Here’s a blog that I wrote in Bulgaria and never got a chance to post…
As most of you know, I got sick, had surgery, and had to return home for two months. While I was in Honduras, I experienced a great amount of pain and suffering. But, even through this extremely difficult season, I had the most joy I have ever felt in years. He used this experience to bring me so much closer to Him.
God showed me that just like life, pain and suffering is only temporary. A concept that is both so simple and so applicable to life in general.
During my time at home, I lost that joy and peace. I constantly asked Him why it was gone and how I could get it back. The day I arrived in Bulgaria with my new team, I continued to pray for that same joy to come back to my heart. He brought me back to Lamentations 3:22-25, a passage that He first took me to a little over a year ago, when this journey of mine first began. I continued to seek Him and just listen and thank Him. Then, yesterday, as I was listening and praying for guidance for my talk that night at a local church, He answered my prayer.
He took me to Proverbs 29. I kept thinking about the word “joy” again and how I wanted to have it eternally, not just temporarily like during my suffering in Honduras.
Another word stood out: wisdom. He told me that my joy comes with wisdom and that wisdom was obtained with my open heart allowing myself to experience pain, suffering, tests, and obstacles. It may not be another surgery or distance from my team. It was the pain of “missing out’. I constantly pondered on what I was missing out on while I was away on the race. My cousins were having babies I wouldn’t meet, another close cousin is getting married, my own sister is having her baby in August, etc. While I was at home, I hurt from missing out on spending time with my new team and bonding with them and not exploring and doing ministry with them in South America.
My whole life I had wasted so much time and energy worrying and bearing the burdens of all the things I thought that I was missing out on. Ironically, this time that I spent worrying is exactly what kept me from living my life in the first place. The worry and fear had paralyzed me into causing me to miss out on countless things in my life. But, the biggest and most important thing that I was missing out on was my relationship with the Lord and the things that He was calling me into.
My joy faded away because I was not in tune with my Father. His Word and my heart were not in alignment with one another. I was consumed with thoughts that took away my joy and peace, and in turn, worry and fear entered in its place.
Pain and suffering are temporary, and this truth should be something that we find great delight in, because in it, He has so much wisdom and intimacy to offer us as long as our hearts are open and willing. In order for me to have this everlasting joy that I so long for, I must stop worrying about all the things I am ‘missing out’ on and instead, focus on and what He is showing me and doing in me right now.
The missing out, the pain, the tests, the feel-good moments and quick fixes are temporary, just as life on earth. We must make the most of them in order to obtain an eternal life and instead of a temporary one.
My heart is on fire for Jesus. Yes! I’m living for today. We should let tomorrow worry about itself. I’m gonna love and live for today because I don’t know if I will have a tomorrow.
X
