all I have needed

I was as anxious to get to church today as I was to get away to the beach yesterday.  

I was as anxious to be with other believers as I was to be off the campus.  

And I was even more encouraged by their testimony today than I was by the solid mountains and the dazzling ocean yesterday. 

Because I don't struggle during good times...only bad.  And I don't give in to the temptation to worry during the day...only at night.

And this has been night, night all around.

But to walk in the sunshine with cars finally zooming past, to look down the road and see other believers stepping out, coming to join you, you coming to join them, for the only cause that matters...it was The Church even before we got to church. 

 

Better yet, to come together, all with such heavy and broken hearts for a country and a people we love, He loves.  Helpless.  To lift up our hands and hearts and cries and PRAY.  

To worship together with imperfect people like myself a mighty God on the throne...to pray together in one voice, two languages, a common and urgent and pleading prayer...to listen to His word, His truth and be encouraged by it.

I needed it. Worshipping together was nourishing for my soul and watered my mustard seed.

I've seen all the same videos and news reports you have. If you haven't, don't go find them.  

But this weekend, all the fear they instigate and the fears for the future grew strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.  In the strength of the voices rising--all the same--to Him around me. In the smile of the little girls in front of me and beside me, singing their hearts out and clapping their hands.  

At His feet, all that darkness and uncertainty and inability and frustration and fear just fades.

  

The Church isn't about the people being awesome or always acting like they're supposed to or getting it all right.  It's not about the perfect pastor or the right building or the best programs or a great sermon or even having the fuel to power a generator for a microphone.  

It's about coming together to fade the world in the brilliant reality of Jesus.  It's about coming to Him--He who IS right, He who IS Good, He who IS worthy--together, the very act of worshipping together driving away the doubts and fears and discouragements of very real realities.

The pastor this morning stood for just a moment, and very directly and carefully said this to his Haitian - American - Canadian - Northern Irish flock.  

Do not look at others to see what you should do. Do not do what you see your neighbors and countrymen doing. Do not worry about what might happen tomorrow. Do not be tempted to respond the way others are going to respond.  You Are Followers Of Christ.  You act, you pray, you speak, you respond like His children! Do not ever forgot that you are God's children.  NOW is the time to look like it!

Lord, thank you for God-fearing men speaking the truth like this across Haiti and the world today!

Right to the heart, he admonished me. 

I cannot worry as those who have no Solid Rock do. I cannot fear as those who have no lasting hope. I cannot worry about tomorrow or the next day or the what-ifs. I cannot respond to my children or my husband or my friends or family out of a stressful situation instead of out of His grace and lovingkindness. I cannot complain like one who hasn't embraced His salvation. I cannot judge like one who hasn't found His grace.  

Tomorrow morning, I will not have the opportunity to teach.  And that's hard. But I DO have the opportunity to remember that that's not actually why I'm here, or what I'm actually here to be doing.  I'm here to share with others what Christ has shared with me...and NO manifestations, NO riots, NO fuel crisis, NO political instability, NO inflation can keep me from doing that. 

Lately, that has meant that our evening family walks that used to be about relation-shipping with staff and students around campus are about praying over the empty buildings instead, relation-shipping with Him.  This week, that means that instead of eating lunch with our staff and students, we're having over for dinners families in our village. This week it means that time we usually spend doing will be spent more practically...praying.

Tomorrow morning, our students will not have the opportunity to come to classes, to eat in the cafeteria, to come together and study God's Word.  And that's hard.  But they DO have the opportunity to do what we have all been equipping them to do...to live and give the Gospel, in their communities, in dark places and times of great need.  

That has meant that today I saw our fellow believers, all far more affected by all of this than I am, taking this all as an opportunity to worship.

Oh, I am praying, pray with me.  I am praying for the many who are suffering. I am praying for men and women to come to know Him mightily through this crisis.  I am praying for Haitian Christians to be stretched and deepened in this season.  I am praying for this to bring Haiti into a new reliability and richness in Christ.   

And while I am praying, I am praising the Lord....like the church in Haiti reminded me, today.

"Christ Can"