I think by far the most common question I always ask myself nowadays is, “What am I doing with my life?” There is a certain sense of hopeless frustration whenever I think about it, so I try to avoid it, but naturally I always come back to it. I think about how I should have an accounting or finance related job right now, and be planning for my bright future ahead, but instead I’m stuck. I don’t know where my life is heading and every time someone asks me, “What are you doing next semester?” I kind of freeze and give a vague answer.

It’s been almost a full year since I graduated and nothing has really gone the way that I planned. I did pretty well in school, got some decent work/internship experiences during my undergrad years and had a ton of interviews over the past couple months. Looking back I probably interviewed at least 25 times for first round and about 6 second rounds with nothing working out. A lot of the times I honestly feel like it’s the sovereign hand of God that is trapping me where I am. It may or may not be, but regardless I’ve had to do an incredible amount of soul searching since I think so much of my identity was and is tied up in what I’m capable of doing. Right now God is showing me that from a worldly standpoint, I don’t really have anything to be proud of.

A revelation I had over break while I was at home for a short 4 days getting lectured at least once a day by my dad about just fixing my life and making sure I don’t ruin it is the idea of being able to flourish anywhere and everywhere or just being able to glorify God regardless of the circumstances in my life. After getting back from missions I’ve been desperately searching for some sort of job that I can kind of settle my life into, but so far I haven’t found anything. Every day I daydream about what it would be like to have a secure and stable job, and to have a vision for what my next week, month or year will look like. And I know that it doesn’t really work like that but I think that I fantasize a lot about how a job or direction will help to solidify my spiritual life.

One of my greatest sins right now is believing that circumstances will help my spiritual life. I think every part of me is fighting to find purpose in my insignificant and meaningless life and whenever I think about it I just want to move on. People keep telling me that God is trying to teach me a lesson in this phase of my life, but I feel like I’ve learned so much and I’m ready to move on. I just want a quick fix to my anxiety and insecurity. I want to move on and get a stable job, or get married or to maybe figure out when I’m going to go into the marketplace or go into ministry. Something people might not know about me, but one of my convictions after missions was to go to seminary and pursue something in full-time ministry in the future. I was convinced and believe that I needed to work for a couple years first though to mature and work out some character issues in my life. But the more I feel trapped in being unable to find a job, and struggling with work, I think maybe I should just go right now. I think it’s ridiculous for me to think like this but sometimes I imagine that going to seminary will fix my problems, because then I’ll be more motivated and feel more purposeful. And I think the idea of seminary makes it sound even more ridiculous than when I think that a full-time job will fix my problems or that finding a girlfriend will or even that marriage might save me from this rut.

I think some part of me wants to believe that I just need my circumstances to change in order for me to get jolted out of my current spiritual rut. Maybe something else will motivate me to be more faithful. That’s what my mindset currently looks like. I think it’s funny that especially when approaching the ideas of seminary or marriage, the more desperate I am for it in my current state just shows the incredible level of immaturity in my heart. My conclusion and my conviction is that God has put me here, because until I know that regardless of my situation or circumstance, that I will be able to have my faith flourish anywhere and everywhere, I’m not ready to move onto the next phase of my life. Until I know that I will be faithful no matter what, I am far too immature to go into ministry or marriage. Ministry and marriage will have constantly changing circumstances and if my faith is dependent on the series of events that take place, I am really building my life on an unstable foundation. Right now I have the privilege of fighting to be faithful and building a foundation for the rest of my life. I think that I have to learn a consistent level of faithfulness and as my circumstances change, maybe it will go up and down, but right now I am raising the bottom-level of my faithfulness to a level that will help to sustain me for my lifetime. And that’s the conclusion that I’ve reached so far. I try really hard to think about what a joy and privilege it is to be in this phase of my life, and how I really want to make the most of it. I want my faith to flourish regardless of where I am or what I’m doing, so even though this phase of my life is unmotivating, depressing and difficult, I get to really lay the building blocks of my spiritual foundation. And what a joy that will be in heaven.

Just started reading the book of John for my devotionals and just wanted to get a better background on the book to really focus my reading through the book so I started looking at different resources. This is an excerpt out of a Macarthur sermon that I was reading.

Now John is one of four gospels and the question is often been asked why are there four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Why not one composite? Why four and do they differ? Do they contradict? The answer yes they differ, no they do not contradict. They are four different viewpoints of Christ.

Now each has its own distinctness. In Matthew, for example, Jesus Christ is presented as the promised king and Messiah of Israel. Consequently Matthew’s message to Israel and the world is this: Behold your king. Mark, on the other hand, does not present Christ as king, but presents Him as a servant/prophet. And that’s the reason there’s no genealogy in Mark because no servant had a genealogy that mattered. And so Mark’s message to the world is behold your servant. And when you come to Luke’s gospel you see that Luke presented Christ as the perfect man walking among the people of the world and so Luke’s message is behold the man.

So Matthew wants us to behold the king, Mark wants us to behold the servant, Luke wants us to behold the man, that is the humanity of Christ. And now as we come to the gospel of John we see a completely different dimension. We see when we begin the gospel of John that heaven opens up and the first thing that happens is the eternal Son of God descends. God and man, in one blessed and glorious person, the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ. And so John’s message is behold your God. And his revelation was written to establish the truth of the divinity and the deity of Jesus Christ, that He is absolute total God of very God living in a human body. He is not half-God, half-man, He is total God and total man. And so the genealogy that John presents doesn’t name any human beings. It goes right back to the time before time, the time of eternity, and says that He was there when it all began. That’s His genealogy. He didn’t start; he always was. So John presents to us God.

I think that I always knew that the gospel of John was about the deity of Christ, but just the way its phrased really stuck out to me. I think the first 5 verses of John have always been unique and something I thought about, but not to the depth that I had truly considered.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(John 1:1-5 ESV)

That’s the divine genealogy of Christ. Matthew gives us the human genealogy, and John is showing the divine nature of Christ through the beginning of his gospel. I think a lot of people usually recommend the gospel of John as the first book for non-Christians or beginning Christians to read, and I think it’s perfectly understandable. To an unbeliever, the most important thing we can convince them of is the divine nature of Christ. Christ coming to be king, Christ coming as a servant, and Christ coming as a man are all crucial aspects of the gospel, but none as crucial as Christ coming as the incarnate God. 

So for those of you who know me, I consider myself much more of a thinker than a feeler, and more of an intellectual. So as I was thinking about how I was going to even approach the book of John and what I wanted to get out of it this time, Macarthur shared this thought.

So John says yes in the beginning was the Word. He was there. He started, He was, He always was before it ever started, profound truth, simple language, profound truth, unable to be understood. And may I say to you if you’re having problems understanding it remember this: if you come to the book of John with your intellect you’re going to get it crucified. If you come to the book with your brain it’s going to get stomped on. You come to the gospel of John with your heart and with faith. You don’t come with your intellect. You’ll never understand it you just believe it.

Although some of this may be exaggeration to paint a picture, but it does paint a clear picture. This is a book to say “Behold the Son of God” and if you can get that much out of it, then you are getting out probably everything that John wanted out of the book. So as I read I hope to keep that in mind.

Definitely failed in making a post everyday. I think I’m just going to go with regular updates. I don’t have enough good ideas to post something everyday haha. Kk well this is just something I was meditating on during my devotional this morning.

Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (1 Peter 4:19 ESV)

Those who suffer only suffer according to God’s will. Those who suffer have to entrust their souls to a faithful Creator, and the proof that we fully entrust ourselves to the Creator when we are suffering is that we continue to do what is good. It sounds so simple, but it’s so profound for me at this point in my life. I think suffering takes on an interesting form in American society just due to the incredibly unique nature of our “suffering”. I always think of the joking complaints of first world problems. Some of my favorites are actually:

- My hand is too fat to reach the bottom of the pringles can.

- I can’t hear the TV, because the chips I’m eating are crunching too loudly.

And things like that are the so called “problems” we deal with. I think a lot of times it’s too easy for us to discount the issues we deal with in life as just circumstances and not suffering. I think that if we just think that the exam we didn’t do well on, or the job we didn’t get, or the relationship that doesn’t seem to be going right is just a small and insignificant problem compared to the evils of starvation, or human trafficking or anything else going on in third-world countries then it will only do more to discourage us. I think one thing I realized is that by making my problems seem more minor and insignificant, it becomes harder to deal with them and repent. I think that I’m being tripped up by being in this weird part of life where I have no direction, a limited income and no idea what’s coming next in life, and that I can’t view it as suffering. I think we’re trained to never refer to anything we face in our lives as suffering, because it’s disrespectful to people who are “truly suffering”. While I think that’s true in a certain sense that we need to constantly be thankful for everything that we have, we’ll miss out on the truth and the promises that God makes to us in his Word if we do not view things through biblical terms.

God does not want us to belittle our problems and try to solve them on our own. We don’t only pray to him and depend on him for strength when a loved one passes away, or a signficant downturn happens in our lives, but in everything God wants me to depend on Him. So while I am going through a difficult juncture in life, that I don’t think is life threatening in any way, that verse still motivates me that God is faithful. That God is in control of the unique hardships of my life and that he just wants me to entrust my life to him and to continue to do what is good. God isn’t looking for ways to tell me my problems are too small and insignificant to apply to the truths of His Word. It doesn’t work like that and it’s because of our own pride and desire to fix ourselves that we think like that. We think that maybe the big things we need God for, but the little things I should handle by myself. We think like that with the people we’re around as well as with God. God is the most loving parent that longs to help us through every single situation, so I’m just learning what it means to trust in God’s will and to depend on him in everything that I do.

Not sure what to write so just going to copy one of my favorite passages from the book Think by John Piper.

“So, what sets faith apart from other graces and virtues is that it is ‘a peculiarly receiving grace.’ That’s why Paul says in Ephesians 2:8, ‘By grace you have been saved through faith.’ Grace from God correlates with faith in us. And the reason is that grace is God’s free giving and faith is our helpless receiving. When God justifies us by faith alone, he has respect not to faith as virtue but faith as a receiving of Christ. So it is the same as saying that not our virtue but Christ’s virtue is the ground of our justification.”

I could chew on that truth for a long time so just going to leave it at that.

Just wanted to lay out some thoughts I’ve been having on daily faithfulness. I actually typed up my first CFC sermon this past week and it was on the worst and the greatest. In the sermon there was this short bullet point underneath “What happens when I want to be the Greatest?”

It was titled “Short faithfulness”. I think this point stuck out, because Pastor Min was just talking about what it means to be faithful and why people who want to be great have short faithfulness. The main point that I took away was pretty much that it’s difficult to have daily faithfulness if you’re proud. It’s hard to be faithful to your calling if you think that you deserve more than where you are at. That I’m not getting fed and exalted, and glorified in my current position as much as I should be. I don’t want to be faithful, but instead I want to run to things that give me more exultation and pleasure. I don’t want to be mundane, humble and the least, but greater, more and exulted.

That was the essence of the point of why we have short faithfulness and I think that it struck a chord in me, because that’s exactly how I think. I struggle with faithfulness, because I want more. I have so much pride in my own ability and my own standards for greatness, that when I fail I don’t want to be faithful and surrender that God has called me to this place and moment in my life. I think everything revolves around the fact that I feel purposeless. I actually started work last week and originally I said that I just wanted financial independence. That’s what I longed for and any job that could provide that, but now after starting work I realize that I want even more. Higher pay, more relevant and respectable work, and etc. are all now on my new complaints and want list.

It’s hard to be faithful, because I want to be somebody else. I want to be a greater person than what I am at my current and job and in my current ministries, and I want something other than my present calling for my own sinful self-exultation.

I think especially what I think about is when I was serving or when I was on missions in Africa. It was really easy to be faithful in those situations, because I would really want to pray and be faithful, because I felt it was such a high calling. I wanted to really be spiritual when I led a Bible study or when I was doing ministry in Kenya. The gospel was on the line and God had given me this precious calling of sharing and teaching the Word of God to his people both here in the states and overseas in Africa. I really wanted to be faithful and it wasn’t that hard in those times. I was getting plenty of glory and thought that the calling was worthy of a person as great as me. Honestly I’m starting to see how ridiculously sinful my life is and just that without that high calling that I am reduced to someone who is so prideful that I don’t want to be faithful, because I can’t accept how little glory and exaltation I get in my current situation. I never realized how much sin was in my “holy acts” and it is only through this season of my life that I am really able to see it.

There’s nothing wrong with being faithful to a high calling either. People always used to joke and say “don’t hear what I’m not saying.” But in this situation it really is important for me to just emphasize my thoughts. It comes down to the fact that my pride needs to be diminished. I have to think of myself as the worst or else daily faithfulness will elude me. I think there’s so much more I can offer and sacrifice for the Kingdom and God just wants me to obey his will right now. I am learning slowly what it means to just accept that.

Just wanted to take some time to reflect on the past couple weeks in my life. I think I’m going to start blogging more consistently. Goal is to churn out 1 post a day for a year. I think right now one of the biggest struggles for me is being idle and feeling purposeless. I hope that blogging will keep me more accountable to seeking new and fresh things in the Word of God. I was reading Challies (a blog) and he wrote

“My desire to post something every day that is new and interesting and theologically-correct keeps me turning constantly to the Bible and constantly to good books. It has been very good and healthy for me.”

And I think that was kind of inspiring for me, because I really want to challenge myself and get out of this rut that I’m in right now of just going day by day without really seeing growth and challenging myself to think. It’s been tough to just kind of be between things and to not have a sense of direction for my life, so I’m hoping by just writing that it will keep me accountable.

So for the first post, I’ve just been kind of thinking about the verse 1 Samuel 15:22. I think some people have been talking about it and thinking about it and I’ve actually been reading a book called Mornings and Evenings by Charles Spurgeon and this was the evening reading on I think October 19^th. I’ve pasted it below.

“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.”

Saul had been commanded to slay utterly all the Amalekites and their cattle. Instead of doing so, he preserved the king, and suffered his people to take the best of the oxen and of the sheep. When called to account for this, he declared that he did it with a view of offering sacrifice to God; but Samuel met him at once with the assurance that sacrifices were no excuse for an act of direct rebellion. The sentence before us is worthy to be printed in letters of gold, and to be hung up before the eyes of the present idolatrous generation, who are very fond of the fineries of will-worship, but utterly neglect the laws of God. Be it ever in your remembrance, that to keep strictly in the path of your Saviour’s command is better than any outward form of religion; and to hearken to his precept with an attentive ear is better than to bring the fat of rams, or any other precious thing to lay upon his altar. If you are failing to keep the least of Christ’s commands to his disciples, I pray you be disobedient no longer. All the pretensions you make of attachment to your Master, and all the devout actions which you may perform, are no recompense for disobedience. “To obey,” even in the slightest and smallest thing, “is better than sacrifice,” however pompous. Talk not of Gregorian chants, sumptuous robes, incense, and banners; the first thing which God requires of his child is obedience; and though you should give your body to be burned, and all your goods to feed the poor, yet if you do not hearken to the Lord’s precepts, all your formalities shall profit you nothing. It is a blessed thing to be teachable as a little child, but it is a much more blessed thing when one has been taught the lesson, to carry it out to the letter. How many adorn their temples and decorate their priests, but refuse to obey the word of the Lord! My soul, come not thou into their secret.

I think the struggle for my life right now is that I really want a good job. Not something great, but at least something relevant to my degree (Accounting and Finance) that I can see myself doing for a couple years. It has been really tough and depressing for me to be unable to find something and I’ve really struggled to be joyful in my Christian walk just due to the circumstances and my inability to really trust in God’s plan and his faithfulness in my life.

When I read this particular passage I think that it really blew me away, because I never really thought about things in the proper perspective. I think my deep longing to get a job has to do with pride and being successful, but also in that I could probably “give” more to God if I were a public accountant or a financial analyst than if I am just an office secretary. The frustration is from my longing that I would be able to do more for God with what I have, but because I am seeking to “sacrifice” I am neglecting to be faithful and obedient to Him. The commentary by Spurgeon talks about how people adorn their temples and decorate their priests, and that’s my heart’s desire as well. I want to decorate and adorn my worship to God with these great material things and to thank God and to sacrifice to God my time in a place where I am really investing my time and energy in work. I want to offer this sacrifice to the Lord so I am restless and disobedient.

God want my obedience more than my sacrifice though. This confounding thought is because if we are disobeying God in order to sacrifice to him, it means that we think we have something more to offer God than our lives. I think that I have something greater, and something more that will set me apart and make my life uniquely valuable and precious in the sight of the Lord and that’s why I want those things. I don’t want to just be a boring person who works a desk job and goes to church and reads his Bible on my time off and listens to the occasional sermon or reads the occasional book here and there. I want to be a leader that sacrifices time for a small group, I want to be someone who sacrifices his time and effort to make lots of money to support the work of the Kingdom, I want to be this valuable friend who supports people and provides incredible advice, and I want to be all these other things, but I don’t want to just be obedient to God. It is during times like these that I really see the wickedness and the sinfulness of my own heart, because I want to do great work for the Kingdom, but it’s really not for God. I want to sacrifice, but it is for a worldly reason and not for a Kingdom reason. I think God is really teaching me what it means to be obedient and then to sacrifice after that. If we don’t view our obedience as more important than sacrifice, then we are using sacrifice as a means of self-exultation and glorification. It is only in light of obedience to God’s will for our lives that we can move on to sacrificing and giving even more glory to the Lord. It is obedience then sacrifice. And it cannot be the other way around and it is a valuable lesson that God is teaching me.

So things in life have been pretty chaotic for me. This period of searching for a job and being an employed graduate is pretty depressing sometimes. I’ve been trying to do whatever I can to become independent and work, but the doors just aren’t open. Even though I’m not serving this year at CFC, I thought it’d be a good idea to try and read through the Bible so I started again in Genesis. No idea if I’ll actually finish, but I just wanted to share this blessing that I got out of reading it.

I decided to read as much as I could until I got too tired, so I read through up until chapter 22. I think it’s pretty interesting how the current phase in life that you’re going through, that the word of God just opens up in a way that it never has before. As I deal with the stress and the disappointment of kind of being stuck in life I see such a different side of the story of Abraham.

God called Abraham when he was 75 years old in chapter 12 and promised to make him a great nation and to make his name great and that he would be a blessing. Then he doesn’t trust God and lies to Pharaoh about Sarah being his sister so that he wouldn’t be killed. After this mistake in chapter 15 God promises to give him an offspring and that they would be as many as the stars in the sky. At the moment Abraham believed the Lord and it said that it was counted to him as righteous.

Right after this they lose faith again and Abraham and his wife use their Egyptian servant Hagar to conceive a child. It says he was 86 years old when this child, Ishmael was born. Then when he was 99 years old, God appeared again to Abraham to reiterate his covenant and promise him a child. He even gives him the covenant of circumcision even after all these mistakes to remind Abraham of the greater covenant he has made to make him a great nation. God promises that they will have a child within 1 year and they laugh in God’s face when they hear this. Both Abraham and Sarah, because they have no faith that God can give a child to a 100 year old man and his 90 year old wife. That’s the extent of Abraham’s faith, but God is full of mercy and grace and just reiterates his promise and covenant and finally says that Isaac will be born next year. Then Abraham between the year that he is promised something directly by God, he goes and commits the same sin again and lies about Sarah being his wife because he is afraid of Abimelech, but still the next year Sarah gives birth to Isaac.

Now this might seem like a kind of random summary, but these are the parts of the story that stuck out to me. God’s call started when Abraham was 75 years old. 25 years later when Abraham is 100 years old, the promises are starting to be fulfilled. In between Abraham isn’t made out to be the best servant of God. He constantly does not trust God, and questions God’s faithfulness and goodness to him. He commits the same sin of lying and saying Sarah was his sister twice, once right after God directly appears and promises him a child.

What’s the significance of all this to me you might ask? I think that the lesson I see here that just so deeply hits me is that God’s timing is perfect. Abraham waited pretty unfaithfully between when God made his promise to him and to when God fulfilled the promise. Even when we do not fulfill our promises to God, God will still fulfill His. As I wait for a job I get a lot of encouragement and strength when I meditate on this fact that God spent 25 years grooming an old Abraham to prepare him for the ministry that was in front of him. I think society puts an incredible pressure on us to be successful while we’re young that I lose sight of the fact that these days are precious in terms of the lessons and the things that God can teach me while I am in this phase of my life. And that no matter how unfaithful and how much I fail, that God uses failures. I think that I never realized or appreciated the mistakes that Abraham made while waiting, and the faithfulness and love that God shows to His chosen ones.

God waited until Abraham was 100 years old to start making his name great, and making him number as many as the stars in the sky. Why am I so freaking impatient right now that I can’t wait a couple months, maybe more for a job?! It’s just ridiculous how much this world’s thinking is soaked into my mind. I really want to focus and just enjoy this time of waiting on the Lord and trusting in his faithfulness. I see more of myself in Abraham due to my situation, but because of that I can also see more of God’s faithfulness to his people through my situation as well which makes this wait completely worth it.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

This is really late, and I know people have been asking me for an update so I’m finally getting it done. I actually had the chance to share to my entire youth group this past Friday and sharing about it just reminded me how much other people can get out of it as well. Sorry for being lazy/distracted and waiting so long to do this. Here’s a short clip that I made for my presentation.

Hmm. I have no idea where to even start about Kenya. I think that I learned so much from my trip and that when I got back and I didn’t have time to give a long explanation and people asked me how it was, I would say it changed my life. A lot. I’ve been recording it and it is currently the 26th day of post missions life. Crazy, I can’t believe its only been 26 days, less than a month since I came back from Africa full of convictions and ready to live a transformed life. I think my life has been more disciplined and faithful, but not even close to what I had imagined it being. I just wanted to share a couple things that I learned. This the testimony that I wrote for CFC, which pretty sums up by far the highlight, biggest conviction/blessing of my trip.

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Matthew 9:37

I never really thought too much about CFC’s mission statement in the past. However, God has revealed the reality of this verse to me in Kenya and its dire need for workers. Through doing house to house evangelism, VBS, open air evangelism, revival meetings and seeing pastor training schools, God really showed me how desperately Kenya is in need of workers. In Kenya, you can see such a deep desire and hunger for the gospel, yet they have no means of satisfying that hunger for more of God’s Word. They either cannot read, or do not have Bibles, or their church pastor did not have any seminary training. Although the pastors and leaders have a deep desire to bless their congregation and to learn and grow, they do not have an avenue to further their knowledge and growth in God’s Word. Moreover, there is a huge group of people who have never even heard of the gospel before – Kenya desperately needs kingdom workers.
In America there is every opportunity to learn more about the gospel, and feed myself spiritually through books, people, or churches. God really put a burden on my heart that I need to make the most of my opportunities here in America. I have every opportunity to pursue my hunger for God and seek to know Him more through prayer and studying the Word, but the question I ask myself is… do I truly hunger for God?

The conviction God gave me in Kenya was to make the most of my time and live as faithfully as possible. I will never forget sitting in the back and observing the last day of pastor training school. There is a group of about 30 pastors that has gone through an intensive 3 days of about 8-9 hours of teachings a day. They are lining up to thank Pastor KJ for the things that they have learned from him in the last couple of days. One man in particular moved me. He was someone who had asked difficult questions right before the training was over. Questions regarding the 7 years of tribulation mentioned in Revelations, Old Testament law, and other difficult topics. Questions that many of us may come across as we study the Bible- except for this man, he had all these questions and this was his only chance to get answers. He shared that he had been a pastor for over 20 years and he could not afford to go to pastor’s trainings in Nairobi, because he was too poor and could not afford to travel. He unashamedly begged and asked that we set up a Bible school in the Mt. Elgon region or that we stay there longer, or that we come back soon to teach them more. This man was desperate and hungry for the Word of God. I began to cry while this man was sharing, and I kept asking myself what I was doing with my life. This was just one of the pastors at the training session. The others shared about how they had never heard anything like this in over 10 years of pastoring at their churches, they had never studied the Bible in this way before and how they were so excited to use what they learned to bless their churches. Every single person is so hungry for the Word of God. They unashamedly asked for more from our team, from people they don’t know, complete strangers, because they are so desperate to see more of God. That is their heart’s desire, but the question I kept asking myself then was… what is my heart’s desire?

My heart was really telling me how I needed to be more faithful everyday. In Kenya there is so much work to be done. In our short month there, we were able to see hundreds of people accept Christ through the ministries that we participated in. We were also able to encourage and empower a different church or school every single day. There are so many people waiting to hear the gospel, waiting to be trained, or needing encouragement.

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Matthew 9:37

I just want to live as faithfully as I possibly can. America is a mission field, just like Kenya. There is work to be done and a plentiful harvest. It may not be as obvious. Ministry in America is not as efficient, and the hearts may not be as open and understanding,  but souls are at stake. Eternities for people in Kenya as well as America are at stake. God has really shown me how plentiful the harvest is, as well as how few workers there are. I leave my missions trip with this as my conviction and my heart.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” Isaiah 6:8
So that’s what I wrote, and I think it sums up a lot of what I’ve been thinking through. I think Kenya really taught me a sense of urgency as well as just a lesson in how to pray. Something that I realized as I was speaking to my youth group and was thinking about what a good takeaway would be and then it hit me. America is a much bigger mission field than Kenya. In Kenya we would go house to house and we would hit maybe 15 houses in a row that were all solid believers in an area, and as I was frustrated, because I really enjoyed sharing the gospel during house to house, I realized that there is no way America is like this at all. I actually was pretty sure that I don’t think I’m called for full-time missions, and while I was in Kenya I kept thinking about all the ministry that needs to be done here. I’m on missions trying to support the local churches in the area, and honestly I think I got a lot more out of the trip than the churches we helped. And I think because if I look at it from a money, ability, resource standpoint, then I am reaching out and supporting these churches. If I look at it from a faith and spiritual perspective, then these churches and people are the ones strengthening me. Kenyans are so open to the gospel, and there is such a purity to their faith, as they live their normal lives of farming and daily rituals, that they long for heaven and for the kingdom of God. I have so many things that distract me that I don’t know if I could live such a simple and faithful lifestyle.

Kenya taught me so many things. It taught me how to pray, it taught me about my calling, it taught me about living faithfully, and it taught me to not be discouraged. I think that ministry here it is very easy to tell ourselves that what we are doing isn’t really ministry. In Kenya we would have to fight and pray and suffer, because we had more ministry, another house to share with, another open air evangelism or VBS to do. We were sacrificing and being tired for the sake of the kingdom and it’s a pretty wonderful feeling. When we were all tired and beaten up after one of our longer days of ministry, someone shared that, “We have to suffer a little right now, so that they won’t have to suffer.” or something along those lines. It was a really powerful statement for me and I think that as I think about America and I think about “struggles” here it is very easy for me to think I am not actually working for the kingdom. Skipping naps, having integrity in my work, hanging out with people I don’t like, and other small things are what we have to suffer through in America to preach the gospel to people. In Kenya you’re constantly sharing the gospel, and constantly doing church work so it feels like you’re always doing ministry. Well life here is the same way. It looks different but has the same purpose. When we tithed money on the last day to Missionary Lee’s organization that we were working with he simply said, “We will use this money to save more souls.” And I think that simplistic vision is what I want to have as I do ministry here at home. We’re here to save souls, and our suffering, and our ministry is going to look different. Fruit is not going to come as quickly, but souls are at stake. America is my mission field and I’m here to do God’s work.