Mind games in the Middle Part I

Part I: the Alpha and the Omega

“When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Above: Malaysian Beach in Penang June 29, 2019

Do you know or remember what it was like being a sophomore in high-school or college? It is kind of slow and steady. You have things figured out, your schedule, you know your way around, but you can’t help but dream of the things to come.

I wish I could say that throughout my life, I have always embraced sophomore year with expectation and high hopes but to be honest, I don’t believe I ever have. Sophomore year for me in high-school was the height and peak of my being a Pharisee-type of Christian. With nothing better to do, I judged and was very critical of others. Maybe I did this in order to not fully take a deep look inside of myself and realize that I had a lot to work on in the sophomore season.

I am in the in-between of promises. I have not quite arrived at their full-term expression being displayed so I am being challenged to endure, to stick around to see it through.

Sophomore year is a time to set goals and get your footing right in order to propel you into the destiny you desire, or it can become just another “limbo” year if we are not careful.

The second time I went to college, I quit during my second year. Within weeks of settling into my degree track, I became restless, bored, and changed my major a few times, dropped some classes, until eventually, during that third semester, I quit entirely. So you see, I am confessing to commitment issues especially evident in the sophomore year seasons of my life. If I am a garden, the growth has slowed in order to take a nice look around and see what we are working with. We have some weeds. With that being said, I am confessing to needing praying people in my life that challenge me to finish what was started and to do so well, like actually, with more faith, hope, joy, and love than when I first began.

I used to run cross-country to remain in shape. I actually joined in order to bond with friends and keep my legs strong for soccer season. I loved having a uniform, being able to travel, and the feeling after finishing the 3 mile. I had so much adrenaline at the start line. Once the gun had gone off, that moment of running near so many at the beginning, gave me the courage I needed to decide to run in the first place and to finish. Once I was in the race at especially mile 1 and a half and all of the racers were running at various speeds, whereas you stop seeing them in the gap, the biggest struggle are the mind games in the middle.

In cross country, I never really got too close to my fellow team mates. I did not realize it was a team sport, as it felt so lonely running your own race fueled by your sure will power and grit. It was all up to you, your pace, for your motives. I never thought about the goals of the team as a whole, nor thought to champion others on the race as I was too focused on myself.

That is what made it the hardest. That is where the mind games have always gotten the best of me, when I use those second years to think all about myself. I always ended prematurely, copping out to finishing because of losing heart, motive, perspective, fire, and hope. So my challenge in this season is to listen to my self-talk in order to stop listening to myself. In this season I am pushing to remember the initial “word of the Lord”, given namely a year and a half ago, and to run through, follow through, go the distance, go all the way. Death will only loose its sting when we actually die to ourselves and live focused on God and His kingdom, not our own.

What life am I building if I only build it to please myself and win my own race. This is a team sport, the life of faith. God is not calling this sophomore year of mine, or yours, if you are in a similar season, to focus on yourself and run “your” race. It is not “your race”. It is God’s obstacle course of life to see what we are made of, namely if our faith or our love have any real substance at all or if we are just “saving face”, saying things to say it, and simply putting up with “it”.

This is a life only lived to the fullest when “We” step aside from being the center of attention or the place the world revolves. I am in a fight to truly prove that Jesus is the Lord of my life, the actual one my life, attitude, finances, friendships, devotion relies on and revolves around.

Cambodia is teaching me a lot about being slow and steady and embracing life with hope. Maybe it is because it’s a warm climate, but for example, the other day I waited around 25 minutes for a fruit smoothie. It was hilariously hard not to become impatient, but the warm Cambodian weather and the smiling and friendly faces of Cambodian customers similarly waiting near me, helped me stay seated, likewise smiling. The seller asked me to “jam mewey plet” which means basically “please wait” or “wait a moment”. The word for “wait” in Khmer is the same for the word “remember”, “jam”.

That is where I am, in a season of “jam”, waiting and remembering. Part of me wishes I was in some whirlwind new season, yet instead I am living a life I have already lived just this time going a little deeper. I do find it hard to remember the promises God spoke to and through me in 2017 or in my life at any time in general. I need His help to even do that-“jam”.

Remembering and comparing are two different things. I am still in process over both state of minds: Last year, living in Cambodia was wild and exciting, marked with prophetic moments being fulfilled in full swing. This year, because I have already stepped into this story, it is hard for me to remain steady, eager, and expectant from time to time. I like to sprint, not pace myself and run a marathon. I love a good story or a book, but I am a read-the-first-chapter-and-last to decide if I will commit to read the full book. I want the full picture from the best parts before I decide to spend my mind’s energy on absorbing and embracing the depth of the content. It is because I am so willing to allow it to impact my way of being and thinking, but I am just fearful.

Why?

Because of hope deferred and this makes the heart grow sick, Proverbs 13:12.

Hope is trust, confidence, and a belief in the best being yet to come-just on the horizon.

Deference is normally about the present having to become “past tense”, meaning a postponing of sorts, giving you the sense of having missed it (past) and having to wait (present) until a more opportune time (future).

For a kid wanting the brownie NOW, it is like saying to them, “it’s not ready yet”. Like any good parent, God wants to know from our hearts if we trust Him. What we do or don’t do in the waiting and who we become or don’t become in the waiting, are heart revealers. How will our good doctor God know if we’re sick or not?

God He allows hope deference, I believe, welcomes it even, in all of our lives, and so should we. I like to watch a movie only once. It is a labor of love to spend time with a friend and watch a movie again. These who have never watched the film make it worthwhile. In a way, I guess the Lord is really teaching me here patience within the promise because He’s choosing to walk with me through it, like He did already with Jesus. He is willing to do it again even if and when it gets messy and I question His will above my own.

God is a master at the games I play, yet He is not moved by me.

God reveals a piece of the script He is writing, within commands, but stirs up hunger with promises. I am writing this blog to hold me accountable to what He spoke. Last year, the Lord said these few words, “give YWAM 5 years”. That was fun and easy back then to embrace, yet, during this sophomore year, I am fighting against the sophomore slump that becomes eager to finish what I started, like finish it today already! I can’t help but compare at where everyone else is in life-married, degree, house, family, church leadership, steady career, new baby. Comparison will kill our dreams because though it’s the same director, God does have different stories to tell, through each and everyone of us.

Instead of trying to gauge where I am in life, if it is good or bad, I need to remember that God is creating my garden. He is even putting limits on my life so that I must allow hope to grow. He lets me taste the fruit of deference so I can tell the difference. He is loving and I am not a robot, but He is giving me a choice in this sophomore year. Will I continue to say yes to be a missionary, namely, a disciple maker, of all nations, while at the same time saying no to everything else that competes with that job description? He wants me to trust Him. He wants me to seek Him for wisdom and life. He is willing to tell us what is good or bad, but only when that leads to relationship and not just rule keeping.

Sometimes, I cannot wait, I want it now, to find out the plot before I even step into the story, but God isn’t in to faulty starts.

God isn’t into wasting time yet He will work things out, His plans, through whomever, however long it takes, because our God is a patient and steadfast God.

Gotta love a God who is faithful, but faithfulness is measured by time, and are we okay to wait, to trust what He said (emphasis added for the fact that it is a verb in the past tense)?

Time is tricky and sometimes we allow time to take us rather use our time as worship unto God. 1 Kings 19:13 13 Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts…”

That is where I am, in conversation with God. God spoke to me during my week I had dengue fever as I cried out to Him asking what did He want from me? I told Him how desperate I was/am to hear Him and to live in the shadow of His presence…He asked me “what am I doing?” Namely, how am I living this sophomore year? Have I forgotten the promises and faithfulness of God so easily that I choose to live in lack, fear, worry, numbness versus in love which is first present, patient, and kind? I told him all I have done in His name since 2017 and He simply asked me to return to the original commitment I made to allowing God to immerse me in John 17 community so that I could call a people not my own, my tribe, for the glory of God (and they will know we are Christians by our love).

For the five year period of being a missionary within YWAM, I know God will not only work through me, but first in me in order to truly and deeply impact others. I can only take people on a faith journey with God so far as I have gone myself.

“While most trees grow steadily over a period of years, the Chinese bamboo tree doesn't break through the ground for the first four years. Then, in the fifth year, an amazing thing happens – the tree begins to grow at an astonishing rate.”

God is wanting my time, my voice, my age, my wisdom, my flaws and lack of wisdom, my boldness, my insecurities, my hands, my feet, my face, here where I am in desperate need of Him most, where He is my all in all. From the head to the heart, He truly is taking me on a journey, to get out of my head and get my head in the game. He is the coach, I am the student.

This life of following Jesus is about being in for the long haul and learning how to love God through how we love people as we love ourselves over the course of time, slow and steady.

Luke 9:62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

The Lord is saying to me and I believe you my friend that once we invest, we might as well stick around to see where it will lead. It doesn’t pay to stop now. We have started already and gone too far to finish prematurely. We might as well go full term and commit to seeing God finish writing His story. I need to get over myself and stop trying to rush the process and stop being numb.

In Jesus’ name, I refuse to waste this specific time in my life to just try to get it over already.

I am not in the sequel, but rather the second chapter. This is one I don’t want to miss. Normally, I would pass it up but it is just as important if not more important than the first and the last chapters. I enjoy the book of Genesis, because it is full of stories about the beginnings of a people, a family. I equally enjoy the book of Revelation because it is the glimpse of God’s people actually be-coming God’s family, but it is also a call to persevere. God is asking me to do both, remain in the flow of becoming one with a people unto love (Ruth 1:16), while also persevering.

Above: me as a baby, looking life in the face, fearless and full of joy.