Falling

“My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace. Not even blessing, but Himself, my God.”

“The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred, he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ. There is a reckless abandonment about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do.

In whatever we do we must take the initiative to look for Jesus.

Honestly right now that quote slaps me in the face because I feel like I need Jesus more than ever right now yet I feel so far away from Him.

I’m freaking out right now. Everything is hitting me like a hailstorm, making me gasp for air like the tuber I knocked off yesterday. I have one more day of camp with all my friends, then three weeks teaching English in Korea, a week and a half to tell my family and friends goodbye, and then a plane ride across the world to Peru where I will serve and be a doctor for 8 months!!! 8 months that seems so long- and Peru seems so unimaginable. I mean yes this has been my dream for a long time. I can’t explain how excited I am, but at the same time, I am scared.

God has definitely done the whole Peru thing for me. He made the decision that I was going—he gave me all the right signs. I definitely trust Him and I have no second guesses about my decision to go for a year, even when leaving some pretty amazing friends here. But even though I know Peru is where God wants me, I’m nervous. I really want to reach the people there. I really want to make a difference. I want to learn medical things- so I can heal the people. I really want my life to change- but I really desperately want people to see Jesus through me. I don’t want to go there and stay the same. Honestly, I don’t know how I will be able to come back to selfish America? Ok I’m sorry but we are just so selfish here. I’m tired of living life so much about myself. I know that’s bad and I know people are all like “Well you don’t need to go around the world to love other people and not care about yourself and you don’t need to go be a missionary to find God and get serious.” And I know they are right, you don’t have too. But also that verse in the Bible where it says it’s better to cut off your arm then send your whole body to hell.. I kinda get from that that we need to take initiative to put ourselves in the best positions to seek God’s face and find Him. Because in the end that’s all that matters- our relationship with Him!

It’s really hard for me- my walk with God-especially right now I’m really struggling with it. I mean it’s easy to be nice, I know I’m not nice all the time, but I mean I can be nice enough, I can even suck up. And it’s easy to follow the ten commandments by “law” but it’s harder to love like Jesus Christ and live out the fruit of the spirit. Even harder for me then demonstrating Christ’s love, is the actual relationship. I just find so many distractions in my day, and I want to spend quality time with God. But time and time again I deny Him and I put Him off until I’m way too tired and I fall asleep. This really frustrates me! It makes me so mad!! Sometimes I feel like if I can’t have a steady walk with Christ how can I take any other relationship seriously? I really do need God. But sometimes if I’m distracted it’s harder to see how much I need him. I really do love God so much but it’s definitely still hard to make time for that relationship.

Today I’ve come to that point where I know without a doubt that I can’t do this without God. Sometimes it takes a fall to make you look up and realize you have a Savior that is waiting for you to grab his hand. Today was a really rough day at the lake and a really hard day in my brain. Thinking about everything happening just doesn’t make sense to me. I got really mad today at really small things and honestly I would like to just run away from everything. But I won’t. I can’t. Because I know with Christ’s strength and His help only I can do the seemingly impossible things.

Isaiah 50:4-7 is a paragraph I memorized when I was a little kid and I love verse 7. It says “For the Lord God will help me. Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set my face like flint and I know I will not be put to shame.”

Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden on the Lord and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.”

Philippians 4:6,7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Goodbyes will be extremely hard. I will get homesick. There will be cultural shock. Things will change quickly. Life will move on. But in the end it will be ok because God is there. He has a plan and He knows everything from the beginning to the end. I pray that you trust God with every part of your life as well and realize how crazy He is about you.

"There are times, says Jesus, when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but trust Him. God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not. He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the notion of the mind of God on all things strong and growing. Nothing happens in any particular order unless God's will is behind it, therefore you can rest in perfect confidence with Him."- Chambers