It is hard to believe that we are actually one month in. Before we left, it was hard to comprehend that this was actually happening, and now that we are here, it is still hard to believe that it is actually happening. I am waiting for the moment when I wake up and realize that this is real life.
Today and tomorrow we are in Hyderabad reconnecting with the rest of the squad and on the 1st of August we are headed to Nepal. My team came out a night early and we are at the moment enjoying the luxury of a hot shower, a bed AND (our personal favorite) WIFI! It is a beautiful time to sit back and process the happenings of the month and try and put into words the mess of thoughts in my head.
There is a passage in John that the Lord has been putting on my heart for a while now. John 5 tells the story of a pool that a large number of disabled people would lay by. It was said that an angel would come and stir the pool and whoever was the first to jump into that pool would be healed.
‘Sir,’ the invalid replied, ‘ I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.’
Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’
This man is persistent. It takes a mix of persistence and stubbornness to sit by a pool for 38 years. He has one solution in his mind of how to get well and he will wait relentlessly until he does.
Jesus asks a simple question. Do you want to get well? And this man is so focused on the goal at hand that he does not even answer the question. It is as if he is so set on the actual miracle and his own solution that he forgets why he is there in the first place.
We showed up in India with the expectation of how God was going to move. We showed up with a neat idea of the miraculous. We came with the hunger for more. Every day our team went from sleeping shoulder to shoulder, to eating side by side, to squeezed on top of each other in a car and repeat. We went from house to house and village to village to meet people who expected one thing; the presence of the Lord. Now, while we expected signs and wonders, the Lord had an entirely different idea of what our month was going to look like.
He looks at us simply and asks Do you want to get well? And we think Lord, if only we could see a miracle, if only we could see some fruit of what you are doing, then perhaps we would understand and all would be well.
The truth is, we are invalid and we are sick. We do not see the hearts that are healing and the lives that are touched. We do not hear the Father’s voice as he comforts the crying and calls in His lost sheep. Our hearts fail to understand His compassion for every man and women who opened their doors to us and welcomed us in.
Do we want to be well? Having our eyes and ears and hearts opened means we are about to plunge into a measure of trust with the Lord where we have never been before. Where we are forced to die to our entitlement nature and our expectations of how the Lord should work and risk become blind fools for Christ.
Funny how Jesus didn’t give the invalid much of a choice. He simply said Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!
Will you get up? Will you choose to walk with Jesus despite how it should or should not look? This month we learned to walk with Jesus and not try to run. We learned the sweetness of the Father’s voice and His compassion for His children. We learned how hungry we were for his presence and how in need we were of His guiding voice. We learned that a still small voice is as sweet and empowering as a rushing wind. We learned that Jesus desires us to love Him and Him alone.
This month was hard, but we look forward with joy and anticipation for what is next. We place our hopes not in what is to come, but in our Father who promises to be our refuge and our fortress.
