I’m going to be brutally honest with myself and with you all today.  I went to church today, at a new church, not in the right frame of mind.  My heart wasn’t prepared, my mind wasn’t, and frankly, I arrived tired and just ‘going through the motions’.  I don’t say that because I am proud of it, but I’m sure we have all experienced those types of days if we’re honest with ourselves.  I first want to start by saying, THANK GOD that He doesn’t work based on how WE feel or how prepared (OR NOT PREPARED) we are.  He works in spite of us!

We visited a brand new church today, Hope Community Church.  As I said, I wasn’t prepared to be in the house of the Lord, no matter where it was and I certainly didn’t feel that I was representing Christ, I wasn’t in a good place just coming off a wonderful weekend of being commissioned and consecrated as a long term missionary where leaders, friends and mentors laid hands on us to send us out for this amazing work God wants us to do.  I just wasn’t in a good place.  The sermon this morning from Pastor Kevin Butcher shared a story of a lady who was kind of on the outs at his church.  He came to her one day and asked what was going on, why she sometimes came and sometimes didn’t and her overall thoughts about church.  She stated simply, pastor, “I’m just not feelin’ it”.  He inquired more and it seemed she didn’t understand how SHE could be used in any way in the church.  He encouraged her to be herself, to share her story, which was quite a story of overcoming, restoration and deliverance from addiction.  The next Sunday, she sat down by a lady who communicated to her that she was trying to decide if she was going to get clean from drugs and was thinking about rehab.  This lady, who ‘just wasn’t feelin it’ was used in an amazing way to change a life!  BOTH were at church today and BOTH are clean from addiction and following Christ!

The way this woman described her feeling about church, was exactly how I was feeling.  After being BLESSED by this story, the sermon and the sense of community today, I left feeling exuberant, ecstatic and THANKFUL that God meets us where we are and brings us out of whatever junk we are stuck in.  I sure wasn’t feelin it this morning, but God touched me in a way that no one else could to meet me and bless me and REMIND me I am His.  I am called.  I am a child of HIS no matter where I am OR how I feel.

Where are you today?  Allow God to meet you, allow Him to commune with you and remind you whose you are!

Report This Post

 

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

                                                             -Jeremiah 29:11 

I feel when I originally thought about being a missionary, like most people, I thought you sign up and then GO!  It’s easy!  I’m glad it isn’t that way, but I also didn’t think it would take almost 10 years to get to where we are.  It has been a journey, difficult sometimes, times of questions and wondering what we are doing or not doing that is taking so long.
We’ve had people ask us along the way if we ever thought about quitting, about throwing in the towel and saying “we’re done”, it’s taking too long.  I guess I can honestly answer, no.  We never thought about throwing it in, like I said, there were questions along the way.  There was a time when I was in grad school that I failed a class and thought about quitting school, but I didn’t.  There were tears and there was even anger, likely more with myself, but some frustration with God for letting that happen and taking even MORE time in school.  When we both started school, right after getting married, again we thought it would be a couple of years and then we would go to the mission field.  We ended up in Chicago for 8 years.  In the midst of it, we probably wouldn’t have thought it was something we needed, hence all the questions as to why it took so long.  But, we can now look back on it and say that was a time of preparation that we needed before going to the mission field.  I suppose some people may just be able to sign up and GO!  Maybe they’re ready on the spot.  Heart-wise, we probably were too, but we realize had we gone at any other time than when we did, we wouldn’t have been there at the right time.  God set up the time of preparation for a reason, a purpose, bigger than us, but watching out for us and weaving together in us what He has for us.  We have seen in many steps along the way how God has woven it all together.  We were told when we first went to Ecuador in 2010 that we came at a great time in the history of the Ecuadorian Covenant Church.  We are thankful for this and we are blessed that God has prepared us to go at this time, in this way and in this place, our new home in Ecuador.
God truly has gone before us and has prepared our way!
Thanks be to God.

Report This Post