What was God teaching me in Pakistan? Why did He have me go? These are the questions that have plagued me over and over and over and over....
It's funny how often we think that life is supposed to be filled with book after book after book of experiences that we live, learn and understand. It's as though we are to look at what life offers us as a set of scenes that we live (or watch based on your ability to really live) as nice, neat, tidy little things that we will understand soon after they are over. Like when you read a book, you know? You read cover to cover and understand--there was conflict; there were characters; there was love; there was hatred; there was a moral. You learn the lesson of the book, close the cover, and put the book back on the shelf--likely to never look at it again. Why would you right? You already read that one!
Nice--Neat--Tidy.
These are words that do not describe my life nor my faith journey. Why, then, am I expecting this experience to process in a nice--neat--tidy way? It simply is not!
Here are a couple of ways God is meeting me, though--
He is illuminating the wilderness--the course sand under my feet and the hot sun on my face. He is reassuring me that life isn't necessarily only about the "Promised Land" but that he is using the sand and the sun to build my faith.
He is awakening me to the fact that life and the experiences that lie within it are not supposed to be book cover-to-book cover experiences. I will be processing what happened in Pakistan for a very long time. Perhaps the last two-plus months for me have been that cover page that introduces a new chapter into my life instead of a different book altogether. Thus, God holds the future and what I will discover within the pages to follow.
How does this help?
I don't have to figure everything out. I can be broken and confused. I can wonder and hurt. I can grow callouses on my feet from the hot sand beneath. I can pray and trust. I can believe that God is building my faith. I can believe that He is working all things out for the good.
There is a really great picture of this in Exodus 15. The Israelites are walking (miserably) in the wilderness. They are confused, hurting, broken, not knowing how to live, etc. Just when they think they can't go one more step, God brings them into an oasis with 70 palm trees and 12 fresh water springs.
Awaken to the God of the oases!
Now I can keep telling the story---
4 comments:
This is so right on. Life is a lot messier and a lot more abstract than we'd like to believe it is. It is anything but tidy.
Despite your total brokenness and your feelings of inadequacy, God has you here for a reason. You will never know or understand the reason, but you will probably always wonder about it. Keep pressing on - don't close off your pain or your disillusionment - it is both your fiercest enemy and greatest ally.
You are loved.
Another way to visualize this is to liken it unto walking through the valley of the shadow of death - not physical death, but death to whatever it is that keeps insisting that everything be made clear to us all the time. You spoke of "the coarse sand under my feet and the hot sun on my face." Some days you may find that it's hard, unyielding bedrock and the bone-chill of the darkness in the pit of that valley. The way is hard and there is very little visibility. It's scary and you feel alone. But...then you remember that it is the valley of the SHADOW of death. The blessed thing is that in order for there to be shadow, there must necessarily be LIGHT! That Light doesn't make the valley go away, unfortunately, and it doesn't make it any easier to traverse the terrain, but the Light provides the Hand in mine to reassure me that I'm not alone, and that He knows the way because He's already been on this route before. Thank GOD that He knows the end from the beginning. Thank GOD that He has counted you worthy to experience this wilderness/valley and whatever follows. Thank GOD that He has already endowed you with the strength and wisdom and close relationship with Him that you need to endure and, indeed, to overcome. Please know that you are bringing glory to Him through your attitude and that you are an great example for the rest of us who have our own wilderness/valley to traverse. Be like Jacob who wrestled with God; who, despite the pain, would not let go until he received the blessing. And my prayer for you? Goes along with what we talked about on the phone the other day: "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Love you, Son.
Jeremy: Just keep in mind, too, that some days are diamonds, some days are coal. Hang in there.
We love you and always will ......
Gram/Gramps
Jer, After reading your blog yesterday, I went to bed with it on my mind and heart. This morning I opened a book I know you're familiar with "Messy Spiritulity" and the first thing I read made me think of you. It goes... "Jesus often left his followers "I don't know-ing." Our personal relationship with Christ is often the only apologetic we can offer. Our lack of knowing is the beginning of humility and the very essence of the spiritual life."
Blessings,
MG
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