admitting I needed rest. The pride that’s kept me from being okay with being sick sometimes and staying back from ministry. The pride that kept me from slowing down long enough to let myself feel, more often than not. The pride that has kept me from admitting that sometimes I care more about finding a Starbucks or a fruit shake than I care about the beautiful children I spend every day with that have NOTHING. Admitting that sometimes I care more about having wheat bread instead of white than I do about loving my hosts well by eating what is normal for them. Sometimes I am just WRONG. Sometimes, my intentions fail and my “Jack Sparrow compass” pointing to what I want most is in the wrong. But none of these things make me a failure! They just remind me that I need this gift of grace as much as the 86 Cambodian children I just preached it to do.
God reminded me of His grace even deeper as I concluded by asking if any of them wanted to ask Jesus into their hearts today, and almost every one of those 86 children raised their hand! My jaw dropped. I knew this was only God’s grace rushing over me and using my words to show HIS children the way.
“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
In my terrible, sinful attitude, Christ died for me. And with my terrible, sinful attitude, He used me anyway! He drew over 80 children to Himself! THAT’S a good, good Father.
As their hands went up, my head went down. I couldn’t even stay looking up at them as their hands continued to raise. I have never felt so humbled in my life. So in need of God’s grace, and so aware that I had his grace covering me.
As the kids repeated after me in prayer, I realized that any good I could ever do for God was a product of His grace. And now, each one of these children (who, when we began, hadn’t even heard of the Bible or know who Jesus was) were now a product of His grace too.
It is so like God to correct us in complete love and grace.
When He could just kick me down back into my place, He chooses to correct me LOVINGLY and humble me instead of cast shame on me.
The frustrating but good thing is that on this side of heaven my flesh will always be my flesh. It will be a struggle and a burden in a way because sin is our nature! BUT, grace is our Savior!!
Grace keeps me needing God and longing for more of Him. It keeps me either in intimacy with Him or in pride pushing against Him. I have to choose to receive His gift of grace every day, just like these children in Cambodia did for the first time today!
God didn’t just give us grace because our past was bad. He gives us grace because our future was even worse without Him.
“The wages of sin is death, but the GIFT of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 6:23
But NOW? Now, NOTHING- not our flesh, not entangling sin, not fear, not a Buddhist culture, poverty or lice.
“Not tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword”
“…neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor the present or the future, nor height nor depth, nor ANYTHING else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!”
-Romans 8:37-39
