Honduras Heading into the New Year!

A New Year’s Reflection

I boarded a plane late yesterday night and slept through the flight, spent too long in Miami and enjoyed the flight into Tegucigalpa chatting with the single mom next to me in Spanish. I was forgotten at the airport, so I added another mere 2 hours to my travel time while waiting and arrived exhausted at my apartment this afternoon. Four phone calls, a shopping trip, and a hot shower later I had turned down all invitations to different new years celebrations and had sequestered myself in my bed to wait out the next 6 hours till the beginning of the new year, thinking to myself, ‘interesting choice for this new year, I wonder what I should do?’

I talked with many of you this past week while being home and shared little bits and pieces of the state of my heart right now. This update is an attempt to dive in deeper and share not just the pieces, but the whole. So, no, I will not try to shorten my thoughts this time (I skipped my December update for those of you who struggle to get through my long windedness, so buckle up for the long haul J) but I do need to use this reflection time to open up in realness as we head into a new year. I hope it leads to encouragement, though maybe not in the way I would have chosen.

Heading into Christmas break was kind of like sliding into home base after the batter has made a bunt and you’re forced off third with way too little time to cover the distance….not to mention the ‘sliding’ part…which doesn’t feel too good … and then the realization that you’re still out after all that effort. I’ll just say it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t victorious, and it wasn’t my favorite part of the game. 

I showed up at my home knowing I had a week to fit in a lot of activities and my heart and mind were in no way ready to take it all in, let alone celebrate the season.

Thankfully, the Lord has been repeating some words that have led to a transformation of the heart, mind, and spirit.

Humility, gospel, fear, and….surprise!

This is what happens when God is in control of the game and the outcome, the score and the pitches, the hits and the RBI’s, the players and the bottom of the 9^th. 

Forgive me as I jump around a bit…I will do my best to tie it all together in some way.

Ministry and Inconvenienced to Share the Gospel

A couple weeks ago I got on the wrong bus and found myself stuck – unable to get off (something that very rarely happens). I was frustrated because the consequences for this would be missing most of a birthday celebration and the unsure reality of making it back in one piece from who knows what destination I would arrive at. Over an hour after I got on the bus we arrived at the top of a mountain on a dirt road with 2 shacks nearby and I was the only one left on the bus. I had been talking with God this whole time and said, ‘Ok God, something’s up here…help me please”

The bus driver looked at me and asked when I was getting off….I explained where I needed to go and he said he would get me there in about an hour. (the bus I needed was the same, just going the other direction one block over) He told me to come sit by him and we proceeded to have a good hour long conversation in which he shared his life story, at points with tears running down his cheeks, and I was given the opportunity to share with him the incredible hope of the gospel. He accepted the Lord at some point in our journey and we both agreed that God had put me specifically on the wrong bus so that I would talk with him about Christ on that day.

He’s come to church twice now with his two children and the Lord is beginning the work He planned out from the beginning in this man’s heart. It was an AMAZING experience to be a part of, yet not I, but Christ within me…. The hope of glory! 

Through my bible study with the other teachers we had been discussing this idea of being ‘inconvenienced in order to share the gospel’ – in which case something does not go as planned and you realize that God has just taken over your plans and He is doing it for a specific reason, and that is the advance of His kingdom.

The problem is….the gospel simply shouldn’t have to be an ‘inconvenience’ – it should be in all, through all. It should be lived out every moment of every day. It should resonate through every word and scream praise in victory over every circumstance.

I’m beginning to read a book by one of my favorite preachers – Matt Chandler called, “The Explicit Gospel” in which I’m beginning to learn that we as American Christians growing up in the church have very little real understanding of the gospel in all its truth and redemption and glory because it is not lived out daily in our lives.

This idea keeps surfacing and I’m excited to delve into it more, for how deeply I desire a real understanding and grand reverence for this thing I live and breathe to share…the very purpose of my life…..the gospel of Christ. I think I’m asking for something WAY beyond what I can think or imagine at this point, so this is simply a preface for transformation that is coming. J

“But I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me, has really served to advance the gospel…” (Phil. 1:12)

Humbling Himself and being found in the appearance of a man

The verse the Lord gave me for this Christmas season is Philippians 2: 5-9

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant and being found in human likeness, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

As I’ve looked at ministry the Lord has given me in this past year, I’ve seen so much fruit from this attitude of Christ Jesus. By humbling myself and becoming like the people here, by dying to self and my own desires, wants, and choices, I’ve seen the Lord manifest Himself through me to the people He’s placed in my life.

People are opening up their lives, they’re sharing the deepest parts of themselves, they’re being real and not hiding behind false facades, and I’ve realized the power of that humility that is so necessary in this whole process. God’s brought me to a humble place. He’s taken down a lot of walls that I used to have up. He’s stripped down that attitude of ‘control and having it all together.’ The expected spiritual responses have been lacking and the raw side of the heart rising to the surface. 

I was sharing my heart with a friend a while ago and found myself desperately wanting to hang up the phone. That vulnerable feeling was beginning to rise in my throat and I wanted to shut down. Instead I decided to be honest and share this reality, along with the fear that if I actually let my guard down that I would be rejected and discarded. You see, I’ve spent most of my life as the spiritual hero, the one who always has it all together with God. In high school I often got comments from my youth leaders like, ‘I’m so glad we never have to worry about you Julie, you’re always good.’ I’m not used to being the one who has to take…. the needy one that becomes a ‘burden.’ I rarely feel burdened by others and I delight in giving advice, encouragement and mostly prayer, but in all of that serving others I realized I was allowing some sort of role as ‘savior’ to seep in to my mentality that set ME up as the intercessor instead Christ being the one relied on. In putting myself in this role I felt needed, purposeful, and successful when the Lord answered prayers and worked THROUGH me. Never would I take credit for these things, but I still received it, and it still had the effect of satisfying my needs in some way. Discovering this sin reality in myself hurt me deeply. It made me question everything I was doing, every relationship, and every ministry. I searched motives of heart and mind, crying out to God to show me where I was doing things for me, and when it was for Him. It was an almost impossible line to discern except for this one thing….humility.  As I opened up to my friend on the phone I kept throwing out the garbage, the gross parts, the disgusting things that I always suppress and the sinful side of the flesh that I often dress up nicely with clichés of, ‘God’s using it all for good.’ I told all the feelings that came along with all the struggles and the response I got was this, “Julie, don’t ever underestimate the power of humbling yourself before others.”

So…I’ve been working on it, and it’s been truly humbling taking from others what I’m used to giving. Asking, instead of offering, and showing weakness when I used to display strength.

I lay on the hotel bed at 2:40 in the morning, talking with a few of my 5^th grade girls at a sleepover right before Christmas. Realizing that this was a sacrifice of my time and energy because I should have been sleeping, and it was already Christmas break…. I shouldn’t want to see students and hang out with them on MY break time. But it was this conversation that opened my eyes to God’s work in this area. “Miss, I see all your students so open with you, they tell you everything and not just them, but all the teachers and even until the maids,” commented Marcella after we had talked about pretty much everything going through their hearts and minds.

If I hadn’t GONE to that sleepover, humbled myself to their level, and laid talking on that bed till the wee hours of the morning we never would have gotten to the ‘real’ stuff. If I’m not real in who I am, then I’m not greeted with the same realness in others.  If I’m claiming this humility, then I become like whoever the Lord puts in my path by dying to myself and the Lord uses it to receive glory.

“I have become all things to all men so that by any means I might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22)

So, this Christmas, finding the glory of the Christ child in human nature, clothed in complete humility becoming like us for the purpose of dying took on a whole new meaning, and encouraged my heart in this journey of opening myself up and seeing the fruits of this ministry, as beautifully backwards as it is. “When we are weak, then we are strong.” I praise Christ for this attitude I seek, for the example, that He went first to show me how it’s done.

Romans 8:3-4

“For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walking according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Which leads to the next……

Fear….safety and struggle

There has surfaced a reality in my life of fear, and I’m just beginning to see it’s finger prints. Before, it had its web of control sneakily throughout events, people, and thoughts, but it ran unnoticed because I, in my controlling personality, was able to control it. When that control began to slip, I began to realize that my fears were much more big under the surface than I ever want to acknowledge, but manifested mostly in what the bible calls the ‘fear of man.’ I know I’ve written pieces before, but I have to acknowledge it now on a bigger scale.

Prov. 29:25 -- Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.

Galatians 1:10 -- For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

1 Thess. 2:4 -- But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.

Isaiah 2:22 -- Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?

I am simply writing to you because this is something I’ve been discovering as a hindrance to me in ministry and in an attempt to be real and honest, I need to tell you about this part of the journey.

I am seeing the reality here of living in a country that is labeled the most dangerous in the world right now. The news is splattered with dead bodies and blood and gore and tragedy. My girls tell me of attacks made on their families on the weekends, they live in fear of losing those closest to them at any moment in time. A mom of one of my 5^th graders is on the top 5 hit list in Honduras. My principal tells me daily of stories of parents of our students getting kidnapped and beat up, of demands for money, or killings of those trying to stop the drug trafficking, or whole families of those who own land being murdered. All of these things hang over our days, our realities….and yet then we get word of the shootings in Connecticut and what is a daily fear here becomes a reality at home in the ‘safety and security’ we thought we could trust.

No, the realities of these two worlds are the same, those we love could be taken at any moment, no one is safe from any type of tragedy, and the darkness seeps in close, making us think that the light cannot pierce this darkness.

I have fallen to the fear on more occasions than I would like to admit. I know we all have. Fear is crippling, stifling, and a powerful tool of the enemy.

I’m sharing with you my fears in order to bring them to the light, to ask you to pray that I would not fear.  Here’s what it looks like for me….. the fear of ‘losing’ things or people I love, fear of ‘pleasing’ people more than my Maker and Judge, fear of  ‘inadequacy’ of not measuring up or coming through and not being enough, fear of ‘judgement’ of being rejected or left when it all falls through the cracks….and so much more.

In telling you this struggle with fear, especially the fear of man, I know the remedy, it is stated in the Word many times, ‘perfect love drives out fear,’ and ‘faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.’ 

These 3 remain: faith, hope, and love….but the greatest of these is love.

When the world is crumbling and fear is crippling I turn to these 3 that remain when all darkness invades and the world seems to fail at every turn. I take FAITH to believe in a sovereign God who plans beginning to end HIS glory story, and includes only the best for those who are called according to His purpose. I choose HOPE to know that the gospel story of redemption is being worked out in me and in all the earth. I pick LOVE despite the losing, the hurting, and the chance involved…. asking for the perfecting of it in me to drive out all fear.

Song: One Thing Remains -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KXsMCJgBQ

I encourage all of us, especially in this new year, to choose these 3 that remain always, and to bring those fears in us to light, to open up the dark places and invite in the truth….then we will be ‘transformed from glory to glory.’

This leads to the next and last title…..

Surprise

Over break I called a long time friend and desperately asked for prayer. Despite all the joy of being with family, in sharing in the Christmas season, and being home I knew something wasn’t right in my spirit. I was fighting back too many tears in moments when everything should have been full of happiness. I was wobbling when I should have been standing strong, and I was doubtful when I should have claimed victory in truth….. in all reality I had just fallen to hard spiritual attack time and time again and had lacked the strength to hold up my arms on my own. I needed a prayer covering and some intercession, and God provided.

As my friend prayed over me and I let the tears stream God revealed many things, but one thing she asked for was that God would surprise me with delight and joy.  I was hesitant to take it at first, to claim it as something for me, because I’d grown so use to the grind, the shuffle, and the hard giving of thanks….that to think God could sweep in and surprise me with delight, joy, and fullness seemed like something I couldn’t/shouldn’t reach for. I chastised myself immediately for thinking this way, but not only thinking this way…acting this way.

Oh, how small I make God when I let the circumstances cloud and the darkness bring defeat. 

I spent 20 hours in bed with the flu right after Christmas and marvel and how God brings good things in times I would label as ‘not my favorite’. I never would have opened the book if I hadn’t been forced to lay there….but the blessing and surprise began to manifest itself in the words of “Kisses from Katie.” I got through the foreword, introduction, and first chapter and was already blown away. The entire flight back to Tegucigalpa I couldn’t put the book down. Through the words I read I was being renewed in my inner being and God was speaking truth to my tender heart. I choked back tears at least once every chapter. It was real, it was raw, and it was surprisingly refreshing.

The book concluded with this….as we head into this new year I wait upon these promises, hoping, waiting, and KNOWING that the WORD will be fulfilled in my life and yours, because God is God, and I am not, so I stand in awe of His work and wait for the….surprise.

“Surprise, I am right here. Surprise, it is just as I said it would be. Surprise, I am exactly enough, everything you need, all over again.” I prayed and He could have pulled the answer right out of His pocket. But He didn’t, because He loves me too much and His way is better. I can laugh with my Father because He is a parent who delights in surprising His children, a friend who loves doing something extra special for his closest pal. I can laugh with Jesus, because He is too good to me. Life changes in an instant and we are but grass that withers. And God holds all of the chaos in the palm of His hand, giving even the pain a purpose.

A year later I can say, “yes, this year has been the hardest yet. Really though, it has also been the best. And I would do it all again if He asked me to.” Because faithful God did not let go of our hands. I am young and I know the most difficult times are not behind us. But as I rest in Him and draw near I am learning much and I am remembering that I am one of His favorites. And even in the middle of a storm, even when I can’t see the good yet, He can. And He is looking at me with that twinkle in His eye, just waiting to surprise. (Katie Davis – Kisses from Katie)

A youtube video that has had us in tears laughing so hard – just had to share it to lighten things up here at the end, it goes with the theme: surprise J

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqEeP1acj4Y