So, what has God been teaching you lately?
I’ll be honest, I hate this question. It makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes I don’t know what to say and it makes me feel inadequate or like I haven’t been doing God’s work. Sometimes I feel like I am making stuff up when I answer this question. Because a lot of times, I don’t feel like God is teaching me anything. He feels silent. But I’ve begun to realize over the last few months that He isn’t being silent; I’m not listening. I struggle to hear His voice and I pray all the time that He will speak to me, but I do all the talking and I don’t stop to just listen and hear His side of the conversation. This is something I have really been working on the last few months in preparation for the World Race and while out here in the field. So on that note, I think He actually is teaching me something. I know, crazy.
I am learning that I can be so content sometimes to just live life. I can float here and there, happy to do what everyone else wants to do, or happy to just exist. I don’t think this is inherently bad. It is good to slow down and enjoy life. But I have found that I can get stuck in this place and not move, and then I miss things. I miss opportunities to reach out to others. I lose opportunities to challenge my teammates. I don’t grow. God has been showing me that I can choose to just exist on this Race, in this life, and soak everything in, or I can choose to act with purpose and follow His calling. He will not force me to do anything, but He will provide me with opportunities, and it is up to me whether I take them or not.
I think we can all apply this to our lives. It’s so much easier to go through the motions and just exist than it is to live and walk with Christ.
The first day of English Bible School my team and I were milling around the center after lunch and just hanging out. There was one middle school student who hadn’t left yet, and she was sitting alone. I noticed this, but didn’t think much of it. It was a little harder to communicate with the younger students because their English wasn’t as good. And I was surprised none of my teammates had gone over to talk with her, so I didn’t go either (ridiculous, I know). I kept walking around the room, not really talking to anyone, and I kept feeling God’s quiet voice telling me to go sit with her. And I kept resisting. “Someone else will do it,” “maybe she wants to be alone,” “what if we can’t communicate.” It all sounds really stupid now. And then I felt reminded that this is exactly what I am trying to work on – listening to God’s little promptings and not just sitting around. So I finally went over to sit with her. Turns out her English is pretty good and we got to talking without much problem. I actually quite enjoyed it (she is a middle schooler after all) and felt like I was right where I needed to be. The next day she was looking for me and it was sweet to recognize at least one face among the other students. It has been a lot of fun getting to know her, and she has been helping me learn some Albanian.
Now I need to preface the next part: we were told it could be fun and meaningful if we chose something to take away from each country on our route, like a memento of some kind. I had thought about doing bracelets, since my sister already started me off with one from her trip to Mexico. I wasn’t seeing very many around the city we are in, so I wasn’t completely committed to the idea. But the second day of class this sweet girl that I talked to the first day comes up to me right before we get started and says she has a surprise for me, and she holds out her hands which hold an Albanian bracelet. I just about melted, she was so sweet. It has been a lot of fun seeing her every day and playing card games together and just getting to hear about her life.
So, moral of the story, do more listening than talking. God is always teaching us something, we just need to make the effort to pay attention and respond.
“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7
