The reason I have not posted for a few days is because I have been in Mexico on a missions trip. This post will be a bit longer than others, as I will be recapping my experience and the ways in which God showed up. Context: Every Thanksgiving break my school takes a group of 300-400 students down to Mexico where we split up into teams of 10-20 and serve different ministries such as kids, orphanages, expecting mothers, prisons, community service, etc. As God has so graciously allowed me to understand that my purpose is to glorify Him, I felt no use of my time could glorify Him more than serving others, so I signed up to work with expecting mothers. Leading up to the trip, I was very excited. I wanted nothing more than to be useful and to do the Lord’s work for those 5 days. I was excited to glorify my Father in heaven with everything I had. Then we arrived at the base camp. Now, there had been a waitlist for this missions trip—too many people signed up, and they even had to deny some applications though they brought more people this year than ever before. For my ministry, we had a team of 10 girls serving 3 expecting mothers. When I learned this, before we had even gone to the ministry site, I began to feel hopeless and useless. Why did they allow me to come if they didn’t need me? Was it really necessary for me to be there? So the first night I was very bitter. I began to doubt myself. I realized that I still hadn’t forgiven myself for what I did over summer. I hated myself, and I could not feel the love of God. How could He love someone like me? And without His love, how could I possibly serve anyone else? I felt anger build up inside me, and doubts filled my mind—is my relationship with God real or am I just repeating my mistakes from last year? Should I even keep trying to get to know God if I’m just going to repeat the past and hold onto these sinful emotions of anger, bitterness, and jealousy? “Give up,” the voice told me, “You’re never going to be as spiritual as all these people around you. You’ll never know God like they know God. How could God love someone like you?” Some might say I had been hearing from Satan. But God is a God who keeps His promises, and He doesn’t allow us to give up on Him so easily. On Sunday, our second day in Mexico, we went to a church service. The message was about (you guessed it) not giving up. The pastor told us that giving up is never an option. Rather, God is with us, and He wants us to reach out to Him for help. She said that in Isaiah God tells us He will strengthen us. He stands next to us, ready and eager to help. I looked up the exact verse reference later: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 As I was reading the rest of Isaiah 41 and as I remembered her telling us how we must cling onto the promises God gives us, I recalled a word from God I had received on October 9, 2018. I had just woken up from a nap and this exact sentence ran through my mind the rest of the day: “Do not doubt the Lord’s ability to save the lost, redeem the wicked, and change the hearts of those who seek after His own.” And that’s exactly what I was doing in Mexico. I was doubting that the Lord could ever really redeem my wickedness or change my stubborn heart. But yet weeks earlier, He had promised me exactly that. Why would I doubt His abilities to do that now? Why should I rush His plans, or doubt His decision to reveal Himself and change my heart in His own time? This was a good realization. I do believe God had that pastor’s message planned for me, as well as others who needed to hear it. Yet, I still had difficulties feeling God’s love. I now knew He would strengthen and uphold me, and that He would change my heart in time, but I could not feel that He loved me or really cared about me. So I read Job, and boy did God speak through that book. “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment? Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant?” Job 7:17-19 Job spent the majority of his book crying out to God. He was suffering intense trials, beyond anything I or anyone I know has ever had to bear. Yet He understood that God was with Him in everything, and that God is still Just and Perfect. He did not understand why God was striking him with so much suffering, but He remembered the qualities of God, and stayed true to his faith. He persevered, though his trials were unfairly inflicted on him as he was innocent of such intense suffering. And finally, after spending the majority of his book crying out to God and arguing with his friends, God speaks to Job, but not with the loving comfort we might expect God to use in a situation like this. Instead, God tells Job: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand…Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his?” Is that the kind of response you would expect God to give to Job—who had nearly everyone he knew murdered, lost all of his possessions, was inflicted with painful, full-body sores for months, and whose own friends couldn’t even console him without condemning him? Of course not. We would expect something like, “Job, don’t worry. I love you. I have a plan in mind. This will pass soon. Don’t be afraid. I am with you.” Instead, we get God’s actual response—much harsher, right? No direct statements of love, no reassuring comfort. He simply reminds Job that He is in control. That He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, and that Job is not. So who is Job to question the plans of such a God? Who is Job to talk back to such a God, or think such a God is being unfair? Who is Job to question God and expect God to answer him? This is God’s response to me. Perhaps God has not revealed His great love for me yet. I know it with my mind, but I have not felt it in my heart. Perhaps God has not completely softened my heart yet either. Even so, why should I give up now? God is at work, even when I don’t see it or feel it. He has His plans, and I have mine, and in giving my life to Christ I agreed to willingly trade in my worthless plans for His almighty ones. We are blessed to be loved and deeply pursued by an Almighty God—so powerful that He does not answer to us. He listens to us, and He will answer our prayers, but in His time and in line with His purpose, not in our own time in line with our own purposes. He has called me to patiently persevere this time of difficulty in which I feel no love from heaven, but I know He will show up in His time, and He will continue to strengthen me and help me as I wait. I have a God who keeps His promises. I will cling to that truth, and He will never let me go. I will reply to God as Job did after hearing God’s response: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:2-6 This is the way in which God was at work during the past few days. He has not teased me with empty hope. He is not hiding His face from me so that I may suffer in silence. Rather, He is instructing me, strengthening me, disciplining me, and building me up in perseverance and dependence on Him and His promises. His will, His time, His way. I will accept everything He has decided for me. He has helped me to submit to His authority—an answer to my prayer from long ago. Praise be to God! “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised…Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” Job 1:21; 2:10
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AuthorFighting complacency and advocating change in myself for the world around me. Posts by Date
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