Month 1 has come and gone. It’s incredibly shocking to me how fast time flew by in Guatemala. As I relax in my hammock at Zion’s Gate, our new ministry site in Honduras, I can’t help but to acknowledge the challenge that was placed before me last month. A challenge, I recognized from the start and decided to jump right in, wrestle with God on the issue, and come out a stronger woman.
Guatemala being month one, I suppose walking into it I had an idea that it would look, feel, and be similar to all of the other mission trips that I had been one. The first mission trip I ever went on was in 2008. I went to Haiti. For the first week we held healing services every night, laying hands on people and seeing immediate fruit of healing and restoration. Then we moved on to street evangelism where we saw several come to Christ on a daily basis – this to me was expanding the kingdom.
Several months after that I went to the Philippines. Here we lead a youth conference for the majority of the time. The times we weren’t preaching and praying for over 400 youth kids, we were at the orphanages. On Sunday mornings, we would split up into two’s and go to different churches and give our testimonies. We also were privileged in teaching others to evangelize for the first time ever. This trip was very relational and as well, a great idea of what I figured expanding the kingdom looked like.
Both of these trips I spent almost every day at some point just flat out wrecked before the Lord laying in puddles of my own tears. I walked away with a new revelation of God and His goodness. Never had I felt or experienced God so much as I had in these two places that seriously impacted my life forever and eventually started the fire and heart for missions that only burns stronger today.
And then I went to Guatemala, last month. Here we painted curbs, had little relationships with anyone, had to find our own church to go with hopes that it was good, painting emergency rooms, baby rooms, the blood bank, and hallways of the hospital, surrounded by people that deliver hard stares and hardly know a lick of English. For a whole month, we painted and our closest relationships were with the maintenance men that directed us each day, in whom we grew to love and were some of my hardest goodbyes for sure.
As the month went on, I obtained a minor frustration that rooted from past experiences which developed expectations and a construed idea, which limited the ways one can expand the kingdom of God. I struggled with what our eternal impact was, if any. I didn’t see how painting was seeing others healed, delivered, saved, sanctified and the whole nine yards.
Then truth hit me in the face when I realized – All that I saw was my effort was greater than the fruit I was wanting to see. I failed to acknowledge that being Jesus to others means meeting them at there needs. The hospital at this time needed a paint job, there was not a doubt about it. They also needed someone to encourage their maintenance men. And we were doing exactly that. The fruit may never been seen, but the hands of Jesus were all over our paintbrushes and the words of Jesus traveled through our mouth in the midst of every conversation.
I find it’s easier to quit, give in, settle for less when the fruit of your labor isn’t seen, but it takes the face of Jesus to continue to compel you to give despite what you can receive in return in the natural realm. After all, our reward is in heaven, not on earth.
Fruit should never be the driving force of your capacity and willingness to serve, yet the face of Jesus should be the only reason you do what you do.
As many of you may know, I’m not much of a reader. I am working on it and have a desire to love it, but my reality is not yet my desire. Well, before the race a great friend of mine on the squad gave me a book on my Ipad called Seeking Him. In the midst of my discontentment and not to mention minor discouragement, I felt lead to read this book and how incredibly blessed I was in doing so.
It mentions in the book something that couldn’t have been more perfect for the moment:
“Hundreds of times, by different reporters, presidents, and prime ministers from all over the world, Mother Teresa was asked the same question, “What makes you do what you are doing? How do you keep going?” Never was her answer, “There are so many lepers in India. There are so many poor people in India. The suffering and needs are so great.” No. Her answer was always the same. She would simply reply, “Because of Jesus.””
In this moment, I was relearning a lesson I felt like I had learned already from Mother Teresa. I do things not out of the fruit of my labor or the need of the people, but because of Jesus. If I do things in honor of Him and for Him alone, never am I discouraged. It’s when you do things for yourself or for others than you will never truly be satisfied.
My satisfaction comes from Him and Him alone. It’s in Him, I can trust He placed me painting for a whole month. It’s in Him I have confidence that His will was accomplished during that time. It’s in Him that I can trust for a seed to be water and planted and surely a harvest will be produced.
It’s His face and not the fruit, good or bad, of anything I do that should keep me going.
I was also reminded of a word that Jess, our Mobilizer, gave to my team at Training Camp. She stated that she felt we were a strong team of rooted girls and that the Lord was going to use us this year to do a lot of “plowing the field” because of that. In that, she encouraged us to not get discouraged if we don’t see immediate fruit, but trust that the Lord is using us in ways we cannot see.
It’s seeking His face that pleases my soul and if that’s the only thing that I see on this earth, than that should be enough.
May fruit not determine my idea of success or ministry,
Rather His face be the driving force of my service and the motivator behind my every move.
