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.

 

Whatever the Lord wants

Encouragement to grow in my faith comes each day when I look at the picture of the Ethiopian boy with a toothbrush/stick in his mouth.... Why? When asked what he wanted to do after school he said "whatever the Lord has planned."  This is amazing. Why?

Well I wasn't even close to being that strong in my faith when I was a high schooler yet this boy yet in High School and a very young Christian really truly has so much more when it comes to an eternal perspective. Seeing him and knowing his heart brings joy to my heart each and every day to see the work the Lord is doing through the work of others in the town of Yabello, Ethiopia.

To add a little more to this story this young boy was doing exactly what the Lord wanted him to do. That weekend when we went to a very small village to have a rural church service, guess who was one of our translators? You got it. This High School boy was doing the translating from Ahmharic to Oromo of the lessons shared by some of our team members. It is just amazing to see it all come together. The question I need to continually ask myself each and everyday is am I really willing to do whatever the Lord wants with my life like this young boy was at a much younger age?