Over a month in Mexico City now and God's grace is here with me as I run through the routines, Spanish classes, and friend-making. It's a big, big city and there is a ot of running around in a typical day for me between teaching English to University students, going to Spanish classes, and helping out at different Bible studies in the city. I've learned that I can't go 100% all the time. I found myself becoming more self-centered and losing my identity in Christ. I was able to stay in the Director's house last weekend to pet-sit his dog. It was a good time for me to regroup and refocus on what God was working in me/through me.
I woke up on Saturday morning and this Coke bottle caught my eye (in picture). It belonged to the Director's son (Andy if are reading this, thanks for lending your room to me that weekend, lol!) and God began speaking to me along the lines of this:
- The manufacturer knew nothing about "Andrew" except that someone would have that name. How we value so much the opinion of others when they are our equals, other created creatures. "Rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious" 1 Pet 2:4
-Only God truly knows us. God said to me "I know your name in truth"
- I am not meant to be kept on the shelf but to be poured out. The Great Manufacturer will continually fill me with fresh oil as I continually pour myself out in faith
I was convicted but encouraged as God spoke to me in that moment. I had been stuck in a cycle of self-preserving and self-protecting. I am not supposed to be a lake but a river, a river with living waters flowing out of me. I prayed that God would use that weekend as a marker that I would not continue in the same manner. The following Monday I was beginning to pour myself out and it was so refreshing pushing past insecurities with the language I was speaking with people on the Metro and opening up more. Even though these struggles I had experienced (and still am in some ways) are all normal symptoms of being in a new culture, I'm thankful that God is with me in the midst of it and still speaking truth to me in the quiet.