Of Mango Juice & Broom Trees

Today was one of “those days” – days when one feels overloaded & overwhelmed.

I travelled back on Tuesday from a week of vacationing out at Musana Camps, NHU’s beautiful property on the shores of Lake Victoria. But by this afternoon, any rest during that week seemed hardly worth the piles of work I came back to.

So many things to do, chiefly reading & processing 300ish letters from our primary & senior students to their sponsors. But so many other things too, pressing things that I just can’t seem to make time for. Budgets & emails & new sponsorships, and a pile of Christmas packages for kids just waiting to be opened & checked.

I was tired and frustrated and on edge this afternoon. One of my friends had stopped by several times to do various things at the admin offices. So we had greeted & chatted a bit, and she could see I was tired.

Trying to get some of the letters read, I could just feel my frustration building. A class where the teacher had written a letter and just had all the students copy it (true, it’s a young class, but they should still be able to answer simple questions for themselves). Other things that hadn’t gone quite like I expected.

I was about ready to throw in the towel and go for a run to vent my pent up feelings, even though it was 3 p.m. and I was nearly sweating just sitting still in my office.

Then my friend showed up again. She handed me a manila envelope, strangely shaped. Inside was a box of cold mango juice she had bought for me.

Such a seemingly small thing – but to me it was not a small thing: it was a big thing.

Because as she turned and left before I had even finished opening it and thanking her, my mind flew back to Tuesday night.

That night, we women here at Kasana had started a video-based Bible study: “Walking with God in the Desert,” by Ray Vander Laan. He’s a Bible teacher who takes people out to the Holy Land and creates studies about Christian history & heritage and lessons to be learned from that.

There have definitely been times in the past year and in the past months when I have felt the blasting heat of a metaphorical desert wind. Moving & living half way around the world from everything familiar isn’t easy. Carrying a lot of responsibility for months can be a draining challenge.

But, as Ray reminded us, it’s in the desert we often are reminded that it is God who is faithful and sufficient, and it is in the desert times that we can learn to fall in love with Him all over again.

In the second video lesson we watched, Ray talked about the concept in the Bible of God being the shade at our right hand. He said the Hebrew word refers to what we call a broom tree. It’s more like a shrub or a bush: something which can give relief from the heat, but not like an oak tree that more completely blocks out the burning sunlight.

God doesn’t promise us that He will magically make all of our problems disappear! But He does promise us that He will give us the shade and relief at all times when we need Him. And His grace is sufficient for us to take the next step, to make it through the next challenge. What’s more, God often uses the community of His people to bring that shade to one another.

This afternoon, God used my friend to remind me about what I had already so quickly forgotten. That box of mango juice was my broom tree for the afternoon. I thank God for my friends here, including this one who’s “small” act of kindness honestly turned around my whole frame of mind.

The only way to explain it is God. A box of mango juice doesn’t really turn me from someone who’s frustrated and fed up into someone who can take the next step and the next step and make progress in reading letters. It was just a practical object lesson & reminder that God is enough and He will provide the strength I need. I had written those same words just a couple hours before, because I knew with my head they were true. But God in His grace sent my friend with a box of mango juice because He knew I needed to remember and feel it with my heart this afternoon.

Because of what my friend did for me, I was also able to reach out to other friends and hopefully be a bit of God’s shade for them too. That’s how God’s grace works. It’s not just something I take and keep for myself. It’s something that I receive in order to pass it on to others – for the glory of our loving Father.

So as you go about your day, maybe think about how you can be God’s broom tree for others in their struggles. And don’t forget that God is always there for you in your desert, no farther away than you can reach your right hand.

Thanksgiving

I know this is a few months early for my fellow Americans….. But here at New Hope Uganda, tomorrow we will be having our annual Thanksgiving Sunday service. And so in that spirit, I wanted to share some of the things I am so very thankful for in this season of my life.

First of all, I am incredibly thankful for our Abba, Father – the fact that He is present and active in the lives of His children is an incomprehensible gift!

I am thankful for our Savior, for His patience and undying love for us. Words utterly fail to describe what He has done and continues to do for the glory of God, of which we are beneficiaries!

“This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”  2 Timothy 2:11-13

I’m also thankful for Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who lives within God’s beloved sons & daughters and continues working and interceding for our sanctification.

I’m so thankful that I am never alone, for this is the Triune God who is ever-present with us.

I’m thankful for my biological family, especially my parents. Their constant love and care and prayers and support mean more to me than I can ever say.

I am also thankful for my massive spiritual family – literally located around the globe. So many names I could mention here – names of prayer supporters and encouragers, names of friends. Many of whom I have not seen in recent months, but who I know care nonetheless.

I’m thankful for my New Hope family too – again, so many names I could pull out of people who have invested in me in ways small and large. People who have opened their hearts and homes to me; people I have been able to stand with and work alongside. People who, while not perfect, seek to serve God through loving His “least of these.”

I am thankful for the gift of fellowshipping for a week in person with a friend & apartment-mate from college days. Her presence was such a gift and she is part of the reason I am writing this right now!

I’m thankful for the beauty of God’s creation! For the birds, the flowers, the stars my friend and I enjoyed during a dark night power out. This world is so amazing in its variety and ingenious design.

This list could go on and on…..

When I choose gratitude and thankfulness as my glasses, I see so much that is good and blessing in my life. Yes, there are hardships and challenges. But I – we! – are called to give thanks in all things. And so this evening, I praise God for the many gifts He has given me…..above them all, Himself in relationship.

To God be the Glory, great things He has done!

Boasting in My Weakness

I’ve got to say, it’s not easy for me to think about writing this post. Even simply typing the title made me pause.

I’m the kind of person who likes to be right—who needs to be right (or at least I think I do). I want to be the one who’s dependable and got it all together.

But, truth is, I’m not – and I don’t.

God is at work in my heart and life. Often I wish He would hurry up and finish so that I would just be good to go. But then I wouldn’t need Him as desperately, would I?

In the past weeks and months, I’ve been wrestling with apathy. Well, actually, a more accurate description would be that I’ve been giving in to apathy without putting up a lot of fight.

I’ve been battling discouragement, hypocrisy, etc. You name one of those inner struggles that’s so easy to put a mask over, I’ve probably been dealing with it to some extent.

But God – He sees right through my masks. Jesus Christ sees my heart with His eyes of blazing fire that our teacher talked about this morning in church (from Revelations 2:18). And yet this same God doesn’t only see in me what I so often focus on, the sin & failures, the guilt. God the Father sees in me the righteousness of His Son, our Savior.

That’s what He reminded me of this afternoon as I knelt on my bed, crying for shame & guilt of my shortcomings. And to my heart, three simple words, yet so profound that it will take eternity to understand: He loves me.

Yes, in myself I am weak – so very prone to give into the temptation of the easy, selfish path. But in my weakness is the opportunity for His strength to be displayed, for His glory.

Because if living the Christian life—a life that pleases God—is something that I could work up to do in my own strength, there would have been no need for Christ to come.

I need Him, He who has fought the war and won the victory; He who has defeated the enemies of sin and Satan and death. The balance is there: The war has been won, and yet I am called to fight the daily battles by the power of the Victor flowing in and through me.

Yesterday as I worked on laundry, some of these same thoughts which have been common these past weeks were already circling in my mind. I shut off the podcast I was listening to, and prayed seeking to listen to my God instead. And in that, I was reminded of the need to put to death my old man, my fleshly desires, each day. But I can’t even crucify my own flesh – that can only be done through the Spirit who brings life in the place of death (Romans 8:13).

Thanks be to God, it is not that I must struggle against my flesh in order to win God’s acceptance and approval. On the contrary, He has adopted me as His daughter through Christ’s death – thereby giving the only reason I have hope of choosing life over the sin and death which form our natural, fallen state (Romans 8:12-17).

And yesterday, as He called me to the beginning of this memory, my mind flew back to a little something I had started in March and finished in June:

I say I started it in March. That’s not strictly true. March is when I pulled some images of crosses from the Internet and selected a font, all of which I began to combine and trace to make this image. But the story of this picture started almost four years ago, on my 21^st birthday at JBU’s Sunday night chapel service. It was there that the words “I am Thine” (referring to myself in relationship to my heavenly Lord, obviously) became emblazoned on my mind. They’ve been there ever since, and often my heart has repeated that cry.

The cross was added to the mental image later, in Northern Ireland. That’s a story of its own, perhaps for another day. But over these past two years since that trip, I’ve been wanting to draw this. Last month, the image was finally completed. And yesterday, it suddenly took on even deeper significance. Not only is the cross the symbol of Christ’s redemption of our souls, it is also the symbol of what we are called to: To take up our cross each day – not to earn our salvation, but because we have it (Luke 9:23-25, Philippians 3:7-11).

These words, this symbol – they are far beyond anything I can accomplish in and of myself. It is all Christ. Therefore, I will gladly boast in my weakness, that through me the strength of His grace may be seen (2 Corinthians 12:9). For His glory alone.

Fresh Love

{I’ve stolen/borrowed this title, as you’ll see later – so I can’t take credit for it!}

This past Thursday evening, I hit a slump of discouragement. There are several probable factors that created it, but in the end God used it to once again remind me how constantly and desperately I need Him. He is all-sufficient, if only I would have the faith to trust and rely on Him rather than myself.

Since then, I have spent some time reading Nehemiah 8 and 9. Those two chapters focus on the reading of the law to the Jews who had returned after exile, and of their response to it. The people were grieved when the law was read and explained by the Levites – and though they were encouraged to not grieve because “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh. 8:10), they later returned to pour their hearts out in confession before God.

During this gathering, the Levites stood up before the people and recounted the history of Israel poetically – but what I found most interesting as I read it this morning is that they started off by blessing God and worshipping Him. The tale they told was one of Israelite rebellion and unfaithfulness, but it was framed and laced throughout with the mercy of God and His worthiness to be obeyed and praised.

As I closed my Bible and prepared to get ready for church, a thought flitted through my mind; something about feeling as though I was just slogging through, trying to do what I knew I should, but often without my heart fully into it. Little did I know then how that very thought would tie into church.

I arrived at church a little early. While sitting there listening to the choir finishing their practice for the service, I watched as a couple of our church leaders brought out the elements for communion. Somehow, that simple sight awakened emotion in me, and a tear had to be wiped from my cheek.

A little later in the service, the Scripture passage for the day’s sermon was read, Revelations 2:1-7. The meat of those verses hit me right between the eyes. Christ, speaking to the church in Ephesus, says:

“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: have forsaken the love you had at first” (Rev. 2:2-4).

Yes, I thought. Yes, that’s exactly it. That could nearly just as well be speaking about me.

My mind flashed back to a recent group discussion in which I was simultaneously frustrated and prideful. I found myself unduly frustrated with others for not having a working understanding of theological principles which I’ve had something of a grasp on for almost as long as I can remember. And thus the pride came into play as well.

I try to work hard and perform well, often for the sake of giving glory to Christ. I make an effort to hold fast to Scripture, making it my foundation, learning so that I may I understand truth and discern the lie. I do my best to press through times of discouragement.

But where is the love in my heart?

Do I do all these things merely because I am supposed to? Or because my heart is on fire with a love and passion for God and His glory?

While I desire the latter, the former is often more accurate. Just trying to slog through life, to get through one more day.

I don’t want to live like that.

I want to return to the first love of Christ. The love that came, not because of anything I had done but because of what He did. The fresh love, as the preacher put it, that flows from Him through me—of which I am merely a channel, not a creator.

During the sermon, the pastor for the day clarified and reechoed many of these thoughts which had recently been swirling, half-formed, in my mind. In his conclusion, he read 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a. Reminding us that without love, we are nothing. Reminding us of just what kind of love Christ has for us.

As we took communion, our worship leader played a song that had really struck me in church a couple weeks ago. I munched my small square of bread and drank my small cup of juice, remembering what Christ has done for me; remembering that all is by grace.

And so a new day continues, a new hour lies before me. May it be filled with a fresh love for Christ and for others, by His grace.

Incongruity

It’s a normal Saturday for Esther in Uganda: laundry, pancakes, Institute homework, thinking about trying to catch up on emails. The day always flies by too fast.

I went outside to get Internet and check to see if my new laptop had arrived at its Stateside destination for a returning staff member to bring it to Uganda early next week. And that’s when it happened.

As I checked Facebook, I found out about a major earthquake earlier in the day, outside of Kathmandu, Nepal. A friend who was awakened by an early morning call from her son to let her know he and his family were ok. A post from a non-profit in the midst of building competitions and Stateside concerns.

And I had just posted about being annoyed that mosquitoes were biting me because I had forgotten to apply bug spray before going outside.

A minor inconvenience to the trauma and tragedy hundreds of thousands of people are dealing with right now in Nepal. The death toll, already nearing 900, will undoubtedly rise. People, many injured, are/were scared to go back inside because aftershocks continue rocking the buildings.

Somehow, this time it’s sinking in further. So often, it’s easy to read about disasters and just go about my life. But today, it hit home. As I went back inside, thinking about how to spend the rest of my day, the incongruity and unfairness of it all swept over me.

This moment, there are probably people trapped in collapsed buildings, fighting for their lives. There are thousands whose homes were destroyed, who will spend the night outside in the cold. And I was debating what to have for dinner and whether or not to watch a movie.

Incongruity.

It is only by the Lord’s mercy that I am not suffering the same (Lamentations 3:22). That I am instead enjoying innumerable comforts I still take for granted and resent when I don’t have, even here in the bush of Uganda. Why them? Why not me? Why suffering?

We were talking about the sovereignty of God and the role of Satan in class last week. And then this morning, hours before I became aware of all this, I read the part of Romans 9 talking about how God prepares some for destruction and some for mercy (vs. 14-29).

God could have prevented this earthquake. He could have prevented all earthquakes, all natural disasters. But He chooses not to – and the reason is always His plan and His glory. Because He takes things meant for evil and turns them into good. My brain can’t comprehend that, because for those hundreds and hundreds of people who died it doesn’t seem like there can be ANY good in it. But God knows. God loved and cared about every single one of those people, each one as a unique and special creation of His.

It blows my mind to try and think about this. Which is why God is the one in charge and not me! And I am so thankful He is. As I sat on my bed trying to digest the discrepancy between my “challenges” and the life-and-death situation of my fellow humanity right now in Nepal, the tears came. How could I go on about my normal life in the face of this disaster?

Thoughts and ideas flitted through my mind, but the problem is so beyond anything I can really do to affect it. Even prayer feels so small and helpless when looking at things from the perspective of thousands wounded and/or homeless. But prayer is the tool God has given us – and so I prayed. And I will keep on praying. Won’t you join me?

Thankfully, God also uses organizations and individuals to do things both small and big which can help alleviate the hardship of some of these survivors in the coming days and weeks. And just as it is the thought of the individuals who died which makes this feel so overwhelming, so it is the thought of the individuals who will be helped and sustained which brings hope and comfort.

Please pray for Nepal. And please give to help with the relief efforts which will be taking place. Samaritan’s Purse is one organization. I know there are others as well. Don’t forget our fellow humanity in Nepal tomorrow, next week, even in the coming months. They will still need your prayers and support.

Trusting God, Once Again

On Friday afternoon, I received two pieces of news: one that I had assumed for months was coming eventually and one that caught me totally off guard. The latter was the conclusion of several weeks of my choices in interactions with others. I should probably have been expecting things to come to the point that they did. But I was being optimistic and so wasn’t considering the potential “worst” outcome. The news left me hurting and a bit shaken.

This week in Institute class has been all about “Veritas,” a Bible study method. As I moved about our office block, trying to let the news sink in and trying to adjust to the new reality thrust upon me, a verse we had been looking at just before lunch came back to mind: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace” (Col. 3:15).

“All right, God,” I prayed, “This situation is what You have allowed to happen. And You have called me to peace. Please teach my heart to trust You and rest in peace today, right now.” And He did! I went about finishing my day in the office, and on my way home talked to my mentor a bit about it all, since she’d been walking with me through the situation the past month.

Last night, some of the young people put on a concert. In the greeting and fellowshipping afterward, God allowed me to have a special interaction with a friend. It gave me a glimpse of good things He is doing through the situation, even though part of the outcome is not what I would have chosen.

As I continued thinking about it back at my house, I was reminded that peace is not “everything going my way” – and trust is likewise not “God doing things my way.” Peace and trust are both choosing to rest in God’s goodness, knowing that He loves everyone involved so much more than I do! And that He is working out His plan, even when to my human view it seems like things are falling apart rather than being renewed. As my mentor reminded me, “sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.” And God is the one directing that process in light of His sovereignty and omniscience! That is where hope and peace and trust find their truest, deepest roots.

This morning, I woke up earlier than I intended to—so even after spending a chunk of time directly in God’s Word it was too early to get ready and go to church. I thought about writing this post, but was feeling a bit under the weather so didn’t want to yet. I ended up deciding to pull out my Kindle version of a women’s devotional, because I remembered I had one more chapter I hadn’t read yet.

Guess what it was about??? Yep, trusting God. I took one look at the title (“Does God Deserve Our Trust?”) and almost laughed. Several things in the chapter—discussing trying to put God in a box, and God as the Potter from Romans 9, for example—have been on my mind already the past year-plus. So many good quotes I could put in here from this chapter! But here’s just a couple:

“The reality is that we often don’t want to trust God until we’ve tried to fix the problem ourselves first….We really don’t give God a second thought until something big comes up” (pg. 153).

“I believe that sometimes we are a little cautious about trusting God because we’re afraid of what He may bring into our lives in order to teach us something or to test us” (pg. 155).

“Does trusting God mean that everything will work out just the way we want it to and that we’ll live happily ever after? No, it doesn’t. That’s a God-box…..Whether you trust God with your life does not change the fact that you still really have no control over your circumstances” (pg. 158).

The authors (Beverly LaHaye and her daughter Lori Scheck) went on to talk about how we must have both a proper view of ourselves and a proper view of God if we are to grow in our trust for Him. It was all such a good reminder, especially in light of everything this weekend! Praise the Lord for His leading and timing :)

So there are no easy answers. I still wish, and I am still tempted to hope, that things turn out differently in the situation that instigated this whole post. But God is using these circumstances that are mostly out of my control to remind me of what trust really means: Resting in His plan, not because it is the same as mine but because He is good.

To God be the glory.

______

The quotes come from the last chapter of A Woman and Her God, edited by Beth Moore.

Why Cast Your Burdens?

Last year about this time, I wrote a couple of posts about the idea of bearing one another’s burdens and casting one’s burdens onto Christ. I had more posts on my mind, but they never reached the stage of being written.

In the past couple months, that theme has been repeating itself in a couple different areas of my life….and so I may write some of those posts I was mulling on last year.

But first, I wanted to mention something else Uncle Jonnes talked about earlier this month after leading us on a journey to the cross, which I talked about in my previous post.

He used a term (Rutegga Mubegga) in his native language, which refers to someone who helps carry someone else’s burden. And he told a story of a man who used this term as a name for Jesus. When he faced troubles and challenges, he taught his daughter how to pray, bringing the burdens to Rutegga Mubegga.

After entrusting them to the shoulder of Jesus, this man was able to live out Christ’s grace and love because he was no longer carrying the weight of the injury done to him. He had entrusted it to the one who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23), and thus was able to serve as a channel of His love and grace.

I really appreciated that imagery, it struck a chord with me. And as I think about it again tonight, I’m reminded of what I wrote in one of my posts last year. We don’t carry our burdens to Christ so that we can have an easy life. No, we are called to surrender the burdens of our sin and our self-protection so that we can take up the burden of loving and caring for others.

Last year, I was going to write a whole post about the song “Let It Go” from Frozen. It resonated with me, because I identified with Elsa’s seeking to find safety by hiding her true self: “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” But as I’ve thought about it more since then, I can see how misplaced her solution (running away to isolation in an ice castle) to that self-oppression was.

While that song is the one that went viral overnight, it’s not the high point of the movie. In fact, it’s closer to the low point. Elsa was indulging herself, not considering others and the effect her choices were having on them.

Her being bound by fear for all of those years, trying to control her powers herself had not worked, but neither did giving in and carrying out her whims with a wild abandon. It’s not a perfect analogy, but I see in the story a parallel to the Christian life. Isolation is never the answer. If you compare Elsa’s powers to humanity’s flesh, we can see the futility of both trying to stuff our desires and wantonly carrying them out.

Both lead to fear and bondage, not freedom.

So where is freedom found? The movie points in the right direction, but can’t give the full answer. Freedom is found in love – more specifically, the love of Christ. In Him removing our burdens as we choose to surrender to Him, by His grace and strength.

Once we have been transformed and released from fear by the self-sacrificial love of our Savior, then we can be truly free to use the gifts which He has given us: not for our selfish-gratification, but rather for the good of others.

Christ takes our burdens that we may be His servants in leading others to Him to have their burdens also lightened, and all for His glory. That is our mission in and through Him.