You would assume that a blog about a mission to Germany would be all exciting and joyful. However, I want to switch it up a little bit. I believe as brothers and sisters in Christ we should be transparent. if all we did was hide the bad and shine the good how would we ever be actually unified and ultimately grow together? So with this blog I want to be completely transparent and I believe there can be joy found in it. So stick with me...
If you have decided to keep reading this blog in spite of the opening paragraph I want to share about some rough edges of my journey. However, it also shows you how giving those rough edges to the Lord can be used to pierce the darkness. So let me share the story…
I have had a good week that has been stressful but ended really well. I woke up for church, to the start of a new week excited and ready. As lunch approached feelings of fear and pressure started to naturally make its way into my head. I unfortunately started to have trust issues once again in our dear Father. As I put on a good face I still had many negative thoughts about raising support. I hopped in my car after lunch and headed home to get to work. As these thoughts crowded my brain I decided to do something that I have rarely done before. I decided to praise God in advance.
Instead of waiting for His answer and His blessing to worship him I decided to praise him with full trust knowing He loves me. I often say that though we don't know God's plan and sometimes it doesn't make sense we can trust that our perfect father has a perfect plan. As I continue driving at about 55 mph I heard something that I knew wasn't a part of the worship song that I was listening to. Whoop whoop!
Red, white and blue flashed in my rearview mirror. in my car worship session I seemed to have forgotten that I was driving on a 45 mph road. I messed up. I became so frustrated and even though I had been worshipping, anger still built up poured out. I can't afford a ticket right now! I know that that cop saw my body language and understood I was frustrated. This wasn't her fault. The emotions and stress from pursuing missions built up and was let out on her. Now I didn't yell or do anything towards her but I was filled with attitude that this cop didn't deserve to deal with.
As she took my license back to her cop car my first reaction was to pray to God as a genie or as an inside job to remove this ticket. I was quickly convicted about how I was worshipping not a mere five minutes ago. See it was easy to praise God in advance when it was just an idea that made me feel good but when put to the test oh boy was it hard. I sucked up my pride and my greediness and decided to continue praising God in advance.
The cop returned and let me off with a warning. When I got home I couldn't help but fall on my face and weep. Now this was just a little ticket but the weight behind it was so much more.
To me it was God giving me a chance to put my money where my mouth is. It's easy to talk about God but how often do we really talk with God? It's easy to talk about how good God is but how often do you tell Him how good He is?
Thank you God for trials and tribulations. Thank you for giving us a reason to really depend on you. This journey has already proven hard but God proved before time that He...is a good good Father. God guides and He provides!