Ethiopia has become one of my favorite places on the earth because here I’ve found the truth that there is nothing I lack in Jesus. I see Ethiopia through the lens of Psalm 23, the Lord leading me through green pastures and still waters, my soul being refreshed and renewed daily as His goodness and love follow me. The Lord’s presence has become so sweet here because my distractions have become so few as we live hours away from the city, from phone service, from constantly being bombarded by the world.
As near as I’ve felt to the Lord here, I’ve realized that intimacy with the Lord comes at a high cost. Its the cost of discipleship. Finding my true satisfaction in the Lord hasn’t been easy, and it’s meant spending the holidays away from my family, unable to talk to people I love back home for almost two months, missing comforts and familiarity, and sometimes I lose sight of the goodness of the Lord when I’m focusing on everything I see as lack in my broken humanity.
But Psalm 23 holds a promise; the promise that in the Lord we lack no good thing. I have come to know the Lord as my friend and I wouldn’t trade the trials in the past two months for anything because I truly lack no good thing in Jesus.
To know Jesus more is to die to myself – that’s the cost of discipleship. “Consecration is death to self, its not until we die to self that we come alive. The more we give to God, the more we have and the more we become. Its only in losing our lives that we really find them.”
Dying to myself is never easy, but the more I do it, the more I know Jesus. Matthew 10:37 says “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
Its a hard verse to read, but I believe with every fiber of my being that I will never regret choosing the Lord over the things of this world, and I know that every time I choose to die to myself to follow Jesus, I am deeply satisfied and filled with inexpressible joy, even when my circumstances aren’t.
I have no idea what the next season of my life holds. As we reach the midpoint of the race, the end is starting to become a real thought, that there is even more of the Lord I get to experience after the next four months, and it scares me to surrender more of my future to God, but not surrendering scares me more. I declared radical obedience over myself for the new year because I have tasted and seen the joy of being in the Lord’s will, even though the cost has been high.
Lisa Chan sums up my thoughts so well. She says, “I have tasted and seen what a its like to live a life that is more and more surrendered to Jesus. I have tasted and seen His love for the others, and when He gives you that same love in your heart it feels shallow and unfulfilling to go back to your old way of doing things. I have a taste in my mouth for steps of faith that draw you so near to Him you don’t want to ever go back, even if he would let you.”
And that’s what Ethiopia has been for me. A time of tasting and seeing the Lord’s provision and goodness like never before; He’s my comfort, my best friend. And I never want to go back, even if he would let me. I never want to go back to playing the church game on Sundays, being filled up by other people and never pouring anything out, just going about my week as usual. That’s comfortable Christianity, which isn’t Christianity at all – living like we want and only going to Jesus when we need something or want to feel better, and its centered around ourselves and not the one we call our Lord.
I never want to go back to that. I have tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord, that there is nothing I lack in him. He’s been so good to me and its all I can do not to serve him and lay myself down everyday to know him, to glorify him. And I never want to go back, even if he would let me.
