Yup, just one of the many new things I’ve experience in Nepal this month. I looked up at the pigeon houses in Paster Bhua’s front yard and asked why they raised pigeons. “Maybe to eat or sell,� was the response, “do you like try?� “Sure, why not?� I answered. And we had curry pigeon for dinner.
“Why not?” was a common phrase this month and led to many fun new experiences. I’ve spoken and sang in front of school children multiple times and passed out tracts in surrounding villages. I’ve done a Nepali bride’s makeup on her wedding day. Namaste and Jaya masi are normal greetings. I’ve gotten used to having my namesake Bollywood song being sung at me daily by strangers and 5 year olds. I drink water buffalo milk and don’t even blink an eye at squatty potties & garden hose showers. We pretty much live without electricity and have team time by candlelight. I’ve seen the Himalayas and shopped in Kathmandu. I’ve ridden in jeeps over mountains, on a motorcycle with 2 other people, on backs of trucks, in and on top of public buses, on ox cart and, most recently, on a water buffalo.
Lately though, I’ve been realizing that I’ve had it wrong all along. Maybe God doesn’t want me to be miserable, maybe He just really does have a better plan for my life that goes along with His timing and not mine. Maybe, like in my case of finding the World Race, it’s even better than I could’ve even imagined. I never expected the World Race and all the crazy things that happened along the way. The fact that I heard about it and was signed up to go in about a month and a half proved that God could drastically change the course of my life very quickly. I’ve had to ask myself, do I really believe Him when He says in Jeremiah that He has plans to give me a hope and a future? I realize now that I’ve let my pessimism and human experiences stomp out my dreams and big ideas I had from when I was younger. Do you think it’s possible though, that God gives you those dreams & desires for a reason? Dreams & desires you’ve kept close to your heart because you’ve been afraid to act on them and see them fail? Perhaps like me, you’ve been narrow-minded about how those dreams could be realized and then doubted God when they didn’t work out like you had planned. Maybe you’ve thought it was too late for this dream to work out so you might as well move on.
In one of our devotionals with Rajesh last month, he brought out Genesis 18:10-15. It’s where God promises an elderly Sarah that she will have a son and she answers by laughing in God’s face. Surely the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator of the universe couldn’t work with her age, right? Think about it, do we really believe that God is faithful and that with Him, all things are possible? When have we last really trusted God? Am I willing to give up my feeble idea of a future for His great plan?
If you’re like me and doubted God while stuffing your dreams away, maybe it’s time to bring them back out into the light. Maybe God gave you those desires and dreams for a reason. Maybe He’s telling you it’s time to hold fast to them, time to go back and attempt them in faith. Maybe their fulfillment won’t look exactly as you planned, maybe it’ll be better. Maybe it won’t happen right now, but at the perfect time. Maybe it won’t happen at all but God wanted to make you a new person in the process.
If you’ve felt God put a dream on your heart, don’t’ let go just because you don’t think it’s possible or the timing isn’t right. Don’t give up and limit God by putting a certain number of options on Him. God doesn’t adhere to our best laid plans or what we think is possible. That word “possible� doesn’t even exist for God. He is above and beyond. Let’s stop doubting Him. Let’s take Him at His word and step forward in the faith He’s called us to.
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.�
Thank God for that.
God, forgive us for limiting ourselves and most of all, for limiting You.
