We flew into Cusco to do our debrief. It is a beautiful city, with a lot of craft markets and museums to explore. The whole city is built on tourism, and with that come some challanges.
There are people who do nothing but walk around town trying to sell their crafts, postcards, pictures or whatever. They can be a little persistent at times. Cusco has the most aggresive street vendors I have ever seen. They will follow you down the street for a block or two trying to convince you to buy their goods. It´s so ridiculous it is actually funny. In fact, I sat in the plaza talking to Ed for about half an hour, and I think about 30 people approached us trying to sell something.
There was a girl that was around 12 years old, who was trying to sell us little knit finger pupets and dolls. She was hilarious! She would play little jokes on us, jump up in front of us and all kinds of silly stuff. We asked her to sit with us, but she didn´t. I don´t know if it was part of her act to sell stuff, or if it was her way of entertaining herself. It was great!
All this was fun and a nice reprieve from our travels and ministry, but it´s not the main point. Our purpose for going to Cusco was to debrief with AIM staff and to deal with team and personal issues. Andrew Shearman came to speak and counsel us. I have so much respect for this man.
He talked to us about a lot of stuff, but the things that stood out to me are as follows.
- We have no rights – I gave them up for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you remember from my previous blogs, God told me this in Costa Rica. It was a good reminder and a call to recommit to living it.
- The generations of Isrealitles that Moses rescued from Egypt did not make it into the promised land because of their complaining against God. They missed the inheritance all together and died in the desert. They looked back to Egypt and only remembered the good things they missed, but they forgot what those things had cost them. Are we going to complain about what we don´t have and forget about what we have been given? Do we recognize the incredible proviledge we have, and will we persevere through it to reach the inheritance on the other side of the desert?
- We have access to every weapon we need to fight the enemy. Jesus himself descended into hell and stole back the keys and the weapons for the enemy. He hands them freely to us to fight the battle and live in victory.
- If the devil attacks you with fear, you fight back with fear. If he attacks you with rejections, you fight back with rejections by telling him that he is the one who was rejected and cast out of heaven. He is doomed to live in hell and will never be accepted in the gates of heaven. Brilliant!
When I met with Andrew to talk one-on-one, I shared with him that I had faced a lot of feelings of abandanment and rejection in Peru. I was struggling with my team and with the squad as a whole. I recognized that God was allowing this because He wants to heal me from those past wounds. And then Andrew said exactly what I needed to hear. He told me that part of him felt sorry and wanted to reach inside and help me, but he was also angry that I am still living under the lies of the enemy. I have the weapons to fight it, and I havent. It is a disgrace to me and a disgrace to God, not to mention an insult to Jesus Christ who died on the cross to give me freedom. He challanged me to stand up and fight the enemy, and He is going to hold me accountable to it. We are not going to repeat this discussion when we meet again in South Africa. Amen!
The beauty of all of this is that sometimes you need somebody to stand up in your face, in love, and tell you how it is. I need that. There are not many people in my life that would be willing to do that, and not many people that I respect enough as my authority to receive it from. Praise God that he sent Andrew Shearman to be that person. My prayer is that I will have enough humility to receive that kind of truth from more people in my life.
What amazed me through all of these talks and challanges is that God could rightfully destroy us for our disobedience, but instead he sent a gentle rebuke from a friend – followed by encouragement and empowerment to grow from it. That is God my father, who is full of mercy and love.
