The day I realized that this was what my life was going to be for the next 11 months, I thought to myself, oh TJ what in the world did you sign up for?
I have always been, genuinely speaking, a pretty lazy person. In life, I prefer to do whatever is easiest, quickest, and requires the less energy. If I don’t really need to leave the house to do anything that day then why in the world would I waste an outfit and just stay in my pajamas. Hey. It’s less laundry. I say that to give you a glimpse of how lazy I am. Don’t get me wrong I like to work hard too, but it’s definitely an area that God immediately showed me there was room for improvement.
The ministry we were given was hard work. We basically reconstructed and helped restore a church. At first, the smashing and pick axing stuff was fun. I won’t lie. It was fun destroying stuff, but then when we had to repair. Now that wasn’t so fun. The hard work began of peeling and scraping paint from the ceiling and walls before we started to paint. The work got tedious, and I began to doubt.
My conversations with God sounded like this: Why in the world did you call me here Father? What am I doing scraping paint from the ceiling for 4 hours and then doing it again the next day. I have never done this before. In no way am I qualified for this. My heart is just not in this repairing of this church. I am so frustrated Lord. If this is what the next 11 months look like then I will never make it through. What have I agreed to? Please Lord change my attitude.
Well, no kidding, that is exactly what Jesus did. Three days later, He answered that prayer. We were invited to a church service where the pastor talked about Nehemiah. Nehemiah had never ever constructed a wall before, just like I had never reconstructed a church before, but Nehemiah said yes to the will of the Lord. He knew that the Lord would help him every step of the way. That is exactly what I wanted for my life. I wrote in my journal that night that I knew this message was for me, because the Lord was speaking to my heart and answering my prayer. The Lord changed my attitude and my perspective that night. He showed me that yes this will be hard work, if you do it without me. I needed Jesus. I was recognizing that now. I was trying to do ministry without Him and just rely on my own strength. But it wasn’t working. It was making me frustrated and exhausted. I needed Jesus. I needed His strength. And I will need Him every step of this race and the rest of my life. I said yes to the Lord, just like Nehemiah. I want to surrender my life to Him, so that means doing things that I may have never done before…
BUT…
The Lord that we serve is more powerful than any weaknesses that we have.
I was allowing my flesh to overwhelm me with the project before me, because I didn’t include God and His strength to help me. I didn’t call upon Him. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by everything that needed to get done and how I felt completely inadequate to do the work; I needed to focus on how big God is and how He would help me one small step at a time. Scraping one piece of paint at a time and staying focused on that one thing instead of looking around at the size of the room and thinking there is no way we will ever finish this. False. We will. Because God will help us and there is more than just me working right now. I had a whole community of people working and going at it together along with Jesus.
Thank you Father for that attitude change! Thank you for caring about me that you teach me these things and you don’t let me stay down. Thank you Father!
Needless to say, after that church service that night, I started reading Nehemiah. And the church did get finished! With the Lord’s help!
Until the next adventure,
Teej
