Well it is official, next Thursday at this time I will be on a plane heading towards Indianapolis to begin my Germany internship with Christian Missionary Fellowship. I will be serving with the CMF team for 10 weeks, 2 in the U.S. and 8 in Germany. I am excited to meet the other 3 interns, though none of them are from the West Coast. West Coast Represent! This is the first time that I have crossed an ocean and I have to admit that I am terrified but strangely excited. What do the German people eat? Will I like the culture? Will I accidentally call someone a whale (that happened to me in Mexico once, but that is a story for another day)? I think the question that continually comes to my mind is whether or not God will use me in spite of me.
With all of this talk about new experiences, I am going to use a Hobbit quote (like every other preacher within the last 2 years have done so). When Bilbo is at that point toward the beginning of the movie, deciding whether to go out and follow the dwarves or stay at his home in Hobbiton, he has to make a decision: Go on the adventure of a lifetime, one filled with joy, pain, sadness, treasure, and anything else imaginable. On the other hand he could stay at his home, safe, content, happy, but remarkably unfulfilled. Now I am not saying that while I am in Germany I will destroy a dragon and help a colony of lost dwarves settle into a new home (I am not saying that won't happen either). What I am saying though is, whatever your summer looks like, serving in a church, working two jobs, missionary work, stay-at-home mom, the question you have to ask yourself is, what adventures will I take this summer?
I said earlier that I am terrified of going on this trip, it is true. There are some days when it really hits me and I just sit there dumbfounded that I actually leave in a week. Then there are other days, when I let God speak to me (whether that is through friends or the Bible). This mission is not about me going to Germany and causing a nationwide revival. No, this internship is about going out to the missionary team already in place there and serving alongside them in whatever way I can. Yes, there will be victories and yes there will be defeats, but the question that I have to keep on asking myself is whether or not I will let God shape me through both. My prayer for this summer, and I ask you to pray this with me, is that God will shape me where I need to be shaped.
So as you face this summer, and as I face mine, keep going! Let God continue to shape you and be humble enough to let others pour into you. You do not have all the answers and neither do I but if we continue to allow God to move through us then amazing things will happen (including possibly defeating a dragon...maybe). I want to end this first post of many this summer with a verse that has encouraged and shaped me throughout my life, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God"
Run with endurance.
With all of this talk about new experiences, I am going to use a Hobbit quote (like every other preacher within the last 2 years have done so). When Bilbo is at that point toward the beginning of the movie, deciding whether to go out and follow the dwarves or stay at his home in Hobbiton, he has to make a decision: Go on the adventure of a lifetime, one filled with joy, pain, sadness, treasure, and anything else imaginable. On the other hand he could stay at his home, safe, content, happy, but remarkably unfulfilled. Now I am not saying that while I am in Germany I will destroy a dragon and help a colony of lost dwarves settle into a new home (I am not saying that won't happen either). What I am saying though is, whatever your summer looks like, serving in a church, working two jobs, missionary work, stay-at-home mom, the question you have to ask yourself is, what adventures will I take this summer?
I said earlier that I am terrified of going on this trip, it is true. There are some days when it really hits me and I just sit there dumbfounded that I actually leave in a week. Then there are other days, when I let God speak to me (whether that is through friends or the Bible). This mission is not about me going to Germany and causing a nationwide revival. No, this internship is about going out to the missionary team already in place there and serving alongside them in whatever way I can. Yes, there will be victories and yes there will be defeats, but the question that I have to keep on asking myself is whether or not I will let God shape me through both. My prayer for this summer, and I ask you to pray this with me, is that God will shape me where I need to be shaped.
So as you face this summer, and as I face mine, keep going! Let God continue to shape you and be humble enough to let others pour into you. You do not have all the answers and neither do I but if we continue to allow God to move through us then amazing things will happen (including possibly defeating a dragon...maybe). I want to end this first post of many this summer with a verse that has encouraged and shaped me throughout my life, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God"
Run with endurance.
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