How I am learning to emulate Indiana Jones

Or, Why you should read the Bible BEFORE praying for something.  

I have a story to tell you:  I was praying the other night, reflecting on my time here (which as been both challenging and awesome), and I had an interesting experience.  It was one of those oh-crap-what-did-I-just-ask-for moments.  Allow me to recount for you:

...Lord, help me to persevere, and to be faithful to what is in front of me now.  Give me the strength to be bold and the sensitivity to listen to the Spirit.  Lord, give me endurance.  Yea, endurance, that's it.  Give me the endurance to work here well, with discipline and with joy.  

And then I thought, Endurance.  I think the Bible has something to say about that...

And I was thinking something along the lines of the verse where Jesus says "Well done, good and faithful servant".  Thinking yea, I'll meditate on that all week, and it will totally motivate me to endure, to push through and to be motivated.  Because Jesus is awesome and I love him. 

So I took my Bible, and I opened to the back where there's a mini-concordance.  And I thought, oh, good, this will be encouraging and I will memorize these verses.  This is going to be great!  I love it when God uses the Bible to speak encouragement to me, when I have those verses that seem like they're so full of joy and sweetness that they just can't be wrung dry, and when I am overflowing in the goodness of God!  God is such a good encourager, and I love it when he answers prayers!  Yippee!

I promise, it wasn't as plastic as it sounds now.  It actually was really organic and genuine.  So I wrote down the 4 or 5 citations from the back of my Bible, and I went to go look the first one up and write it out in my journal.  [I was entirely unprepared for the smack-down that was coming my way.]  It was Hebrews 10.

"But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings... knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting. Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised." (Hebrews 10: 32-36)

Hm.  Well, ok, that's not quite what I was hoping for.  But ok.  I guess that's true.  We will receive the promised inheritance... I can dig that.  Hope in heaven produces endurance.  Ok, got it.  Next verse, Romans 5: 

"...we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5: 3-6)

Ok wait a second.  Boasting in suffering?  This is not the direction I was hoping this would go... Suffering produces endurance.  Ok, I'm kind of suffering.  So I'm kind of building endurance.  I think.  Apparently endurance is tied to overcoming difficulty? Ok, well, let's check out the next verse, maybe that will be more helpful. James 1:

"My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-4)

Well crap.  It was at this point I closed my Bible and stopped looking up the verses.  This is not the connection I was hoping for.  Endurance and suffering are directly connected, apparently.  That sucks.  I think I'd like to retract my previous prayer.  I don't want suffering.  [At this point, I did not have any awesome Indiana Jones moments, like a cool leather-bound notebook telling me what to do via ancient hieroglyph and myth, which is sad.  I also did not have the adrenaline associated with the actual possibility of me literally falling to my death, which I'm thankful for.]

In retrospect, I'm not exactly sure what I thought I would find instead of this delightful epiphany,  because any athlete knows that endurance comes from working through the weakness, the soreness, and the pain of extending yourself to (and then beyond) your limit.  But it's definitely not what I was looking for when I opened my Bible that night.

After a few days of reflection on this, I found myself re-reading the first prayer in my journal, the one that I prayed while sitting in an airport cafe on my way to this city.  On June 30th, I explicitly asked for limitations, for difficulties, and for hardship for a two-fold purpose; one, to drive me to God's feet in prayer, humility, and adoration, and two, that God's name might make his own name known, and not mine.  [I am 100% positive that I simultaneously did not know what I was praying for when I asked that, and I believed I did know]. 




I've already been stretched to the limits of my comfort in the last 3 months here.  I've reached the end of myself, and I now have to make a decision to jump into the abyss, knowing that God is sufficient, sovereign, and good, or I have to shy away in fear.   I cannot walk the edge of the canyon.  There is no middle ground, no grey area or loophole where God can be great and I can be comfortable.   I do not fancy myself a fearful or timid person, and (ridiculously enough, partly because of my pride), I steadfastly refuse to turn away.  But for the last few days I have also steadfastly refused to move forward, to step out over that canyon like Indiana Jones (yes, I just Jesus juked Indiana Jones, and yes, I know the analogy breaks down), knowing that I will not be comfortable, but that it will be good.


When it comes down to it and I have to choose, I would rather regularly be at the end of myself and uncomfortable than be comfortable and not know my God.  So my new prayer is that I would learn to love it here, at the end of myself.  I don't just want to camp at the edge of this cliff.  I want to homestead the land here.  I want to dwell here for the rest of my life.  I want to be the vessel through which God does mighty and wonderful things - not because I am spectacular, but simply because I have positioned myself here and refused to move.  I want to love God more than I love my comfort.

So bring it on, invisible-bridge-across-the-abyss-that-may-or-may-not-be-there.  And even if you aren't there, my God is still good.  I will choose to "[know] that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting", that "hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts".   I'm enduring beyond the edge of my own strength - because God's is enough.  So bring it on.  I'm coming for you, sans hat and lasso (because I'm not quite that cool). 

Where Prayer and Joy Meet, And the Baffling Place that Leaves Me

I watched a man place his faith in Jesus Christ today.

Ok, I didn't actually watch it happen.  But 6 weeks ago, when my plane landed in a foreign country and I while I began to explore a new realm of food and culture, he was not a Christian.  4 weeks ago, when I first met him, he did not believe that Jesus Christ had given him eternal life through His resurrection.  2 weeks ago, he had not laid down his life at the foot of the cross, counting the cost as rubbish for the sake of Jesus.  But today, today we walked along the cobblestone street, admiring the street performers and the blue sky, I was blessed to hear him tell his story: one of how he had decided that Jesus was the Truth, and that He was worth everything.  I cannot begin to describe to you my elation at this moment.

But my elation was not because I had anything to do with his decision.  I, in fact, had absolutely nothing to do with this decision.

It was just blessing lavished upon blessing.

******************************

Sometime in October of last year, I first heard of this young man, Dmitry*.  In email correspondence with a friend living overseas, I was given the opportunity to pray for him as he actively sought truth and light in a dark world.  And so I scribbled his name in the back of my Bible, where I keep a list of others around the world whom I regularly dedicate myself to praying for.  And I started praying.  Some weeks I labored over him every day.  Some weeks I only lifted up a quick prayer while walking down the street.  But every day, I would pick up that Bible and look at that list, and there was his name, staring back at me.   Some days, my fickle heart didn't believe that my praying would do anything.  That I would pray and pray and pray and never see results.   Some days I didn't want to pray.  I selfishly thought that my own problems, my own burdens ought to displace Dmitry's need for a loving savior.  And so, some days, I neglected him.

But his name was always on my list, so I continued to come back to him.  And as the email correspondence between this friend and I picked up, and as I began to hear more and more of his life here, Dmitry kept coming up.

Pray for him, he'd say.  He's growing.  He's getting closer.  

So back to my knees I would go.  Back to petitioning God that he would soften his heart, lift the veil, whatever metaphor or scripture I could find, I'd pray it.  Sometimes it was rote - the same prayer I'd said for the last 12 people on my list.  Sometimes it was genuine, gut-wrenching, searing, sobbing prayer.  The more I prayed, the more it became genuine.  I began to feel that, despite the fact that I couldn't pick him out of a line-up of 2, I was getting to know Dmitry.

Prayer unites people in mysterious ways.  There's a kind of compassion you develop for someone when you truly labor over them in this way.  It's unlike any other kind of servanthood you can conceive. Pouring out your soul at the foot of the throne of God, begging God to do something does not create a negligible bond.

So today, when Dmitry said to me that he had chosen Christ, it wasn't because I had prayed.  Rather, because of these last 10 months of prayer - praying through tears and apathy and love and compassion - God has amplified my joy a hundred fold in rejoicing with a new brother.

God used my [insufficient and altogether lacking] petitions to the Holy Father, by the indwelling of his Spirit, which he gave to me by the death and resurrection of Christ, to amplify my joy at something which he did not even have to include me in, and which he was going to accomplish with or without me.

Seriously?  So basically, God did everything.  The Father sent the Son, even though the world was mightily screwed up.  Who then lived perfectly, willingly suffered and died on the cross, and then proceeded to be raised from the dead.  In order to give me [me!?!] His presence in my life all the time, in the Spirit.  Who then enables me to pray, to the glory of Christ.  In order that the Father might answer my prayers to His glory.  All of which, in turn gives me more joy than my soul can possibly contain.

This is too good to be true.  Seeing the fruit of the Gospel manifested in someone else's life is such sweet balm to my parched and weary soul, which so desperately aches for the promises of Heaven.  God did not have to let me see this fruit.  He graciously chose to anyways.  He did not have to save me.  He graciously did anyways.  He did not have to enable this trip to be a possibility.  He graciously did anyways.  He did not have to give me an opportunity to get to know Dmitry.  He graciously did anyways.

All so that, standing in the middle of a cobblestone street in a foreign land, on this random August day, God could show me how he has used and woven and molded my prayers for nothing less than my eternal happiness and unity with a brother.  Who knew when I got that email 10 months ago asking for prayer, that I would be the one left speechless and overwhelmed with joy and sweet, abiding love for my God?



*Name changed for security.  

Haiti: Jaqueline

As people are asking me to tell stories of Haiti, this is the one I keep coming back to.  Not because it is my favorite, but because it summarizes everything that happened on this trip - the highs and the lows.   The people, and the mightiness of God. 

Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples. ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.  Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering ad come into his courts.  Worship the LORD in holy speldor; tremble before him, all the earth.   (Ps. 96:7-9)

We stepped into Jaqueline's home, and I noticed the clutter.  Hardly 5 of us fit inside. She seemed hesitant, reserved.  We were there to pray with her - her husband had passed away a few years ago, and she was trying to raise her son on her own, without a job.  She said she was Catholic, that she went to church, and that she needed prayer. We prayed with her, and left.

Later that day we came back, and she was sitting on her porch.  We had come back to invite her to a Bible study for women that we were going to do the next day.  She was excited - so excited that she asked B. to take a picture of her, so that we would remember to pray for her.  Filled with hope and excitement at her enthusiasm, we did.

But then she didn't show up for the Bible study.  I ran back from the church we were meeting in to her home, which was right across the street. I found her, and told her as best I could without a translator that we were going to start, and asked her again to join us.  She nodded, and held up her finger to indicate that she'd be over in just one moment. 

She never showed up. 

So B., our translator and I, upon finishing the training, march ourselves right on over to her doorstep, and find her there, just hanging out with her friends. 

We missed you at the Bible study, I say.

Yea, I had things to do, she replies. 

Right. Lots of things.  Like hanging out with your friends. 

Do you know why B. and I are here? I ask. 

I go on to explain the Gospel to her - that humans are sinful, and we deserve God's punishment because of that.  But that God graciously took it upon himself to make a different way.  That Jesus took the wrath of God and was died and buried and then rose again that we might live in His righteousness, to His glory, with Him, forever.  We do not have to be captive to sin any longer. 

She says, I'll believe you when you bring me something.  She insists she's heard this story, that she's a Christian because she goes to church.  I want to cry.  I want to show her that's not true.

I try to reason with her, to explain that God's character is good, that He loves her and wants a relationship with her, and Jesus is the only way.  But it goes nowhere.  Pray for rain, she says.  We need rain.

So we say we will.  And we leave. 

And on the way back, I do my due diligence.

So God, that woman said they need rain.  And I said I'd pray, so I guess maybe you could bring some rain, if that's cool?  mmkay, thanks. 

That was my prayer.   Unexpectant.  Unloving. 

We go back to the house, change clothes, and head to the beach to bathe for the first time in 5 days (Yes, I know how gross that is.  You don't have to remind me.  I washed my hair 3 (yes, three) times in the ocean that day.).  Walking to the beach, I look up.  Along the horizon are storm clouds - a storm strong enough to bring the rain cloud down with it when it comes, like a bedsheet or something.  The kind where the sky looks all dark purple-y and blue, even though its only 4pm, and you can't tell the sky from the land. 

Hey, that looks like some serious rain over there, I remark. 

I don't make the connection.  

Graciously, God allowed us just enough time to bathe before the lightning started.  Then we high-tailed it home. 

Not 30 seconds after we walk in the door of the home that God graciously provided for us (another story, coming later), the deluge starts.  Caked with salty-ocean goodness, but feeling cleaner than I've ever felt, I think, gosh, that's some serious rain! I'm glad we got out when we did...

Wait, rain!  Rain!! Jaqueline... and she said... and then I prayed... but I didn't really mean it!  Well, I guess that doesn't matter now... apparently God decided to bring rain whether I meant it or not.  God is good like that. 

We come to find out only moments later that this storm is the first time that it has rained a single drop in over 6 months.  The wells are dry.  The dust has blown over everything.  The village needs water.

God is abundantly good.  

We have to go find that woman! I think.  B. voices those exact thoughts moments later.   But it's now dark, windy, muddy, and still raining.  It's actually chilly.  Tomorrow, we agree.  Tomorrow before we leave. 

After breakfast, we venture out.  We're still not sure the truck is going to make it all the way down the dirt road (now mud road) to pick us up, but we haven't gotten a phone call yet.  I take Johnson (a translator), and B. and I go to her house.  The door is locked.  There is nobody home.

Seriously, God?! After all that, now you won't let us talk to her?? I rant.

We go back, dejected.  The truck is here.  Time is limited.  But I must see her, I must speak to her, to ask if she believes, to see her face! 

Noah and I venture out again, right before the truck leaves.  Her door is still locked.  We stand there, almost willing her to just walk around the corner.  But she doesn't.  We begin the walk home, and I pray desperately that she would not be unmoved by this. 

Mid-prayer and me almost in tears, she walks around the corner.  I'm so taken aback it leaves me speechless.  Luckily Noah jumps in. 

Hi!  It's good to see you again.  Did you notice it rained last night?  We ask.

Oh, yea.  She blows off the question as if we asked her if the sky was blue. 

You look nice, Noah offers.  Are you going to the city?

She gives a half smirk, and replies that she's going to Cap-Haitien today.  All dressed up in her heels and her skinny jeans and her leopard-print top, hair freshly done.

Do you think differently about God?  Noah probes.

She avoids the question by reminding us to pray for her.

There is nothing more to be said.  She is unmoved. 

I want to shake her, to sit on her porch and be equally unmoving and ask her, so Jaqueline, do you think differently about God today?  Do you believe in Jesus today? until she says yes, yes today I understand.  Today I believe. 

I cry out to God, wondering how this woman could not believe amidst such mighty works.  Lamenting her unbelief, her hardened heart, and the state of her soul without the presence of God. 

But then God whispers, remember, you were her, too.  You were the one who refused to see, refused to hear.  You were stubborn.  Amidst my greatness, my mercy, my redemption.  You were hardened, too.  For 8 years.  You refused to believe.  And yet I still claimed you as my own.  


Trust me.


Trust that I will claim my people - I will have them, no matter what.  I will have my people for myself. 

Trust me.

But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.  The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all!  (Ps. 103:17-19)

How to Stop Loving the Nations

---This is an expansion of a piece originally written for Restoration Church, which you can read here---

I have a heart for the nations.  It's Christianese for "I love the whole wide world, especially the lost people." 

It sounds like a good sentiment to want to have - the Gospel is inherently transcendent of cultural and geo-political barriers.  It's something that's key to understanding our place in the world and God's sovereign plan. There are too many people who don't have any understanding of this - of God's delight in people everywhere, of His mission to have a people from all the nations.  There are too few missionaries and too few dollars being spent on missions.  There are too many narrow-minded, ethnocentric Christians in America.  I want the American church to be gripped with a desire to send people to the nations.    

But it's hard to have feelings for something so abstract.  The nations.  What does that mean?  The whole world - you love all 7 billion people on this planet?  All the countries, all people-groups, all languages and tribes and tongues?  All of them - every single one?  

Loving the nations is easy.  I used to love the nations. 

But loving a place - one specific country, one people-group, one community - is hard.  It's messy, and dirty.  There are a lot of tears, some laughter, some frustration. Love is more about action and interaction than about a feeling. Loving a spouse is hard, loving family is hard, why should "loving the nations" be easy? 

I'm learning how to love a people, instead of the nations.

Loving the nations is easy because it requires no real investment.  It requires no true devotion or labor. 

Loving Haiti is messy.  It's dirty.  It's hard.  It would be easier to walk away.  The disabled child who is left to his own devices, the woman who will not believe in Jesus even if God moves heaven and earth to reveal Himself, the pastors who neglect their flock, the men who drink and do not work and hit their wives and children, the elderly who will not be cared for, the communities built around perversions of the Gospel, the circumstance of those who live there... it is all there.  It becomes easy to wonder - How do you love that?  Why would you ever even want to love that?

Because amidst all that, there are men and women who love Jesus with a depth and ferocity and devotion I pray I have one day.  There are pastors who want to be trained.  There are families who have made sacrifices to put food on the table, to keep all their children in school.  There are people who want to know Jesus.  There are community leaders who have sacrificed their whole lives to build a better community.  There are young men and women who desire to partner together in ministry and in life. 

It is hard not to fall in love with the majesty of God, and all that He is doing there (and believe me, He IS working there!).  Despite the dirt and the tears and the sweat and the poverty, I love Haiti.  Ask anyone who went with us, they will tell you the same. I love the people we have met.  And that is hard.  Loving people (any people) is a difficult, and sometimes excruciating thing to do.   I love my brothers and sisters in Christ there - they challenge me and edify me and love me so well.  But I also love the people we met who abhor the Gospel.  I love the people we met who are resistant to what we have to say.  I labor over all of them with tears and time in prayer.  I ache when I think of them, the way I ache when I remember that there are members of my family who do not know, and may never know Jesus.  I miss my brothers and sisters of Haiti the way I miss my brothers and sisters who are currently in California, Minnesota, and the Persian Gulf.  I long for the day we will all sit at the throne of God together and worship, the day we will sit together and share endless stories about God's mighty provision and holiness.

Loving them is not easy.  It would be easier to just turn it off, and to choose to go back to my life, forgetting that I met them. To let their stories fade back into the mosaic of my life - we were only there for one week.  To forget them would be simple.  To love them is hard.  But it is also a joy and a privilege! I want to stop being shallow in my love for “the nations” and start to be deep in my love for a few places, that the name of Jesus might be known there, no matter how hard or messy.  

I am not saying you can only love one people, ever.  I am not saying you should not pray through the nations (in fact, I think the Operation World Project, and praying through the nations, one a day, is a beautiful thing and one of the best "initiatives" for the Kingdom - keep doing it!).   But hypothetically loving someone that you may or may not meet someday is very different from actively loving someone you have come into contact with.  Loving people requires time, energy, and investment in them.  This is not something you can do for everyone - you do not have the capacity to know or love everyone on the planet. It is something that you can hope to do for those you DO come into contact with, but you cannot do it for everyone.  

What you can do is invest deeply in those you do meet.  Pick a people group.  Pick a country.  Better yet, pick a city or a town.  Go there on a mission trip - even if just for a week.  Meet people.  Don't just shake their hand and share the Gospel and walk away - get to know them.  Sit with them.   Laugh with them.  Share a meal.  Then when you come back, let them stay in your heart.  Pray for them - regularly.  And not just for the two weeks after you get back.  Make a commitment to pray for those you met for a year.  Or 5 years.  Or a lifetime. 

We can pray for things we do not know - when we pray in faithfulness and accordance with God's will, the Spirit intercedes for us.  We can pray through the Operation World Project, and God will use that.  God will claim his people,  through any means necessary, with or without us.   But investing and loving a people is different than being committed to praying for the people of God.   Prayer for people does not always equal loving them.  Loving people always equals prayer. 

I am fighting hard to love my Haitian brothers and sisters well... 

Regarding Vertigo and Oxygen

I returned from Haiti less than 5 days ago, and I feel like I'm caught in a hurricane.  The vertigo, the mess that's inside my soul is rising to the surface.   The last 2 months of my life have been some of the busiest and most stressful months I've ever experienced, but I'm only just now realizing it. 

The last 2 weeks, however, have made me realize how broken I am.  Haiti was my 7th mission trip, so you would think this whole experience would be nothing new for me.  But this trip was unlike any other one.  The entire emphasis was different.  The place was different, the people were different - but mostly, I am different.  I don't know how many people see it, but I am not the person I was 2 years ago. And that makes this trip vastly different. 

If I am being honest with you, this trip screwed me up.  I sat in the car the other day for 5 minutes and cried before I could even walk into a grocery store.  I am so acutely aware of the blessings I have, of the culture I live in, and of my behavior.  I am painfully aware of how much I need God, and of the many things I have not turned over to Him.  There are scars that have not healed, there is anger and resentment I have not let go of, there is jealousy and frustration.  There are people who have hurt me, and there are people I have hurt - intentionally and unintentionally.  And for some reason, this trip brought almost all of those issues to light - at once. 

This is only the beginnings of my postings about Haiti, so do not be distraught, dear friends, if you wish to hear more - you will. 

Since I've returned from Haiti, I had 18 hours in DC before catching another flight home, then less than 24 hours later my sisters graduation party (which family was in town for).  Then yesterday my sister had a piano recital and a ballet performance.  I am only just now able to finally breathe, and there are many many things that I will continue to post about as I process them.  I have things from my journal I will share with you, and things I will write in the future.

For now, my brothers and sisters, all I ask is that you be patient with me as I sort through this.  Pray with me.  Keep watch with me.  And know that I, too, am praying for you. 

Prayer Requests

Friends, we desperately need your prayers.  Lots of them. 

Our team that will be traveling to Haiti in T-minus 2 and a half days seems to be under great attack from the enemy.  Myself included.  And we need your prayers!  We have sick folk, extreme anxiety, depression, laziness, apathy, and general fears that are attempting to paralyze our team.  Lies from the devil run amok right now, and it has been a battle for every one of us to maintain our Gospel-centered posture with the enemy attacking in any and every way he can.  Please, please be in prayer for us!  With the strength of God, we can overcome this attack to be a truly effective team for the short time we are in Haiti, but we need all the help we can get.  There are a few specific prayer requests, and some general ones as well. 

Please pray that everyone, especially J., would be healthy and well for this trip, so that we are not distracted with ill health.  J. is one of our pastors, and we need his leadership and skills to be the most effective we can be. 

Please pray for the discipline of everyone on the team, that we would be actively aware of the battle we are in the midst of, and would be fighting against the enemy in every way we can, especially through prayer and being in the Word. 

Please pray especially for W., that she would find peace and strength in her journey to Haiti, where she will remain not just for a week, but for the entire summer.  Please pray that she would be an effective Gospel light, and that all of her anxieties would be cast away and laid on Christ. 

Please pray that, if it be God's will, our travels would be safe and easy, and if it not be God's will, that we as a team will be reminded of God's great sovereignty, and that through whatever difficulties we encounter, we will continue to be a Gospel light, and that God will be glorified through our actions. 

Please pray against the anxiety and fear of everyone on the team. 

Please pray, most of all, for the people of Ouanaminthe, Haiti, that their hearts be opened to the Gospel, and that they might see the glory and love of Christ through us.