It has taken me a long time to come to terms with my World Race experience. Before going I felt Him beckon me by appealing to my desire for more. At the time, the type of ministry work did not appeal to me, but I sensed in the invitation the promise that I would experience Him in ways I never had before.
After being home for a few months, the recurring emotion I had was one of disappointment. It had not lived up to what I had thought it would be. I did experience God move powerfully in ministry. He manifested Himself every month, especially the one where I was hanging on by a thread. But that had not been what I was after, and those moments had been far and few between. Maybe it was selfish of me, but what I had wanted was God Himself, and deeper sense of Him in the moment to moment of daily life. But I was so numb all the time. Fighting to draw near and be connected but unable to because it took everything just trying to survive. The first 4 months it was the pain of loneliness, the next 4 were marked by weariness, only in month 9 did my heart start to feel again, but I didn’t feel like myself again until I had been home for 2 months.
It had not been as relational as I had hoped. Many months, I left the country having not developed a single meaningful connection with a local person. Even India, where God healed did not satisfy. I wanted to know these people who came through the prayer line and were healed. What were their stories? Who were they? Most of them, I don’t even remember what they looked like. The most time I got to spend with any one person in prayer was 10 minutes, most everyone else it was a minute or less.
I had thought He was going to show me other sides of Himself. But He was familiar, the same faithful God I’ve always known. I needed Him more, but it was more of the same and I had thought He was going to show me something different.
It was good to be honest with Him in those months being home.
Saying that it had not been worth the pain.
That it had felt like living in a cage
I lamented about how my life with God has been marked so much more by hunger than by satisfaction.
It got worse before it got better.
Finally He began to show me the fruit.
Even though I was convinced I had come home mostly unchanged, there were some things that were different. I discovered in the months being home that a gratitude and sense of contentment had taken root. It’s strength surprised me. It now permeated throughout my day and has persisted now, months later in a way I’ve never known.
We talked about intimacy. I had pictured pillow talk and an ever present sense of His nearness. He showed me that where He had always demonstrated that He understood my pains the World Race was where He had me drink from the cup mentioned in Gethsemene, the cup of suffering.
While in Nepal, my hardest month, I was reading Ezekiel who lay on his left side 390 days and on his right side 40 days. I realized sometimes God wants us to know what it’s like for Him, so He had Ezekiel experience in his body what it has been like for Him to endure the sin of Israel in Judah.
I went through the memories with Him. I thought about being so caged after having been so free and saw how it was for Him to limit himself to human form after living in heaven. I thought about what it was like to have crowds gather in India and meditated on what it was like for Him as the crowds and lines formed for Him. I remembered how hard it was to hike the mountains to minister to a remote people and considered what it cost Him to bring the gospel to the lost. As I recalled submitting to flawed people, I thought of how it was for Him to submit to the flawed parenting of Mary and Joseph.
There’s something about understanding another person’s sufferings that produces understanding and intimacy. It’s why my mom had me watch this TV series on life during the Cultural Revolution. It’s why Paul wanted to know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in HIS sufferings (Phil 3:10-11)
Who in this day and age yearns to share in the sufferings of Jesus Christ?
It’s one of those questions I ask myself still these days. How willing am I really to suffer in order to experience the depth and richness of a relationship with Jesus that can’t be experienced any other way?
But at least for now, I can rest assured that God did not fail to deliver what I thought He had promised and that it may not look like how I want or hope, but He continues to be bringing me into the place of intimacy with Him.
