We are midway through New Wine, which is a Christian
conference here at El Rancho. A couple days before the conference started, we
delegated jobs for kitchen crew and restroom cleaning crews. I reluctantly
raised my hand for the restrooms. Little did I know, God was going to teach me
great lessons about who He is and who He wants me to be. Bizarre? Probably, but
God isn’t ‘normal’ which leads me to believe that He’s not about to teach me
‘normal’ things while doing ‘normal’ ministry.
Rob started the conference by asking us all to ponder a
question: If we were to work the whole conference and in the end only receive
Jesus, would that be enough for us?
I started cleaning and honestly, I tried to think of that
question, but I don’t think I was focused enough. My thought process at first
was more or less like this; “Yeah, yeah. Jesus is all I need. Got it.” But I
think today, God has been verbally “sucker-punching my skull” (thanks for the
phrase, Kyla). He has been gracious enough, though, that His words are coming
rather gently.
I’ve been listening to my iPod while cleaning. A woman at my
university once told us to ask God to bless our iPod. It’s kinda fun when you
actually do that. I like to shuffle all 31Gs of my music, just to see what God
is going to do. Today was pretty sweet. Eventually, it landed on a sermon from
my home church on the book of Job. My pastor offered a good question, one that
I’m re-learning. Do you love God simply for who He is? Is Jesus enough for you?
Here at El
Rancho, we’ve been blessed beyond belief. God has showered each one of us with
unimaginable blessings. While I see most of them, ultimately I think I’ve been
taking advantage of most of them. The sermon I was listening to was
talking about Job’s journey through suffering. There is a dialogue between God
and Satan that ultimately comes down to love.
“God said to
Satan, ‘Have you noticed my friend Job? There’s no one quite like him-honest
and true to his word, totally devoted to God and hating evil.’
Satan retorted, ‘So do you think Job
does all that out of the sheer goodness of his heart? Why, no one ever had it
so good! You pamper him like a pet, make sure nothing bad ever happens to him
or his family or his possessions, bless everything he does-he can’t lose! But what do you think would happen if
you reached down and took away everything that is his? He’d curse you right to
your face, that’s what.'” (Job 1:8-11). Satan is saying that the only
reason why Job loves God is because he is so blessed by God and he has no
reason to curse Him.
This hit me hard today
(the sucker-punch). I’m going to be going around the world living for God.
Things this month have been amazing. Life here is great and honestly I’m
praising God for how awesome He is. It’s a humbling to think, though, that once
I get to the bush in Australia or Africa, or my things get stolen or lost, or
when I miss out on important things back home, or everything is out of my
control, will I still praise Him? Will I still rest on this scripture: “In the day of prosperity be happy! But in the
day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other”?
Another humbling thing I’ve considered, am I going to sit and insist on
knowing the ‘why’ of situations? Will I confuse the fact that my identity is in
my position (in Christ) and not in my condition (circumstances)? It’s so easy
to ask ‘why’. But it’s important to remember that if we knew the reasons why
God chooses to let things happen, we wouldn’t love God simply for who He is.
Satan is the ultimate cynic of love; he says that we will only love God if He
blesses us. Am I going to be that person? My prayer is no. When things get
hard, and they undoubtedly will, I will have a choice to freely love
God…regardless of my circumstances. Freely choosing to love God is how we were
created to experience a relationship with God. My hope for this experience is
to love God for who He is, not because He chooses to bless me. And instead of
searching for the answer why, I want to seek and find God.
