starting over

I'm sitting in the hospital hallway listening to some Tifah on my laptop...and thinking about what is going to happen next. So what is God going to do with everything now? Where is He going to lead me...or even better, how is He going to rework everything that I know?

The past few days here have been much better than the first. I actually started to lose some of the bitterness of being here and being in this situation. I started to release some of the resentment and guilt of my inadequacies. It has taken me the whole time here to finally realize why the Lord brought me to this point:

He is starting things over with me.

Or at least that's what I'm hearing from Him. Now, I have to admit I have no clue what that means. Will I finally be disciplined to read the Word every day? Or pray constantly? Maybe not. Maybe it's something deeper. He's bringing me to the point of recognizing exactly why I'm in Slovakia this year...no, why I even follow Him to begin with.

Why do I follow Jesus, anyways? It sure isn't safe. I don't know the plans of my life. My sinful self gets mad when things go bad because I think God is not good. My life is still hard; why is that? I didn't sign up for this. But I think I'm starting to see a light to all my answers.

That same light that I'm looking toward is the same one that gave me life in the first place, and is the same one that is sending me out even now. Now I don't want to get too deep or spiritual on you. In simple terms, I'm learning how to deal with the mess. That's all it really is: finding life in the middle of the mess. Yeah, sure, it's easy to live life when things are good. But life is still messy in the middle of all that. We still deal with our sinful self and are tempted to withold glory from the Lord.

So back to the whole starting over thing. Coming into this year my mind was totally set on what my relationship with Jesus should look like in order for me to be happy this year...and be effective in ministry. But I think that stems from a wrong belief that I have to be something in order for God to use me.

Before you go off thinking that I'm going to talk about how His power is made perfect in weakness, and then lose you, I want to say something. There's something about all this that goes so much deeper. It's my life; it's who I am. It hits you harder when it's your life. Now, don't get me wrong. All the forementioned is good and true. And yes, this is a simple thought, but one that I honestly haven't wrestled with much. So I'm having to learn how to wrestle with it. And in this time, literally.

So maybe all I'm saying is that I'm finally at the point where I can be comfortable with this. It's sad that God had to use extreme measures to get me here, but that's how He deals with things. I don't understand it, but that's kinda beautiful.

Honestly, all this is still jumbled up in my head and not making much sense. But I have to start somewhere with this whole process. It will truly be a miracle if I grasp onto anything that God is teaching me. Please pray that it does.



caught in the middle,
Matt