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Discontentment

Sometimes we fall in to a trap of being discontent. “She has a nicer house than me.” 

“His ideas are always better than mine.” 

“They’re more gifted than me.” 

We can quickly begin to feel sorry for ourselves or like we can’t possibly be useful in furthering the kingdom of God. This is a lie from Satan that he uses to keep us from being successful in spreading the love of Christ. Maybe you feel like you can’t possibly be of any use to God, maybe you feel like you don’t have the right kind of spiritual gifts to properly show Christ’s love. 

“I’m not brave enough, I’m not strong enough, I’m not worthy, I don’t have the time, I can’t…” 

For whatever reason we have an excuse as to why we can’t do the things we know God wants us to do. We have to be willing to do what God calls us to and to be joyful in it, even when it is something hard. 

Psalms 4:6-8 tells us: 

There are many who say, 

“Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!” 

You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. 

In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. 

For me, this verse reminds us that even when things are hard and we are searching for the good in every day life we need to remember the Lord. He puts joy in our hearts more than any possession or success ever could. Our fulfillment should be coming from the Lord and not from our own success, or other people. Even when we have very little to offer we should still offer what little we do have up to the Lord so that He can take what we give and multiply it to bless others. In our every day lives we have the opportunities to share Christ in huge ways if we would just be willing to take them; if we would follow God’s callings in our lives He could transform the world through us.

Sometimes it can seem hard, or scary but knowing that we serve the same God who was able to take five loaves and two fish and feed over 5,000 how can we truly say He won’t provide for us? How can we be worried about safety and provision knowing our God is the same God who brought the Jews out of Egypt and through the desert raining down manna and water? Sometimes when we follow God’s lead, things don’t go according to the plan we made in our heads, but they always go according to God’s plan.

-Heather Wrench, GEM Missionary

If you’d like to support Heather as she serves with GEM in Mexico, you can do so HERE. You can also contact her directly to talk further about what it means to be on her support team and find out how you can be praying for her!
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Our Growing Disenchantment

I have had the incredible opportunity and privilege to travel to a few different parts of the world. There is something amazing about seeing and experiencing different cultures around the world. The biggest thing that sticks out to me is the way in which people lived in their communities. For example, in many parts of the world, people don’t have stoves to cook on. So the way they cook every day is building a fire and cooking food for their family. There are many more examples, but you get the picture. All of us have a “normal” way of buying groceries, transportation, and living.

The way I grew up living is completely different than the way people in Africa, Europe, and Mexico grew up. As I grew up, there were many things that I grew accustomed to: having air conditioning, dishwasher, washer and dryer, and easy transportation of a couple of vehicles. In many ways, my experiences inform what I believe is or what should be normal in my life. What happens when I don’t have what I grew up expecting to have? How does my attitude change? What does my heart believe about the goodness of God?

Puerto Escondido, Mexico is hot. When we first moved here, we had to adjust to not having a car, air conditioning, and trying to buy things when we didn’t even know the language.  Early on, I remember complaining about the heat, the difficulty of getting around, and becoming disenchanted with the beauty of where we had moved to. When your plans go different than expected, challenges arise. When you encounter something that you are not used to, it is easy to wonder why these circumstances are happening and complain.

My point is this: God, in all of his incredible goodness and love, has given us everything we ever need in Him ( 2 Peter 1:3). In His grace, he sent His son Jesus to die for me so that I could escape the slavery of my sin and walk in the freedom of the cross. This is the greatest gift and anything else that we receive is an extension of that gift.  A car, air conditioning, a home, a family, and a job is all an extension of God’s incredible goodness to us. Let us look out and be reminded of the incredible blessings given to us and know that every moment is given by God as a gift.

“To pay attention is to attend to something, to be present. We attend because the world isn’t cold and empty but filled with the presence of God. Every moment, every encounter, is meaningful and numinous. All ground is holy ground.”  – Mike Cosper

-Daniel McDonald, GEM Missionary 
If you’d like to support Daniel and his wife, Kristen as they serve with GEM in Mexico, you can do so HERE. You can also contact them directly to talk further about what it means to be on their support-team and find out how you can be praying for them!
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Give Me Jesus

Sitting down to write this blog post, I feel like I have very little to offer. It has been a week where I have just felt like I have so little to give those around me, and if I am being honest, I feel like I have even less to offer God.

Last week was a really busy week. It was a week spent preparing for International Cultures Night, which went really well. However, it was a lot of work beforehand to get ready for that night. With how much work there was to do, I found myself cutting corners with my time with God each day.

Now, I know that might not seem like a big deal. How noticeable could it be? After all, it was only a week, right? Wrong. In moments where I neglected to run to God with my worries and stress, I was proclaiming to myself and others that I have got everything in the palm of my hands and that I did not need Jesus as much as I needed to complete my work. In reality, I was trying to control and maintain things that I was never given the authority to control, instead of relying on the God who has dominion over all.

It is ironic that during a week where I needed more of God, I chose to busy myself with working in order to check things off my list. Looking at last week, I feel so much like Martha in Luke 10, worrying about things that are not mine to worry about. Jesus said to Martha,

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42).

Martha was running around, “distracted with much serving” as Luke puts it. However, Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching, and Jesus says that Mary chose the good thing. Oh, how I need to just sit at the feet of Jesus, listening and learning from Him instead of distracting myself with good things. I wonder how often I miss out on knowing more of Jesus because I will not just stop and listen.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Right now, I choose to know Jesus more instead of distracting myself with what needs to be done because tomorrow will worry about itself. Today, I choose to sit and rest in my Lord because He is worthy of all of my time and affection. I encourage you to find time today to simply be still and know that He is God.

-Rachel Hill, GEM Missionary

If you’d like to support Rachel as she serves with GEM in Mexico, you can do so HERE. You can also contact her directly to talk further about what it means to be on her support team and find out how you can be praying for her!
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1 Peter 4:19

“Fight fire with fire.” “Always look out for #1.” Our culture is replete with sayings that demonstrate our belief that we are to give back the harm that has been done to us. As humans, we don’t enjoy suffering. We resent being treated unfairly. We cannot endure slander. When we are wronged the impulse to respond in kind doesn’t even have to rush to be there, its already there. We surge with anger and indignation and yearn for the chance to be able to pay it back.

1 Peter 4:19 says, “So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.” This is what God, through the apostle Peter, prescribes His people to do when they are treated wrongly. God does not counsel those that have been born again into living hope to slander those who slander, to curse those who curse, and to be angry with those who are vexing. “..continue to do GOOD,” God says.

Commit yourself to the Creator. To commit oneself is to PLEDGE yourself to the course or policy of another. God’s people are to commit themselves to Him. He is our creator. He made us. He knows us. He cares for us like none other. He loves us with an affection and tenderness greater than any other power in the universe. It does not escape His notice when His children are mistreated. He is not indifferent to the suffering of His family. He is faithful. He is Just. He will ultimately do what is right in every sense and He CAN be trusted. When we are wronged, slandered, annoyed, made fun of, opposed, maligned, mistreated, overlooked or cursed because of our allegiance to the Savior we are not to respond in like manner. Rather, we are to imitate Him who, , “….endured such opposition from sinful men so that we will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:3. We are to follow the footsteps of Jesus who “when insults were hurled at him He did not retaliate; when He suffered He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly” 1 Peter 2:23.

Continue to do good. “Keep up doing the good that you were doing that brought the mistreatment upon you in the first place,” God says. “Don’t stop. You’re mine. Nothing can be done against you that I have not ordained. Nothing will come against you that I won’t ultimately save you from. I am the One whose opinion matters. Live to do MY will. Live to please ME, not men,” He patiently and tenderly tells us.

Thank you, God the Father for not giving us creatures back what we had done to you. Thank you that you did not choose to “fight fire with fire” with us. If you had done so Lord, who among us could survive? Thank you, God the Son that you went to the cross for those who hated you. Who killed and tortured you. Thank you God ,the Spirit that you come and dwell with those who hated your presence. Thank you that you patiently, persistently and tenderly change those who, with stubbornness untold, hold on to the old ways of the flesh. Help us to be more like the Savior and less like ourselves. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

-Jason Faircloth, Director of Mission Advancement

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Change Happens in the Desert

Prayer is hard.
 
As a young girl growing up in a Christian family, I went to church (on many occasions more than once a week) and attended a Christian school. So, you can imagine just how many times I was told I needed to be disciplined in reading the Bible and prayer. Naturally, after hearing this I would go upstairs in my room and try. I can’t tell you how many times I would tuck myself away, try to quiet my thoughts, and pray to this invisible and inaudible Being. But I began to notice the more I tried to will myself to pray, the more I disliked it. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t have much to ask for, and besides, did God even care about the things going on in my life? If He did, it’s not like he responded audibly to my requests anyways.
 
Though my idea of prayer and God changed as I grew in my knowledge of and relationship with Him, I still struggled with prayer. What about the many times I had called out to him – no, begged – for him to change a situation or give me something and He hadn’t? Was He really who He said He was? And if He’s so powerful, then doesn’t He have the ability to do these things? So why isn’t He? Those are just a few of the many doubts I had (and still have) that kept me from reaching out to Him. But God was working in my heart and, about a year and half ago, I asked God to transform my prayer life and give me a desire to pray. No, it definitely did not happen overnight. I tried to read books on prayer, ask friends for advice on prayer, etc. As a matter of fact, many times I got so frustrated with not seeing any changes in my prayer life that I would sit in my room and force myself to be quiet and pray. Of course, this only led to me being hard-hearted with the Lord and forcing an outward prayer that my inner self was not praying. It was then that I decided that if God was big enough, He could and would change my heart in regards to praying and it wasn’t up to me to force it. Ironically, that was actually making things worse.
 
So, I stopped praying. And God started working.
 
Several months into this process, circumstances in my family’s life and my own personal life brought me to a place where I had absolutely no control. I was desperate – I could do absolutely nothing to change the situations – so I began to pray.
 
In his book, A Praying Life, Paul Miller recounts he and his wife’s experience of having an autistic child. He calls the space in between hoping and reality a desert. “The hope line represents our desire for a normal child, reinforced by our prayers from Psalm 121. The bottom line is the reality of a harmed child. We lived in the middle, in the desert, holding on to hope that Kim could somehow be normal yet facing the reality of her disabilities.”
“The hardest part of being in the desert,” Miller says, “is that there is no way out. You don’t know when it will end. There is no relief in sight.”
 
This sounds utterly hopeless, doesn’t it?
 
But Miller draws our focus to what God is doing in the midst of our complete vulnerability and weakness. He explains that “The first thing that happens is we slowly give up the fight. Our wills are broken by the reality of our circumstances… The still, dry air of the desert brings the sense of helplessness that is so crucial to the spirit of prayer. You come face-to-face with your inability to live, to have joy, to do anything of lasting worth. Life is crushing you.”
 
“Suffering burns away the false selves created by cynicism or pride or lust. You stop caring about what people think of you. The desert is God’s best hope for the creation of an authentic self. Desert life sanctifies you. You have no idea you are changing. You simply notice after you’ve been in the desert awhile that you are different.
 
“After a while you notice your real thirsts. While in the desert David writes,
‘O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.’ Psalm 63:1
 
“The desert becomes a window to the heart of God… You cry out to God so long and so often that a channel begins to open up between you and God. When driving, you turn off the radio just to be with God. At night you drift in and out of prayer when you are sleeping. Without realizing it, you have learned to pray continuously. The clear, fresh water of God’s presence that you discover in the desert becomes a well inside your own heart.”
For so long I had only viewed prayer as a way to get things from God; an avenue through which I could change situations and circumstances; a tool to access His power when I am powerless. That view is not entirely wrong! In many ways, it is completely scriptural (Matthew 7:7, Matthew 18:19, Psalm 107:28-30). But often times, God chooses not to grant our requests or chooses to make us wait for years until He answers them. When we view prayer only as a means to get what we want, we are missing out on potentially God’s biggest purpose for prayer: bringing us closer to His heart and carving us into the image of His Son, Jesus.
 
I had always thought that through prayer I could change things, but I never realized that God was using prayer to change me. In my powerlessness, God has begun to show me aspects of Himself that I never would have seen unless I was desperate for Him. And slowly, but surely, He is changing the way I pray to become more aligned with His heart.
 
2 Corinthians 12:8-9 “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me.”
 
Have your way, Lord.

-Maggie Addison, GEM Missionary

If you’d like to support Maggie as she serves with GEM in Mexico, you can do so HERE. You can also contact her directly to talk further about what it means to be on her support team and find out how you can be praying for her!