Never having arrived

Chelsea Chaisson
Feb 21, 2018
13 min read

Acts 17:28 “For in Him we live and move and have our being”. “What I think about God is the most important thing about me”-A.W. Tozer “From the Head to the Heart, you take me on a journey, of letting go…”United Pursuit Ever since September 2017, upon hearing a deep call from the Lord to “go” and enter into the mission field “permanently” (in quotes as I believe I was already a missionary in my hometown), the level of commitment to trusting my life over to God in the fashion of a missionary like those found in the book of Acts, has required a deeper sense of trusting and believing God. Believing that He can actually take care of me, and that I can actually go to the ends of the earth making disciples. After officially taking the huge leaps and bounds at the end of the year to launch out as a missionary student with YWAM into the beginning of 2018, I thought I had arrived at Eureka in my walk with the Lord. I thought I had arrived. I have been a Christian since I was a young girl, around 7 years old. I knew God was good and was big. The Lord Jesus became my Savior in that season. In high school I strayed the safety, love, and protection of my Heavenly Father’s arms, so I thought, for about 3 months. The Lord was speaking and loving on me throughout that season of fall out no matter what I was or wasn’t doing. The Lord became my defender in that season. After high school and into Bible College, I had a deep passion for the Lord. I was fierce and set in my pursuit for God and the Kingdom…however, I stopped reading my Bible in that season and hardly spent any quiet time, per say, with the Lord. Nonetheless, God spoke to me and through me and continued guiding me step by step. The Lord became my lover in that season. After Bible College I spent 4 years in my hometown, staying busy as a Librarian, then a Lifeguard, Housecleaner, Tutor, Aunt, Youth Pastor, and student (of Burn 24-7 Online and NSU for a year and a half). The Lord truly became my friend in that season. Recently, I crossed over once again not only in geography but in my relationship with the Lord. He has most recently become truly my Father. In this new season as a dayghter, I thought I had finally "arrived"! My thought process has been something like this: “Me and the Lord are one now and I can put my heart to rest. I can relax and enjoy…cruise control with Him and freedom.” In a sense these things are true. With having the Lord Jesus take His rightful place as my Heavenly Father, Abba, I have embraced being a child again. I have been able to have a restful heart knowing that my God shall supply all I have need of. I can relax and leave my present, past, and future in God’s capable hands. I can enjoy His company and provisions and share His love with others in overflow. I can put myself in cruise control, and let the Lord take the lead…as if I am sitting on a paddle board and the waves are leading me along. I can live in a new level of freedom knowing that He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. All this is true. Like a child who is headed to vacation with their parents, I can sense that my trust in the Lord has grown as I've learned to trust Him as Father. Just like a child on vacation, I know we will make pitstops, we will get souvenirs, we will have food, and the lodging is covered. However, I can’t help but hear that echo of my own doubts creep in subtly in this journey, “Are we there yet Lord?” I am wanting to have arrived already. I don’t want to die to self…again, humble myself… again, give everything away… again, sacrifice my time…again, preach the gospel…again, and so on. Yet, the Lord in His kindness would lead me along still waters and restore my soul…as a loving Father does, God speaks plainly and gently. Here is a snippet of our conversations: “Chelsea, don’t you have to shower daily? Or eat more than once a day, or pay taxes yearly, or cut your fingernails again? Don’t get so hung up with wanting to have arrived already. Enjoy me and leave it to me to truly refine you.” “Lord,” I ask, “what is the root of this?” “Pride.” “How is it hurting me?” “It is a block. You choose to withhold, to not to get to know others, because you think, I don’t want to meet people again, or say goodbye again. You choose not to learn because you think, I don’t want to have a test on this again. You choose not to be a student because you think, I don’t want to be a teacher again.”

“Lord, it is true. When I eat something yummy, in about an hour I think, when do we get to eat again? Or I love getting a haircut, and taking a shower, and I do love that these things are routines/ daily maintenance tasks that I get to do again and again. I am sorry for thinking in pride that I have already arrived and thus don’t need to grow anymore, or teach again, or love again, plan again, prep again, execute again, study again, read again, call again, pioneer again, plant again, trust again, hope again, or believe again…I have gotten quite comfortable in having arrived, but now it is time for takeoff, again.”

“Never having arrived” is a good thing. The Lord is not finished with us yet and is truly a master craftsman. He will form the clay, smash it down, mold it, and again tear down to build up. He is building me and unless the Lord build this house, I labor in vain. So I will choose to serve Him this day…again and renew our covenant right now in this Valentine’s Day month. In a way of “practicing what I preach”, the Lord orchestrated my steps this past week. This past Sunday, I went to church and I went again. I went to a contemporary service at 9 and a Korean Church at 1 with the Chinese New Year celebration to follow. I went to a “Hawaiian” (Island Breeze)Church and was caught by their quick shout out to the seasons. We are in the month of Adar (month in Hebrew calendar). Here is an excerpt from their church bulletin: Your true identity should be reflected this month, spiritually as well as physically. This a month to overturn worry through the release of supply. This month develop your war strategy. Don’t let the giants produce fear in you and guard yourself from idolatry. This is the time for decrees set against you to be broken. This is the month roots of depression and despair will break though into faith.

At the Korean church, the preacher read from Nehemiah about the building of the wall and the renewal of the Covenant with Israel and God. They had to build their walls up again and renew their covenant of old withouse God, again. I believe God wanted me to catch these services for a reason. In life our days and seasons are filled with upkeep: cutting toe nails, trimming shrubs, sweeping floors…we need to keep up with these tasks and do them again and again. Likewise, we are in a battle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly place-Ephesians 6:12 and we can’t just check out because we have crossed over. As children of God we do not get to just coast on by…God wants us to daily pick up our cross and follow Him. He want us to daily put on the full armor of God. He wants to be known by us as our Savior, Defender, Lover, Friend, and Father again and again, day in, day out. Last Wednesday I spent time with local Marshallese kids and I went again. The first outreach was at a recreation center where we give homework help, play sports, serve snacks, and teach Bible Verses to Marshall kiddos from 2:30-4:30. The second outreach was at 5 until, at a local school where we serve, meet, and eat with Marshall families. This past Wednesday, we were able to pass out Valentine’s Day presents. At the first outreach, I had to learn names. At the second outreach, some Marshall familiar faces resurfaced and I was then able to connect and truly build relationship with these kids. I am glad to have done outreach and to have done outreach again on the same day with some of the same kids. Relationship takes time. Discipleship takes routine. Friendship takes showing up. Leadership takes humility. On this thought, regarding our “daily walk” with the Lord, according to Deuteronomy 6:6-8, the Lord wants to infiltrate our lives in every season, in the daytime, night, winter, in the desert, in the promised land, in the season of crossing over, in the season on marching onward…

"These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead…” I believe today, with the start of a new“Chinese“ year and new "Adar"-Hebrew month, God has revealed Himself to me yet AGAIN…this time as my Healer and Teacher. I need to constantly be reminded of His love for me again and again. I need to constantly be provided for again and again. I need to hear from Him again and again.

I believe that the Lord is healing my heart from having been content. He is healing me from being settled in my walk with the Lord and my current destination physically and spiritually speaking. This journey is just beginning. Just because I forsoke all else to follow Jesus whole heartedly does not mean I should ever stop falling deeper and deeper in love with Him step by step, day by day…with each word that He speaks. I am learning from my Good Teacher, to position my heart to receive Him, again. In closing, this past Saturday I went to Mokuaikaua Church for Henry Opukaha’ai’s 200th Memorial Concert service. They started the service with the ringing of bells. First ring, then again, then 24 more times for a total of 26, one per each year of Henry’s life. Because of Henry’s life and then death (1818), two short years later, the church Mokuaikaua was formed 1820 (The first and oldest Christian Church of Hawaii). It was formed because Boston Missionaries on the Brigg Thaddeus were able to finally step foot on the shores of Hawaii here in Kona with Bible in (Box) hand. Missionaries had tried to come to Hawaii before to no avail. But that didn’t stop them from coming AGAIN. In 1820, the doors had finally been opened as the seeds had been planted. Without giving you a full run down of history, Henry, a Hawaiian, escaped Hawaii for Connecticut as a young boy. There He became a Christian and learned English, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. He then began translating the Bible from the original languages into the Hawaiian language, with hopes of returning to Hawaii to tell His people about the God He served and loved. Unfortunately, Henry died of sickness. Because of His death, others were inspired to go in His place to Hawaii to preach the good news that God loves the world so much that He gave Jesus Christ as a ransom for sinners to bridge the gap and connect God and man back into beautiful friendship and covenant relationship. These missionaries were blessed with open doors as they made it to the Hawaiian shores. This open door was in no way coincidence for the Hawaiians were actually expecting someone to come from the clouds (Brigg Thaddeus) carrying a black box (Bible in Box) with the news of the one true God(John 3:16-17) as was local prophecy under King Kamehameha rule.

With the successful arrival of these missionaries, the Hawaiians received the Gospel and became to most literate people group per capita in the world. They themselves became missionaries to other surrounding islands. The culture here is forever blessed to have had the Gospel strengthen and develop this paradise for the glory of God. (Side note: I have the privilege of living near the very same pier that the first missionaries to step foot on Hawaii landed.) I mention this story for two main reasons. The first being that if the missionaries wouldn’t have answered the cry and call of Henry’s heart to spread the Gospel to Hawaii based on unsuccessful missionary landing attempts on these islands years prior, Hawaii would not be the paradise that it is today.

On a similar note, I am soon to be going to Cambodia, and I can’t help but feel that the Lord is asking me to sojourn with Him yet AGAIN. I sold and gave everything that I owned back in Louisiana in order to come to hawaii, now in my portable. The Cambodians, like the Hawaiians of old, are caught up in idolatry, adultery, pain, suffering, murder, deceit, slander, and destruction. I know that God is paving the way and that the blood shed from the Khmer Rouge are crying out for God’s mercy and love to be seen in that land. I am not going to go there to change the culture, the practices, the religion, the families…no, I am going to be Jesus’ hands and feet however possible, AGAIN. I have done it before, in Elementary school when I befriended the new kid who had lice, in High school when I prayed alongside peers for a deaf girl and she was healed, in Bible College when I served the homeless at Help Portrait in Downtown Vancouver, giving them hot chocolate and listening to their stories, back in my hometown in Louisiana, when I brought teenagers to and fro to be able to hear their stories, no judgments, and offer words of wisdom, and prayer, ultimately-mentorship. Like I am now doing in Hawaii with the Marshallese, loving the children, feeding the hungry, befriending the lonely...I can do it again and I can do it in Cambodia. I am not so arrived that I never wish to evangelize again, or lead someone to the Lord again, or see the Lord heal deaf ears again, or listen to teenagers wrestle with the ways of the world vs the Kingdom of Heaven that so loudly and radically beckons them. NO, I don’t want to have arrived yet! The world is still waiting for Christians to take up the mantle that was passed from Jesus, to Paul, to Henry Opukah’ai, to Mother Teresa, to Heidi Baker, to me and of course to you. They need us to listen to them again. To go there again, to help again, to take up our cross again, to forgive again, to not arrive so as to bring them alongside. 2 Peter 3:9 , “ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Join me beloved friends and family, Say Yes to Jesus again, come follow Him onward, for the Kingdom of Heaven is here. Matthew 4:16-18, “ The people who sat in the dark saw a great light; light dawned on those who sat in the shadowy land of death. From that time on Jesus began to make his proclamation. ‘Repent!’ he would say. ‘The kingdom of heaven is arriving!’ As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon (also called Peter) and Andrew his brother. They were fishermen, and were casting nets into the sea… Cast your net into the sea again. John 21: 5-6,”So He called out to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” “No,” they answered. He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish.” In conclusion, Hebrews 3 about sums it all up and strikes my heart in this season with Jesus as my Teacher and Healer: Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, set your minds on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the One who appointed Him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Now Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be spoken later. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the time of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and for forty years saw My works. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts always go astray, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’” See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly to the end the assurance we had at first. As it has been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion.” For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed? So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter. May we never arrive so as to have hardened hearts, like clay that hasn’t been moved or molded into something daily…no, may we enter into God’s rest, restfully abiding in His safe and sure arms. He will lead us and guide us and will have us revisit the mountains and valleys, preaching the Gospel to the ends of the earth, again and again, until all have heard!

Learning songs in Khmer for Cambodia outreach.

Confidence arise…look I am here because of what I heard. I believed…anything could happen, and it did. I am living in Kona Hawaii drinking from a deep well and now will be Lord willing headed for Cambodia in a few shorts months for the rest of 2018.

This week I am speaking at a Foursquare International Church Native Americans convention on Luke 6:47-48. Snippets: LAND as identity vs landing our lives on God (He is our foundation, cornerstone, solid rock in the storm, building house on rock).

This past week we had “secret sisters” pray and encourage us! Thanks @Jen!

We practice intercession individually, corporately, daily, weekly, for Cambodia, for the lost and more!

Hawaiian Hymn sung at Memorial Service for Henry.

I am researching Cambodia’s political history for a group project due next Sunday.

Bibimbab KOREAN Food from Chinese New Year Celebration! Literal translation, mixed rice.

Before the mixing.

YWAM FOUNDER Loren Cunningham casting vision regarding shipping containers as a missionary tool, learn more at www.ywamships.net/donate

My second favorite part about living in Hawaii is the various trees, like palm trees, coconut trees, Banyan trees, among others. God is so creative. Ecclesiastes 3 "To everything there is a season, and a purpose under the heaven..."