Time has a way of deceiving us. It is so easily wasted, so quickly wished away, and so rarely treasured. Before leaving for India, I thought 2 months abroad would be a breeze, after all, I didn’t go home at all my first semester of college. And then I met India. Suddenly, 2 months seemed like a lifetime. One of my teammates says our first week in India she thought, I’m going to die here. Now we can look back on this and laugh, but this is only because of God’s faithfulness to our team!
In an earlier blog entitled Waking Up I talked about giving back to God His sole responsibility to take care of our sweet boys. Through dedicating the boys to God in my heart I have grown in my trust that He will do HIS WILL with their futures. Since that time, I have realized my need to grow in trust in God that He will take care of MY future too. I know now that I sometimes bring my same American feelings of entitlement to my relationship with God that I brought with me to India…
The Indian time frame is much more… flexible, than the American time frame. People come and go places when they please. Things that we are told will happen are to be understood as a might happen. Generally, I like to be places on time, not early, but on time, and I now realize I expect the same of other people. This has been an area of my India experience I have continually had to surrender, and ask for forgiveness and patience for. Similarly, I expect God to show me His plan for my future when I want to know it and not when He wants to reveal it to me. Surely, if He is truly a good God He would tell me where I will be in 5, 10, 50 years, right? No! More surrender! More trust! I am realizing now that God is not likely going to drop an itinerary for my life from Heaven, He wants me to listen and obey daily, and step by step my life will unfold.
“…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:7
Without the familiarity and ease of home, and all the comforts and people that home brings, I have become more reliant on prayer than ever. We pray for God to bring the power (fan) back on, for good sleep, we pray off anything Satan has attached to our spirits over the day, against bugs, and we literally bless our food (digestion is very important to us!). We declare things in the name of Jesus. We believe that God hears our prayers and we hear Him. I pray that I would remain as reliant on God when I go home as I am here in India. That I will recognize the weakness I feel here when I don’t spend time with God as the same need for Him.
I declare in the name of Jesus there will be NO backsliding from the life altering experience India has been for my teammates and I!
