Little Update: God's Not Finished With Me Yet

These last few weeks have felt very strange to me. I keep thinking that I need to start packing my suitcase and get ready for going back to the Cooks.
I went shopping in Edmonton this week and I kept finding things for the base and for friends that I felt like I needed to buy. And then it would hit me, I'm not going back.
The last few weeks have just been a roller coaster of emotion, unknowing, confusion. My mind is so unsettled. Everyone keeps asking, what are you going to do now. And I say, I don't know. Because I have no idea.
I've been praying a lot, asking God to show me, step by step, and still there's been silence. So I started questioning things, asking Him if He still wanted in me in missions, what He actually wants for me...
It was like 1am, and God brought to mind Genesis 12:1-3:

Get out of your country and from your Father's house, to a land that I will show you. 

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; 

And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will

curse him who curses you, And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

I went to bed, and in the morning I asked God what He meant and how it would happen. Still half-asleep, the word Isaiah before my eyes. I asked what reference, and I got 42:5. I don't usually get scriptures this way, but I turned to the reference, and it says:

I will go before you, and make the crooked places straight:

I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron.

At the moment, for me to head back into missions feels impossible, but God was assuring me that I need to step out in faith and allow Him to deal with the impossibilities. But along with that assurance, came the assurance, that although He hasn't yet shown me where to go or what to do, He isn't finished with me. I'm not done, there is still more for me to do.

The adventure isn't over. The journey continues.

Familiar to Foreign

I was thinking of a line in my last post today, 'living in the familiar so foreign, longing for the foreign which has become familiar.'

 I was thinking of it today while walking through the public library, rows of books assaulting my senses, same friendly faces smiling at me from behind the checkout desk.

I was thinking of it while driving home in the evening, still, icy pools of spring runoff water reflecting the pink and blue hues of the northern sky, reflecting perfectly the naked, spindly arms of barren trees stretching hopeful high to spring's pale sun, a photographer's dream.

i was thinking of it while watching the sun set, like always, throwing pink and orange tendrils over the river as it snakes its way across northern swampy woodland.

Everything so familiar, the same as it's always been, and yet, myself, different, entering in, senses heightened somehow, more aware, and different.

I feel most days, as walking through a dream, responding to situations with a mind moulded, changed by my time away, by a perspective of life, different. Some of the awareness, no doubt, present with age, but I have been changed by life, by moments of staring at myself with sudden startling clarity, seeing my reflection as staring in a mirror, having to decide if I will choose to stay in the familiar or if I will branch into the foreign. Having to decide if I will stay the same, or if I will....CHANGE.....

And as I was thinking of this awareness that seems to permeate every cell of my body, I began to think of our spiritual lives, 1 Corinthians 13 speaks of 'looking into a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.' The verse before speaks of growing into a man, putting aside the need for childish things. Hebrews speaks of growing from milk to solid food as a Christian. 

all this talk of change makes me wonder why so often we cling to the familiar, as if letting go of it will result in some tragedy. I wonder this because as I've left home and grown older and spent time away that changed me, I have come to love home in a greater way, I've come to appreciate the icy stillness of spring evenings. I've come to appreciate the friendly faces behind the check-out counter as people, as friends. I've come to love sunsets over swampy woodland. 

But in Christianity we tend to shy from anything different, scared that change will destroy our worlds. I want to propose that not all change is bad, sometimes a different way of looking at things actually deepens our faith, moves us into a heightened awareness of what God wants from us, brings us, simply deeper, more aware of who God is and how He works in our lives. Change doesn't destroy us, it just expands us.

At first it feels foreign, but as we live in it, it becomes familiar, feels right. We appreciate the old so much more, as we understand it more fully, but we can never go back to existing in it, to cut off our new awareness would be a kind of death, and so we move forward, with change. Because God never required that we become stagnant. He required life.

Jet lag

One of the greatest joys of travelling (please note the sarcasm) is jet lag. Jet lag is one of the reasons I am up at 1:10 Tuesday morning. My body thinks it is actually 9 PM. I'm hungry and eating ritz crackers and marble cheese, 2 things not found in the Cook Islands. My body is itchy, as my skin slowly dries out in adjustment from a humid climate to the dry, cold, desert-like climate of northern Alberta.

Adjustments and change are obviously eminent in my life at the moment, but I am marvelling more at the things that haven't changed in my life in the past week.

Somehow, I thought that my coming home would change me. Currently, placed in La Crete, my hometown, with not set purpose or reason. Currently, surrounded by the familiar which has become foreign while longing for the foreign which has become familiar.

And yet, I find God unmoving, unchanging, the Rock that I am set upon. He still speaks in the everyday, in the quiet moments and in the busy, He is always leading, guiding, orchestrating events and people for His greater good, for His glorious purposes.

I am taking 2 weeks off, but so far, I am not relaxing. I have seen so many people and attended a lot of events. God has used them all. I've talked to people about God, encouraged people, prayed for people. Oddly enough, I haven't asked for it. I haven't asked to be used, I haven't asked for opportunities, but God is giving them, and walking into them has seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

People keep asking me what I'm planning on doing while I'm here, and honestly, God has given no inkling. I have no prospects or ideas for jobs, but even if God has me here for this week, to talk to maybe 1 or 2 more people, it will have been worth it, it has already been worth it.

God is giving me people to pray for. God is giving me people to share with. God is giving me relationships to fight for and to speak into. God is giving me purpose, even through change, even through a season of complete faith, utter unknowing. God is good. I choose to build my house on His Rock, His solid and firm foundation. (Luke 6:46-49)

A Catcher of Men

I'm reading through the New Testament at the moment (very slowly I might add). This morning while I was babysitting I read Luke 4:1-5:11.

The story of Luke 5:1-11 really caught my attention. It's the story of Jesus calling Simon Peter to be His disciple.

At first I had to laugh at the story. In Luke it's written kinda like this,
Peter and a few others are out all night, they don't catch any fish.
Jesus sees them pull in their boats, and they're cleaning their nets, probably grumbling and complaining about all their hard work with nothing to show for it.
Jesus sits in their boat, pushing it a little way from the shore, just so that He can teach a whole bunch of people who have been following Him around.
After He finishes teaching, He says to Peter (who by the way, has probably just finished cleaning his nets and is ready to head off to bed), "Go back in, throw your nets on the other side."

FYI: Jesus is a carpenter, not a fisherman.

Peter replies, "Sure, since you told me to, I'll do what you said." I kinda think, and yes, I am completely using my imagination here, that he said it sarcastically, probably, kinda just wanting Jesus to leave so that he can lock up ship and go to bed.

But something extraordinary happens. He actually catches fish...tonnes of fish...so many that he has to call in a partner boat to help so that the nets don't break, and both boats begin to sink with the huge stinky load of fish that they are carrying.

Simon Peter, possibly filled with remorse for his attitude, sinks to his knees and asks Jesus to leave because he somehow realizes the power of who he is facing and his sin in the face of that power.

Jesus replies, "don't be afraid...from now on you will catch men."

That's what really caught my attention. When the story is told in Matthew and Mark, Jesus says, "I will make you fishers of men."

[I'm going to go into what this post is really about now, but if you ever want to hear the whole story of how I think this went down...just message me (and yes, it is imagination, but I'm pretty sure that when this happened, more than 4 sentences of conversation were exchanged).]

The difference in stories really captivated me. There is a huge difference between fishing and catching fish. You can go fishing for a whole week and never catch anything. If you're like me, you'll probably quit fishing long before the first day is over if you never get a bite.

But catching is so different. Catching means that you've accomplished something, you've achieved what you've set out to do. Your hope has been fulfilled.

Jesus promised Peter that he would catch men. He was promising a fulfillment of hope, a fulfillment of work having a reward. His nets would not return empty.

God spoke to me through this. I'm entering into a new time, a new season; God is showing me a new path, kind of like He was offering Peter a new profession, and I'm going from the familiar, from what I know how to do into an unknown. The past season, there have been many times where my nets were cast out and then returned to me empty. But I feel that God is assuring me, this time, this season, this change, your nets will be cast out, and they will return full. I feel that He is assuring me, that even though this change is hard, Don't be afraid; hope will be fulfilled.

It calms me, even though I know that life is never promised to be easy (tradition says that Peter was crucified upside-down on a cross for his faith); I know that there will be a catch, I will hold solid evidence of my work for God in my hands. That is blessing.

And so I want to close this by extending an encouragement, to everyone really, but especially to those who are choosing to give their lives to service in God's kingdom.

Your nets will not return to you empty! Even if the season that you're currently in is hard, you will catch men (and hopefully some women lol). You may not see the fruit of your own hands, but know this: God's heart is for all to know Him! And if this is God's heart, then He will not let one seed planted go to waste. Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.