the doing/being thing

Since becoming missionaries life has not been one easy paved way. Not surprisingly, since we are agents of the Light and the darkness will do everything to keep the Light from shining.

This on the one hand, on the other I think we kind of expect an easy life!  We have God on our side!  We are in direct contact with the Maker of the Universe!  But, this is not how it works.  And we might have set ourselves up for huge disappointments because our expectations are all wrong.  Not that God is not trustworthy or dependable, it is more that we want to trust God, tell Him exactly what and how to do it and then if it doesn’t happen our way we are disappointed….yes, the reality of being an agent of the Light is that life will be hard.  Harder than we sometimes want to imagine!  We choose a nice comfortable place to hover….a place where everything goes according to our plans, and that means mostly not living in so-called defeat!  But that is not life at all....

Living in an unreached (or least reached) village surely adds to that stress….many times we have said through God’s grace “Come Hell or High water by the Grace of God, we will continue!”  Not necessarily always jumping like young goats, more likely plodding on, but nevertheless moving forward.  God has a mission and we are part of it! He is the One who keeps us here, gives us courage.

At times we have had to admit defeat and leave for a short time.  Like recently, I had to take our boys back to our malaria free home country. I felt like a failure – complete and utter.  It looked like the enemy won, because here we were …..leaving.  After a week my husband went back to continue the Bible lessons…we stayed behind for them to recover sufficiently.  They were happy and enjoyed good food, electricity, shops, swimming in the sea, etc…and me, well I felt really, really guilty.

Guilt, the thing our culture runs on.  What was God thinking about me?  Hysterical mother? Quitter? Softy? I felt so bad for not going back sooner….. in a way thinking I was a failure in God’s sight. Sigh. I was judging God’s love and care for me on what I did, or in this case, did not do.  Doing nothing=failure=no loving Father.

One morning I came upon this verse, which by the way, I suppose I have read at least a 100 times.  Jesus was speaking to His disciples after He sent them out to tell of the Good News….they were tired and weary and this is what He told them… “Come with Me to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:31

Jesus knows I am not a super person.  He knows I get tired and scared and need rest.  He knows me.  I was in a quiet place because He brought me there, to rest.  His love and care did not depend on my performance. He still loved me and the Y people. He has it all in hand. I need not worry that I have failed Him. He knows my heart and He saw I needed rest. Rest away from the direct attacks. Although the subtle attacks in my own culture also took me by surprise!  Another story altogether! So I decided to take Jesus up on His Words and to go with Him to a place of quiet and rest.

And now we are back here again. Ready and rested.

Bella, resting in that.