If I had to label the past month I’ve been home it would
be one of struggle and frustration. Much like what Jacob faced in Genesis, I’ve
felt like I’ve been wrestling with God. Wrestling with why He would change me
and give me a heart for the nations just to bring me right back to buffalo-
where I struggle to keep afloat most. I’ve rocked orphans to sleep who have
never had safe arms to fall asleep in, I’ve fed the poor living in literal
garbage dumps, I’ve shared truth with women in forced prostitution, I’ve been
part of leading a community of believers in Honduras back to wholeness and
healing, and I’ve been able to speak life into my own generation as I watch God
transform lives before my eyes- but to be home, to be home is a much different story and nothing like my new heart.
I felt like I was being exiled by God and like He was taking back his promise
of using me to reach the nations.
Straight
up lies that the enemy was feeding me.
So then why does God have me here for another season of
life? Sometimes we need a literal representation of our state to see how far
God wants to still bring us. This is one of those instances. You see, before I
left for Thailand this summer a friend of mine let God speak through her to
tell me I needed to be gutted. Gutted like a house that’s been destroyed by a
flood- and I didn’t fully understand what God meant until the other day. As I
was serving with some friends on the west side of buffalo- God began to wreck
me. I stepped into an abandoned house that the ministry we were working with
was beginning to renovate just to find that our first task was to gut the
upstairs. As I grabbed a hammer and chisel and began to pry up the wood planks-
it all began to click for me. An “ahaa” moment if you will, when you finally
get what God has been telling you the whole time. For every plank of wood I chiseled into and
pried up I realized the things he still needed to pry out of my life. At one
point after several hours of this tedious and exhausting work I began to ask
God why not just build the parts that are beyond repair and leave the rest- but
that’s not how he works and that’s not how you renovate a house that’s falling
apart. Underneath the parts that even looked stable was rotting wood that the
eye couldn’t see without taking it up. It’s a slow process and sometimes it is
easy to want to pry up the pieces you know will come up whole even if its not
the right time because you don’t want to spend the time or effort prying up the
tougher pieces- but nonetheless you have to pry it up in a specific pattern, a
very specific way.
God
has not given up the promises he has made me of reaching the nations. He hasn’t
abandoned me into an exiled land how my blinded eyes were seeing. No, in fact
he is right here, surrounding me with his presence as he lovingly chisels and
pries away the parts of me that aren’t who he knows I am and strengthens every
part of me as I’m being built up in Him.
God brought these verses to my attention the other day
and reminded me of the truth in where he has me.
“Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his
steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I said in my alarm, “I am
cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I
cried to you for help. Love the LORD all you saints! The LORD preserves the
faithful ..Be strong and let your hearts take courage all you who wait for the
LORD.” Psalm 31:21-24
I am
patiently waiting on you LORD, as you refine me, as you purge the places long devastated
and build me up in you, in your love, and your truth. You are faithful abba-so
I give it all to you LORD trusting that you’ll make something beautiful out of
me.
