Reflection on Three Months

As I sit here writing, I am refreshed by the rain from last night. The dust is down, the air is fresh, and the plants seem a bit revived. As the rain in moments past has molded the future, I believe we can look to our past and see ourselves today as an awesome testament of God's faithfulness and involvement. I am reminded of a verse:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23 

God has been faithful. When we were married almost seven years ago, we had no idea what God had in store for us. We could never have guessed that in our first seven years of marriage we would undertake completing college, work at six different jobs, be involved with four different mission organizations, learn a new language, and bring four children into the world while transitioning through sixteen moves to four different states and three countries. All we can say is God has provided the strength we needed each step of the way.

Now, here we are. During the past two months of living in Arusha, we have had our ups and downs. As with any new area, we have had our share of finding our way around, discovering where to get things, making new friends again, and adjusting to the new bugs. As I write this, I am taking my turn with pink eye the boys brought home from school.

The boys are enjoying their new school and discovering the creatures in our yard (especially the baby tortoise!) Carmen has been occupied with the children and with continued work on her Lactation Consultant degree. Jacob has been busy working in his new roles with MAF and has completed his standardization with Martin Zimmerman, a MAF pilot from Uganda, and David Pett, the MAF training Captain from Australia.

We find that what we do overseas sometimes is not much different from when we were in the States. Our days are still filled with taking care of the children, maintaining the house, going to work and all the things normal families do. We do our utmost to be a witness for God and His gospel.  The only difference is the added stressors - a language that is not our own and a culture that we still do not completely understand. Everytime we think we grasp something, we are shown in yet another way how uniquely interwoven this culture and way of life is and just how different it is from its very foundation.

Last week I was able to read through the book of Job in one sitting. By looking at the book as a whole, a few things really stuck out. First, God glorifies and proves himself through Job by allowing almost everything Job has to be destroyed and by allowing Job to be inflicted with a horrible disease. As he experiences excruciating pain and sorrow, he recounts all the good that he did before calamity struck him.

"I delivered the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to help...I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy...I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I searched out the cause of whom I did not know." Job 29:12-16. 

But now, he sits in the ashes of his fire pit, helpless. Why did God take away his ability to serve the widow, the orphan, and the outcast? Is not this service what God is all about? Maybe God is after something even more important.

Then God shows up on the scene and recounts the great wonders of His works, revealing an intricate part of His character to Job. In response, Job, the one who knew God so well, makes an incredible statement,  "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you" (42:5). You see, it took the extraordinary circumstances in life for Job to really see God. And maybe that is the same purpose in our lives. Yes, we are to show God's love to the world around us, but I believe we have a similar purpose to Job's; to know God more and treasure Him more than anything we have or do. This gives a purpose for all the joys coupled with the sorrows in life.

I like to think of the great missionaries in history who, through their witness, made monumental steps for the kingdom of God.  But I must base my success on this: a life spent seeking the heart of God is a life not wasted. Paul, John Paton, Jim Elliot, George Mueller, Amy Carmichael and many others sought God with all their heart and accomplished much. But all these accomplishments amount to nothing in comparison to knowing God.

So I guess it does not matter if we may feel a little inadequate to tackle the world around us at times. Our priorities are covered.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

And when the rain does pass, maybe we will look back again and see how God's hand has molded us to be who we are today.