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Outside these four walls

Being home or "re-entry" as they tell us is exactly how they warned it would be and exactly how I denied it ever would.  I feel lost without my team, and purposeless without a ministry plan.  These last few days I've barely left the comfort of my bedroom, hoping that reading my Bible and listening to Christian music would suffice God's calling and plan on my life at home…. Nope, not at all! He has clearly spoken reminding me that as Christians our jobs are never done.

Thanks to some really caring and loving teammates I had a pretty life-changing realization about myself and the world that I had grown so comfortable living in.  I'm selfish and so is the world I live in.  Going to Africa I expected to bring the riches of heaven to these spiritually and physically poor and hungry people, but once again I was wrong.  (This trip seemed to have a reoccuring theme of God clearly showing me how wrong I was without Him in my life)  Instead, this country full of extreme poverty, starving children, and minimal safety taught me.  It is here with them that I learned what real joy is, joy so abundant and unfaltering that the only explination was and is Jesus.  They shared it with me! I haven't been on many missisons trips but I was sure this was the wrong way around.  But once again God reminded me that being poor in spirit is a wonderful thing, he wants ALL of me, completely EMPTY, ready only to be filled by Him. 

"blessed are the poor and those who realize their need for him, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs" Matt. 5:3'

You provide the fire,
I'll provide the sacrifice.
You provide the spirit,
and I will open up inside.
Fill me up God

Now, my continued prayer is that God would radically change my world from a self-centered one to a God-centered one. We live in a crazy chaotic world, but as Christians we are FREELY given the keys to LIBERATION! ahh! This is still so exciting to me!  The Kingdom of Heaven is ours to seek, but what are we seeking?  I believe my reasoning of avoiding the world behind my four bedroom walls was that I was afraid to enter a world where seeking anything but God was easy, and "normal" to most people including me before this summer.  That's another thing I realized on this trip, God is calling us to be anything but normal.  He calls us to be unloved by a world now, so that we would live eternally in His.  So here we go, the kingdom is mine to go out and seek and bring others along side with me, let's get started!

"Seek the Kingdom of God above ALL ELSE, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need."
Matt. 6: 33

My mission trip is not over, a new one has only just begun. 

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