waiting and going
It is as if the more I wait, the more I want to go. And when I go, it is as if I want to wait. It is as if the waiting and the going are becoming one.
The more I just rest and abide in the presence of the Lord, the more I see a clear plan and a clear path for Africa. The more I do understand and trust I'll be heading out in September. That day is coming. I didn't think I'd be in the USA for this long, but He is doing some awesome stuff while here. The waiting makes the idea of going all the more sweeter.
I'm still at KC IHOP at the moment. Loving it. Have spent most these past 3 days of doing nothing but locking up in their prayer room and joining with their continual, 24/7 worship. The fact that hundreds upon hundreds of people gather all day every day for nothing but prayer is almost ridiculous to me. I look at the stage and the screen sometimes and wonder if anyone ever thinks, like I do, that if no one is on the other side of our whispers or our songs, then we have done little but create reverberations in the room.
But he who wastes his life on Jesus is the wisest man in the world. I don't know that I have yet fully wasted my life on Jesus, and don't know that I have therefore been as wise as I should be. I have been deeply challenged by the testimonies of the greats before us, and have marveled at how they saw, almost uncannily, that their life in Christ would truly have eternal result. Jim Elliot is always one such example to me. He is one of the greatest fathers of missions for the 20th century, yet he actually did little but go to another country for a few years and die. I'm not at all discrediting his ministry, I'm just summarizing what I've read of his biographies. Anyone who has read his books could see that he was holding on for a greater promise than what was on this earth. He was a living breathing testimony of Hebrews 11 type faith. I read through his journals and was shocked to not find that much of a great ministry or all that many converts in his missionary work. Yet, he had a life that was totally laid down before Jesus and now that story lives beyond the grip of the grave.
I am waiting, and waiting, and, well, waiting. I feel like the past 2 or 3 years have been entirely about waiting. During my 3 years in Florida and in the inner city, I was always able to find ministry to do. During my 18 months in Africa and 4 months of trips to the bush, I was able to pick a place and preach just about whenever a group of us could make a plan. Yet even then, and still now, I feel like the Lord is continuously putting the breaks on me, and then telling me at times to punch the gas...I don't know that I always need brakes or always need gas but I just think that He really wants to be at the steering wheel in my life.
It has been a good couple of days of doing nothing but worship. I have felt like much is overcome in Africa just through this time of prayer. Believe me, I really really want to run to the other side of the world right now; but I know that day is coming soon and that it will, upon it's arrival, seem like wisdom to know that I wasted my life on nothing but Jesus before I got there.
The more I just rest and abide in the presence of the Lord, the more I see a clear plan and a clear path for Africa. The more I do understand and trust I'll be heading out in September. That day is coming. I didn't think I'd be in the USA for this long, but He is doing some awesome stuff while here. The waiting makes the idea of going all the more sweeter.
I'm still at KC IHOP at the moment. Loving it. Have spent most these past 3 days of doing nothing but locking up in their prayer room and joining with their continual, 24/7 worship. The fact that hundreds upon hundreds of people gather all day every day for nothing but prayer is almost ridiculous to me. I look at the stage and the screen sometimes and wonder if anyone ever thinks, like I do, that if no one is on the other side of our whispers or our songs, then we have done little but create reverberations in the room.
But he who wastes his life on Jesus is the wisest man in the world. I don't know that I have yet fully wasted my life on Jesus, and don't know that I have therefore been as wise as I should be. I have been deeply challenged by the testimonies of the greats before us, and have marveled at how they saw, almost uncannily, that their life in Christ would truly have eternal result. Jim Elliot is always one such example to me. He is one of the greatest fathers of missions for the 20th century, yet he actually did little but go to another country for a few years and die. I'm not at all discrediting his ministry, I'm just summarizing what I've read of his biographies. Anyone who has read his books could see that he was holding on for a greater promise than what was on this earth. He was a living breathing testimony of Hebrews 11 type faith. I read through his journals and was shocked to not find that much of a great ministry or all that many converts in his missionary work. Yet, he had a life that was totally laid down before Jesus and now that story lives beyond the grip of the grave.
I am waiting, and waiting, and, well, waiting. I feel like the past 2 or 3 years have been entirely about waiting. During my 3 years in Florida and in the inner city, I was always able to find ministry to do. During my 18 months in Africa and 4 months of trips to the bush, I was able to pick a place and preach just about whenever a group of us could make a plan. Yet even then, and still now, I feel like the Lord is continuously putting the breaks on me, and then telling me at times to punch the gas...I don't know that I always need brakes or always need gas but I just think that He really wants to be at the steering wheel in my life.
It has been a good couple of days of doing nothing but worship. I have felt like much is overcome in Africa just through this time of prayer. Believe me, I really really want to run to the other side of the world right now; but I know that day is coming soon and that it will, upon it's arrival, seem like wisdom to know that I wasted my life on nothing but Jesus before I got there.
posted by Nate Sanow at
9:24 AM
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