This is one of those blogs that feels like a thought about to explode inside you, and if you don't get it out somehow, it will damage something internally. So, here goes..
At the summer's end I'll have been home a year from Kosovo. What a year it has been! Processing, hurting, growing, learning, wanting to sit down and quit, and an immense amount of prayer. You see, I left Kosovo because I knew the Lord was drawing me home. Part of my 'knowing' that was I felt like I had collapsed and failed at every thing I'd been passionate about doing before I moved there. 'Burn out' is what they call it. That title provided me some comfort as I was wrapping things up, because it helped me to feel not so alone in my retreating back 'home'. But this past year has been a relentless plaguing of my heart and mind over what truly happened.
I've been reading a powerful book called: Chasing the Dragon. It's one woman's story about following the Lord to Hong Kong, loved the people there, and watched the Lord move in a powerful way. But the most impactful portion of the book for me has been her description of the 'long-term' missionaries. People who'd been there for a long, long time. Folks who knew the 'appropriate' way of 'doing church'. Older, more experienced, and quick to share their 'wisdom' with everyone. She talks about her full passion slowly turning into whether it was appropriate to wear this sort of clothes, be seen with these sorts of people, and what she was going to bring to the church's picnic on Sunday afternoon. Not all bad stuff, but missing the point entirely! These older, wise people would often explain how there was sort of 'spiritual cloud' hanging over Hong Kong.. this is why people weren't getting saved.
I read these paragraphs and wept. Almost word for word, I could have written that! One of the girls that joined my team expressed it like this: "I feel like everyone has clipped my wings off once I came here!" Full of life, passion, boldness, and courage people go out, only to encounter a list of 'things that work', 'do this, don't do this', and 'how God is moving here'. Please don't hear me trying to bash older, more experienced missionaries. That's not my heart at all! But I do think that so often there is a rebuke for the youthful, for the passionate, for those who step out in what they think is faith and make a mess. But where is that for the 'wing clippers' in our midst?
Is it any surprise that some of the most awesome miracles of the Bible that we think of and talk about are done by youthful, young, passionate people? People who hadn't had their 'wings clipped' and had God put into a box yet? David. Mary. Joseph. Gideon. Samson. Esther. Yes, there were those like Moses, Abraham, Paul, etc that God put through an intense maturing process before He used them. He uses both! But I think the focus is often put, in the church, on the mature, wise believers as the pillars. But the mistake in that is to only allow them to be the pillars. Too much wisdom, maturity, and experience breeds stagnation!
These last days I have felt the same fears, failures, and discouragements I felt while I was living in Kosovo. You see, I'm fearful enough on my own! The only boldness I have had can't be accredited as coming from within me. It was derived from the Lord, and mostly me following another person. Some brave soul, who knew how BIG and awesome our God was, and stepped out in faith. But when the people around me aren't brave, bold, or living by faith, I find my natural tendency is to want to sit down and join them (probably my own sin). But who is this God I serve? Is it not the same God who parted a sea? Who created the entire universe? Who knit my own being together? Who slayed giants, shut mouths of lions, feeds the tiny sparrows? Who knew what it would take to bring abundance, joy, hope, and life to a broken, lost world, and then died to provide that? Who is this God? Do I even know Him if I'm content to sit on the sidelines??
Stagnation. One of my biggest fears. Because it essentially says I've stuck God into my own box of understanding and am too fearful to embark outside my comfort zone. It says I don't believe that God is who He says He is. That He can do what He says He can do. And that I am who He says I am.
'Surround me, O Abba, with people who remind me of You. Who en-courage (put courage within me) to be bold and powerful in Your Spirit. Who know You as You are and are passionate about spreading that! Strip me of all fears that leave me sitting on the sidelines. Empower me to walk by faith, to expect You to move in might, and believe and pray to that end, even when my eyes and heart don't see or understand! Amen'
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