One Month

1 Corinthians 1:7-9, "God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that." the Message.

I have lived in Africa for one month now. I am sitting here trying so hard to think of something profound that I have learned or something really spiritual to say, because that is what missionaries are supposed to do right? For the first time in my life, I am at a loss for many words. The truth is, this last week I have been really homesick. The culture shock has worn off and I am settling into a schedule and routine. A schedule and routine that is completely new, and contains nothing from my life in the United States. It has been a roller coaster of emotions because I am still experiencing new and exciting things, but also missing things from home.

Today in church Louie, one of the missionaries, spoke on idolatry. He used the reference of Jeremiah 2:13, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” This homesickness that I am experiencing is causing me to realize how much worth I put in relationships back home, comfortability, and familiarity. So now, that these things are not so easily accessible in my life, I am realizing that they truly never satisfied my heart in the first place.  Time and again, I have looked to relationships to fill me up. I am learning, that God truly is the only one who can satisfy the deepest part of my soul. Everything else is a broken well that cannot hold what will satisfy me. It will leak and run dry. I will run dry if the Lord is not who I depend on for my every need and also the satisfaction of my soul and its deepest desires.

Here in Africa, my soul must be rejuvenated with my imagination of God. It says in Isaiah 40:26, “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things.” Isaiah was reminding the Israelites to take their eyes off the idols they had created, and look at all the Lord had created, nature. I am blessed to be in such a beautiful place to be reminded of this lesson. My idolatry causes me to lose sight of all that God has done, and my imagination of God is starved, and when I am up against difficulties I have no power and can only endure in darkness. Lord please awaken this dead heart and help me to turn from the face of my idols!

 I love this quote from Oswald Chambers, “Imagination is the power God gives a saint to posit himself out of himself into relationships he ever was in”.