“Hey God, I need you.”
I’ve prayed this prayer more times than I can count this past month. Month eight of my race has been the most difficult month yet. But, it’s also been the most fruitful. To show you why I have to go back to my first day of ministry in the DR.
I won’t sugar coat it: my first day of ministry here was awful. I had no idea what I was doing. In Costa Rica, we had two full weeks of training before we jumped into ministry. Here, we had about a day. Which makes sense, since we have a lot less time here, and there’s not a lot you can really train for with SMT. (If you haven’t read my “meet my ministry” blog yet, SMT, or Strategic Ministry Time, is the main ministry we’re doing here in the DR. SMT is when we pair with local pastors and go out into their communities to get to know the people here and share the gospel.) But I still felt so unprepared. My team was one of the few teams without a squad or ministry leader with us, and it was our translator’s first day too. It felt like we were on our own. We didn’t know what kind of questions to ask to start good conversations and we all felt really awkward and uncomfortable. We walked all day in the Dominican heat and humidity wearing our ministry-appropriate skirts. Other than getting to pray over a few people, I didn’t really feel we did anything. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, frustrated, and discouraged. “There’s no way I can do this for two whole months,” I thought.
The worst part was that in the midst of all this frustration and exhaustion, I let the enemy and his lies in. I let him tell me that I couldn’t do this. My insecurities ran wild. In Costa Rica, I felt like I was in my zone. I was getting to use all the gifts the Lord gave me! But here, I felt so unqualified. I felt like I had nothing to offer. I couldn’t talk to strangers and start up good conversations like my squadmates could, and I didn’t feel like the Lord spoke to me during ministry as much as He did other people. I started to believe that the Lord couldn’t use me.
Then, after just two very discouraging days of ministry, we found out that someone from one of the other groups on campus tested positive for covid. Out of respect for the safety and health of the surrounding community, we were going to quarantine on campus until we could all get tested. I was secretly so relieved. I didn’t think I had it in me to go back to ministry. But God wasn’t going to let me off the hook that easily. The exhaustion I felt from ministry didn’t leave me, and now, I had nowhere else to go except to Him. He used all the extra free time I had to teach me how much I needed Him.
The Lord reminded me that before I left Costa, I asked Him to take me deeper in my relationship with Him. And that’s exactly what He was doing. He purposefully put me in a position where I felt unqualified and incapable because it forced me to realize that what I was doing had absolutely nothing to do with who I was, but had everything to do with who He is.
He is my strength. He is my rest. He is my peace. My comfort. My provider. He is everything I need. And I need Him every second of every day. This became so, so clear.
When we went back to ministry a week later (after testing negative for covid of course), I started inviting the Lord into everything. I prayed constantly throughout the day: on the bus ride, at the church, on the way to each house visit, during each conversation, even in the background of every prayer my teammates prayed. I prayed for a desire to do His work, for Him to direct us and speak through us, for energy and strength, and so much more. And guess what? He showed up. Slowly but surely, I started to notice a major difference. And it was all Him.
I’m so grateful for how hard ministry has been because I really needed to learn how much I have to rely on the Lord. The song “Lord I Need You” by Matt Maher has become my anthem:
“Lord, I need You, oh I need You
Every hour, I need You
My one defense, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You”
Thanks for reading! Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated as I enter the last month of my race.
Love,
Mackenzie
