There is a time when no matter how adapt you have become, no matter how settled you begin to feel that you get thrown completely out of your element. You no longer feel comfortable, your body aches, you suddenly start getting sick, you are tired all the time, the food just reminds you of how much better your moms is, etc... Just that tipping point when it seems that there is nothing that can go right. You second guess your purpose, you question your motives, you are making life so much harder than it needs to be... you are out of your element. Satan threw me out of my element this week. Physically I felt sub par all week, emotionally I questioned everything that was real and good in my life, and spiritually I just felt drained not wanting to see God's purpose for me on this continent. For the first time since I have been in Africa I have felt 5000 miles from home. And it has sucked. I was at the end of the line, irritating a lot of people and in a state of total exhaustion.
We headed to Nebe this week, a small mountain village in upcountry Uganda and to put it bluntly I was not looking forward to going. Mainly not looking forward to going because we stopped at a game park lodge for two days on the way to get some R & R (this is where I am now, God bless Internet in the jungle). But the strangest thing happened on the way to the game park, we got out into uninhabited Uganda and were on some old rural roads and I was struck. The sight of this road, the landscape (they have evergreen trees here, who would have guessed it!?!?), and the red dirt completely reminded me of home. It was just like driving down any two lane road between Kansas City and Manhattan.
It was the perfect remedy. It just proved to me that God is in control. At no point does he let things get too big, are our struggles too large.
I was going crazy, I was frustrated, upset, sick, and demoralized; and God brought me home. For about two hours in a mini van in Central Uganda I was home. Everything was perfect. I am re-energized and ready to fight another day.
2 comments:
isn't that amazing that there can be familiarity in a place where everything is completely opposite of all you know? and God is the same everywhere.
i hope you keep encountering those moments of relief.
Hey bud. I just read the last like 4 things you posted and it sounds like so many different feelings and experiences that I'm not going to bother making any comment, but I figure I would share with you a nice little verse of encouragement.
"(35)So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. (36) You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God you will receive what he has promised...
(39) But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved."
Hebrews 10: 35,36,39
Love, Mark :)
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