Another Season with Grace

As I was on the plane, heading over seas to Haiti, the “going” and its unknown began to set in. All that I didn't know, and the inevitable mistakes I knew were to come, brought me a fear of doing more harm than good. As I walked through this with Him, my journal writes of His still solemn voice promising to Shepherd me. I thought of the last of my years, thanked Him and took courage. He goeth before.

As I wrote, and continue to write about this season- my words are so few and so broken as yet, but I pray that somehow He may use it to bring glory to His dear name.

This summer has been yet another season where putting into words what the Lord has taught me seems almost impossible. To write them all with a full picture of what it entailed and remains, it seems to me, would mean writing my first book. As for the time being, composing some points of this lesson filled experience may be good to start first...Besides, in more than most, He is still teaching me.

1. Pray for discernment.

2. Brokenness (i.e. poverty) must be seen as equality.

-The core reality of how one can bring “help” to others can only be understood through humility. I was asked to read the book “When Helping Hurts” before arriving in Haiti, and for this I am thankful. I would recommend it to anyone preparing for a mission field. This book began the shift of my perspective- to seek less of how “to fix the materially poor,” and more of how we can walk together, while asking God to fix us both.

3. Goliaths fall when people act in God's power.

4. Perception changes everything. 

Contentment is found when we begin seeing everything and every circumstance as either a gift, or an opportunity. Being content with what God gives us, and seeing it is enough. All is Grace.

“A glad heart makes a cheerful face.”-Proverbs 15:13

5. All the things you have been leaning on will, at some point, be knocked out from under you.

6. Evil is leaving the fountain of life and trying to find it in the broken cisterns.

“But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit..they have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”-Jeremiah 2:12-13

7. The Harvest always implies “time” and “perseverance.”

-Whether it is through prayer, or a physical labor, keep sowing. God has called us to long obedience in the same direction.

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then as we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”-Galatians 6:9-10

8. So much death= so much life.

-The life-out-of-death-cycle must proceed in our lives, if we wish to become like Christ. He was the Great Grain who died for the harvest (John 12:24). The first result is death.

“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”-1 Corinthians 15:36

9. God is Love.

-As I was in Haiti, the missionaries and BHM staff were walking through a John Piper study together. Joining them in this, I grew to see a greater difference between “pure love,” and “impure love.” Motives from the right heart will enable us to act from delight, not duty. Love is the overflow of abundant joy in God that meets the needs of others.

10. Know God as the Creator.

If you have yet to see God through nature, you have yet to see His infinite creativity and beauty.

11. I must focus on the Invisible.

As we lose our hold on what is visible, He becomes more precious and treasured.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”-Matthew 6:21

12. To learn from the ravens.

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

13. God loved me first.

Therefore, I love Him, too.

14. The cross cuts deep.

As He aligns our desires with His glory, our lives are tracing the cross.

Take from me, O Lord, that self-pity which love of myself so readily produces, and from the frustration of not succeeding in the world, as I would naturally desire..for these have no regard for Your glory.

15.Suffering is where the proof lies.

A place where His Word is proven true, and His promises stand any test. It is given to us to give back to Him. Our Father knows exactly what fits our frame, and what we need to experience to know Him more.

16. All is loss.

To be spent. To be broken bread. This is how life is measured- by loss and not by gain..for when we are empty of this world, we are able to be full of Him.

17. He is so much greater than I thought He was.

18. He is still El Shaddai.

The God who is enough. Into each situation, Jesus came, bringing His love, His healing, and His peace. He still comes to those who ask Him today.

19. Sing a chorus and look ahead.

Jesus survived His sufferings by the invisible, which was the joy set before Him.

We too, can survive by singing and clinging to the joy set before us.

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”-Hebrews 12:2

20. He is my Greater Wealth.

Oh, to fight to treasure Him enough to die for Him.

21. Normal health and the ability to do ordinary tasks are a gift from God that we should thank Him for everyday.

22. It is good to learn to live with less.

23. Missionaries are not set apart from the human race.

I was given a great gift to watch and learn from a handful of wise and godly men and women living their lives in Haiti to serve. Their humility and teaching continuously reminded me of something I once read from Amy Carmichael's missionary journals:

“Don't imagine that by crossing the sea and landing on a foreign shore and learning a foreign lingo you burst the bonds of outer sin and hatch yourself a cherubim.”

24. The best position I can be in is to be ready, with open hands.

A pure readiness to give oneself away, at any moment He calls.

25. Teach me Thy way Lord, the rest can wait.