Tough Lesson

Ever been slapped up side the head by a verse that you have read or been given from God’s word? I have. Before I left for Ethiopia in Feb. 08 we had a prayer night for the team. This evening I received a verse given to me by an amazing prayer warrior.

The verse was Is.40:29-31

29 He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. 30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. 31 But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

Everyone knows verse 31 but that isn’t what got to me. It was verses 29 and 30. For at the time I looked at this verse and being young I was like great this is perfect verse for me. I am going to trust in Him, focus on Him, stay strong in His word and in Prayer and I will do great, I will have power and strength as I do these things. It was actually motivating and kind of pumped me up. Well, little did I know what he had in store for me at the time. I head over to Ethiopia and things are going great except for the fact that I didn’t really drink a lot of water one day on the job site. Now seeing it was 120 degrees and extremely dry not paying attention to it through out the day was not a good thing. I was so task oriented and focused on getting the job done and ensuring that everyone had tasks and no one was bored or looking for something to do. That night and the following morning was a hit to my pride, my ego and who I was. The Lord had broken me. As I laid in bed that night with a headache and just in pain from being dehydrated and all the other fun things that go with that (I’ll spare the details). I drank lots of water, tried to sleep and went to my bible at which time I found this verse glaring at me. That was a wake up call….. It isn’t on me to lead this team as the Lord had humbled me and taken that from me by forcing me to my bed both that night and the following morning but it was me having the privilege to be used by God to serve these amazing people in the Ethiopians and our team.

As I returned to the US and had more time to think about this and post process the trip it was amazing to learn this, but also scary that I had to go that far away and those lengths to learn such a lesson. On top of it all. My parents had given me a shirt with the verse Is.40:31 on the front. What is scary is they did this without knowing anything about this lesson. This now serves as an amazing reminder of what I learned those days.