I sit down to write a blog and yet I don’t end up posting them. If you saw my desktop, there are at least 3 unposted blogs. Here’s my theory. When I write I want it to be genuine, relevant and I want to portray what is going on in ministry or in my life. But then I find myself in this other place of how vulnerable should I be in writing these blogs. These are public and anyone in the world could read them. How much do I put myself out there so that I am being genuine and keeping you informed while limiting how much of my life I put on display? Today though, I write to you from my heart.
This past week I have spent mostly alone in a big white house in Manzini. Besides house-sitting, my original intention was to spend this week debriefing the past year of ministry in South Africa and Swaziland. While I have been thinking back a bit to everything that has happened, I have failed in many ways to debrief myself, alone. As I’ve spent time alone I began realizing something. It is so easy for me to “do ministry” without actually having to involve God in any of it. This may sound strange, but it is very much the reality I find myself in. So much of the past few months I have gone about ministering to people in various ways, and only a few times have I stopped to pray or ask the Lord for direction, strength or guidance. I’m not against prayer. I talk about it, I think about it a lot, and I even pray when asked to pray. But what is keeping me from communicating with my Father? This has really been bothering me lately. I want to pray but not just to say I prayed. I want to have a real relationship with my Creator but every time I go to pray I stop. Why am I praying? Am I merely going to Him because I need something? Am I praying to keep up appearances? I want to be genuine with Him and not force words or feelings of how I feel ou
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Lucky for me, I was reading today in My Utmost For His Highest, by Oswald Chambers. I only recently began reading this again, oddly enough. This is an excerpt from today.
“The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong–when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. “…I must be about My Father’s business”– and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father’s house.”
I remember times from the past few months. I spent a lot of time at the carepoints and around the gogos, even in the house. Over and over I found myself blown away by pray, and yet it still seemed like a concept so far out there for me. I think having grown up in “the Land of Dreams” has some effect. Of course there were times I thought I had nothing and yet I knew I could go to my dad and he could help me out. According to American standards, I grew up below the poverty line. And still the Lord always provided. Then I get out to Nsoko. The longest amount of time I’ve spent out there is less than ten days, and even then I wasn’t living there. I was staying in this guesthouse down the road with all my meals paid for. So living in Nsoko for a little over two months I actually began seeing the need and how God provided. It wasn’t always the way I thought provision needed to come, but it was His provision.
There were a couple of weeks where there wasn’t any food at the carepoints. But some of the kids still walked to the carepoints, hoping that there would be food for them. I was at Mabantaneni 1 and the teacher has structure for how the mornings go. This particular day there wasn’t any food for the kids to eat. There were maybe 10 kids there and only the teacher. The Real Life team had brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch with a few oranges and some cookies. Without the kids knowing about the food, they prayed for it anyway, thanking the Lord for the food they were about to eat. It was beautiful. They each ate half a sandwich, a few slices of orange and a couple of cookies. Not too long after I had just gotten back from a morning at Matata, using internet, sitting in the cafe drinking a coke light and having something to eat, as well as a bit of shopping. When I was heading back to my room there were some gogos on the porch sewing mats and bags for Timbali crafts. One of them said, “Sisi (sister), we are hungry.” At first I said I had nothing to offer them, then felt like a jerk. I went inside, fixed them all a glass of coke, had some apples and chips but didn’t have any bread in the house. I took what I had outside and offered it to them. They thanked me and then blessed the Lord for the food they were about to eat. I think it is in these times I feel quite ridiculous with myself and realize how selfish I really am.
It’s never to late to return to the Father’s house. In fact, He is longing for us to return to Him. So what on earth am I waiting for? Perfection? That’s never going to happen. I have to be about my Father’s business. It doesn’t matter how much I do or don’t do. It’s about being in sync with what He wants for me. So I ask you this question, “Where are you right now? Are you going about your Father’s business?”
