LET’S JUST PRAISE THE LORD FOR A SECOND THAT I CAN TALK ABOUT HIM AGAIN!
Okay… now on to just a little glimpse of what I learned last month in Da Nang, Vietnam.
When I signed up for the race, I didn’t realize I had the expectation for all of my problems to stay at home. Somewhere along the line I decided that all of the things I didn’t like and all of my bad habits would just stay behind in America. I would develop a new lifestyle, then I’d go back home and I would never have to work past any of it. I’m fully aware of how ridiculous this expectation was, but nonetheless I had it.
In the spirit of full disclosure, last month in Vietnam I was so comfortable. We were living in a hotel, had great wifi (for the first time), and could pretty much access anything that we wanted to. What scared me though was that the second I got comfortable I stopped leaning into Jesus. I stopped reading my bible, I stopped spending time with Him and I stopped looking for Him desperately in my everyday life.
At first I blamed it on being in a closed country, but really it was my lack of discipline and ability to pay attention. Sure, I couldn’t talk about Jesus everywhere, but I could find Him everywhere. Every time that I went out I just mindlessly went from point A to point B. If I was looking around it was for a place to get good coffee, food or some other good.
I have this same problem at home, I’m always so busy that I often forget to let God be God and have him take me where he wants and use me as he will. I’m so consumed with an end goal that I don’t pay attention along the way.
It wasn’t until our last week in Da Nang, Vietnam that I hit my spiritual empty, and a teammate lead us all on a prayer walk. We decided that we would go out for an hour around our school, praying and seeing where the holy spirit lead us. This was the first time I had been out without a goal in mind besides to follow the spirit and pray. It was in those moments that I felt the heaviness of being in a closed country and truly needed to see God in a country that He was not welcome.
After a few minutes, a teammate and I felt a pull to sit on the side of an intersection. She sat down and began to pray. However, I tried to keep walking, but something stopped me from going more than a few steps outside of that intersection. So eventually I sat down with her. Some time passed, when we saw three pigeons come and in the middle of them was a dove; a sign of peace and a sign of God’s presence. Buddhism had so many man-made symbols around the city and country, but God could send a sign wherever He wanted, but to see them we must be aware of Him throughout each day.
I struggle to pay attention, and I struggle to look for God and be aware of God’s presence each day. However from this day forward, I will do my best to wake up each morning hungry for more, and fall asleep each night praising Him for our day together.
