It has been a while since I last wrote a blog, and as I look at my last blog, I am amazed at the things that have happened since then. Amazed at how little I knew was happening to me, to my world, my family, wife and children, and everything in between. To write it all in one blog would be like writing a book, because so much has transpired through the last almost 6 years. But one thing I do know...this Father of ours, the one we call "Lord" has blown my heart and mind away in ways I didn't know were possible. His truth, life, character, spirit, word, gospel message, love, joy and everything He represents and has chosen to reveal to us has become so much more than I ever had imagined. His trustworthiness, faithfulness, unfailing love and pursuit and lovingkindness have become our daily bread through all the trials, challenges, changes, highs and lows, and He has never been so real and active and alive in our lives. Well, He has always been real, active and alive. It is just that our hearts were not truly awakened to it.
But like I said, I wouldn't even know where to begin, so as I sit here, I will ponder on what things I feel like I could share that would best reflect and expose the glory he deserves through everything that has happened in our lives these last 6 years.
One thing I do know. In December of 2010, a few months after I wrote my last blog, Leah and the kids and I made a very hard decision. We left Mexico when things looked and felt very good as far as ministry goes. It really all looked so good and we felt that God was truly at work in the small community of Cerro Azul, Veracruz. But we knew something was not ok within us, in our family, our children and marriage. On the outside it looked great, but inside we were falling apart, broken, hurt and hurting each other. We were wounded soldiers trying to aid others. We were wounded people wounding others without knowing. And here is where the craziest thing was revealed to us. God didn't need us doing things for Him, achieving great dreams for His glory. He didn't need us dreaming up great dreams for Him, as we had heard so many times before. He didn't need us doing, going, planning, envisioning, achieving, etc. Not the way we were doing it. Not with a wounded, broken vision of who He truly is. You see, our perception of Him was not right, healthy. We were living our lives running on what little we knew about our Father, mostly because we were fed the awesome idea that to serve God you didn't really need all that preparation. All you needed was a passion for Him. And passion we had. Yet, our intimate knowledge of His word, His character, His heart and His truth were very limited, short sighted and broken.
You see, we were living life from the perspective that once you get saved, once you ask Jesus into your heart, you are good, or "gucci" as my kids put it. We are led to believe that once you are saved, then you should be able to overcome anything and that we have instant victory over sin and everything else that life brings our way. That swearing, anger, porn addiction, lying, cheating, unfruitful and filthy thoughts, greed, bitterness, adultery, drinking, smoking, anxiety, lack of trust, overworking, overachieving, low self-esteem, cutting, depression are things that needed to be blotted out of our lives instantly. That we needed to get our acts together, and that struggling and battling these things was shameful, embarrassing, worthy of judgement and scolding. And these things resulted in our putting up a fake face, a mask, a big smile when someone asked us how we were doing. We were trained to say "God is good brother!!!" And if we ever did share with someone, the cliche response is always "well, there must be something wrong with you. You are not trusting enough. Christians cannot be depressed. Gotta pray harder. Gotta do devotions everyday. Go to church more. Attend every single activity. Go on a fast. Read the Bible more.
But inevitably these things come around again and get a hold of us, making us fail, throwing us down on our faces, ashamed, embarrassed and left thinking "why can't i get rid of this?"
And the more we fail, the more we struggle with these things and don't get a victory over them, the more we feel like we are failing God, that we are letting Him down, and these feelings, instead of making us come to Him as the only way to be free from these things, make us create an image of our father in our own image, as one who won't take us back again, who is mad, disappointed and frustrated with us, and who will reject us.
This is the way we lived and served. The more we struggled, the more we tried to do, to accomplish. We needed to compensate for what we were struggling with, our shame, our feeling of inadequacy, being disqualified, insufficient, etc. So, this drove us to be more effective. Bigger events, numbers, houses built, bibles passed around, clothes given, food provided, programs developed, schools ran, evangelistic campaigns, events planned, etc. It was not coming out of a heart to bring others to Jesus' truth, feet, salvation, and liberating gospel. On the outside it was, and we believed it to be that way. But deep inside, the real motive was an unseen, yet very present feeling of shame and torment that drove us to do all those things for US...yes, for US! We needed to feel better about ourselves, so we kept telling ourselves (without knowing) that the more we accomplish the more appeasing we would be doing towards God's anger and disappointment in our lives. We did things to try to keep Him happy, satisfied, not-so-angry and frustrated at us. We did things to appease that feeling of inadequacy within us.
Sound familiar?
I'll get to more later. I think it is time for me to go home and pick up my wife. We are having breakfast with some really cool people. Until next time, peace out!
