We've spent several days house-hunting. It is quite the process, as you might imagine. Because Antigua is a tourist town, rent prices are crazy expensive...and because we are looking for a three bedroom furnished home, the price seems to go up even more. A super sweet new friend from the church is helping us and looking for us, which is nice. The other day, I was anxious, as the possibilities seem to be dwindling and I admittedly was in a moment of faltered faith. I poured out my heart to the Lord in the morning, before I even opened my Bible. In moments, I felt the Lord's sweet presence and peace fill me afresh and I asked the Lord to teach me through His word and opened my Bible and began to read. I have been reading through the One Year Bible for over a year now and each new day is a blessing. In a way that only the Lord can do through His word, each day the separate sections from the Old Testament, New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs seem to weave themselves together. Despite being about seemingly very different themes, the Lord uses them each to speak to me and meet me right where I am that day.
I read Acts 17 and was blown away by what I read about Paul being in Athens. He had been walking around the city, observing the people and customs and sights. He became deeply distressed as he discovered how full of idols the city was. This immediately made me think about the city I now call home, and how totalmente llena (completely full) of idols it is. So much of the Mayan culture remains and you'll find the religion's idols in restaurants, houses we look at renting, and even on t-shirts sold at the local stores, updated for the 21st century. This has caused an inexpressible burden in my heart for the lost in this city. What do you do with a burden like that?
Paul used the feelings of distress he felt at what he saw all around him to speak louder than before about Jesus to the Jews and the Gentiles. Some believed in Jesus, others mocked him. At a meeting of the top men of Athens, who were known for their idle speech and love of doing much of nothing, confronted Paul about the things he was teaching the people. Paul, in turn, confronts these men of Athens with their religiosity and false gods. He proclaims to them the truth about the One True God and begins to profess God's power, majesty, personal call to all mankind. In the midst of Paul's speech to the Athenians, there is one little line that was clearly the Lord's way of speaking to me in answer to my call to Him about our housing situation.
"...he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." Acts 17:26b
If our God is not personal, if our God does not hear our cry, if our God has not given us His word and His Holy Spirit to Comfort us at all times...then how could I have read that scripture just after having cried out to the Lord and given Him the weight of finding a home for our family?
I love the way we as children of God have the privilege of growing in Him. We do not become perfect at the moment of salvation, yet we are sanctified as we live life with Jesus day in and day out. I love that as I hunger and thirst more and more for Jesus, He nourishes me, meets the needs of my hungry soul and thirsty heart, and I grow...I become more and more of who He created me to be.
As I continued worshipping God and learning from Him, a man who will be helping with the upkeep of the property for the next several months, called over to me to tell me the volcano was erupting...
Yes, that's right...the volcano was erupting. That's one I'd ever heard before....hahaha
You see, Antigua is quite unique in that there are several volcanoes in the area. Three are visible from the PFM center. Two of the most prominent are called Agua (Water) and Fuego (Fire). Agua is dormant, which means it no longer erupts. Fuego, ironically, is active and often spouts out little lava balls and is seen with dark smoke clouds billowing out from the top.
I am so impressed by these two volcanoes sitting quite literally in our backyard. We walk out the side door of the center and there they are, standing strong and tall! I've been pondering their names this past week. I've been chided before for drawing too much spiritual connections from the world around me, and I always ask, 'How can I not grasp more from my Creator from His Creation?' These two volcanoes, Agua and Fuego, remind me daily of our need for the Living Water only Jesus can offer. As we adjust to life in Antigua, I must go to the well daily. I must draw water from the well, whether early morning, heat of the day, or evening...
I.need.Jesus.
And, He meets me. Every day. Every moment. He meets me and fills me and His Living Water flows out of me in ways that make me stop afterwards and ask, "Where did that come from?"
The sides of Agua are covered with lush vegetation, rich green bushes and trees, abundant life.
Fuego, on the other hand, is dark and charred and barren and just plain ugly. Fuego erupts and spills out the burning lava and fire and smoke and all life is seemingly gone. Yet, that cannot be, since inside life is happening. The insides of Fuego move and shift and cause pressure and eventually the pressure can no longer be held and an eruption happens.
In my life, there were so many years where my own personal internal fuego erupted day after day and left me charred, black, hot-tempered, and lifeless...It seemed that nothing could bring the abundant life I could over on Agua...in others who seemed to be living the same life as me. Yet, day after day, year after year, I found myself left blackened and barren, without joy; while I saw others go live joyful, abundant lives. I never could understand why...
And then, one day the Lord revealed to me the need for Fuego in my life. Living in Guanacaste, Costa Rice, I learned an important lesson about farming and preparing fields. In order to rid a field of last years crop, weeds, or just to prepare it for what is next, a farmer will burn the field. Quite literally, an entire field will be set on fire and allowed to burn in order to clean it and prepare it. The farmer watches the fire, allows it to burn in a slow and controlled way. The farmer never leaves the field. He watches as the fire moves across, catches up the dry,useless grass, and burns it away. And after the field has burned and the fire has died out, the field is left charred, blackened, and seemingly, lifeless.
Just like Fuego.
Just lie I felt for so many years.
But the Farmer never left me. Life never left me. I just needed to have what was useless in my life burned away in order to prepare me for what was next.
Fuego and Agua sit virtually right next to each other. Life-giving water next to life-destroying fire.
Or maybe not.
I can draw so many parallels from the relationship potter has with His clay here as well. As I understand more about the relationship between a potter and the clay, I learn more about my great God and me. He is the Potter and we are clay in His hands. Recently, while in Montana I learned about the process of taking a lump of clay, adding life-giving water to it, setting it on the wheel, molding it, shaping it, and then putting it in the fire. The fire must be excruciatingly hot, yet not too hot, or the pot could explode. The fire refines and gives life in a way water never could. Once the pot has been through the fire, and it comes out of the kiln, the potter looks satisfied at his creation and sees exactly what he had intended when he started out with just water and the clay. He had watched as the pot took shape. He had watched as the pot began to form and even looked wonderful and beautiful at different times. Yet, all along the potter had one specific piece in his mind. A unique piece only he could create, with his fingerprints all over it. All along, knowing in order to become exactly what he was hoping for, the pot would have to go through the fire in the kiln. The potter knew all long that the fire would get so hot the pot would almost bust...but because the potter knew every intricate part of the piece, he also knew that the piece could withstand the fire. The potter also knew that once through the fire, the piece would be simple remarkable.
I was able to understand this and actually see this process through the eyes of Pastor Mike, who founded Potter's Field Ministries, and himself is a potter. It is amazing how hot the fire in a kiln gets. What is even more amazing is what comes out of the kiln after being in that fire.
I am so thankful for the life-giving water Jesus gives me daily. I am also equally thankful for the fire in my life. At one point I thought all fire could do was destroy. Yet now I see things from a different perspective. I've been through fire and while it did leave me charred and burned and blackened for a time...like the fields of Guanacaste, I was only being prepared for what was next. I've been given life. I've been called to use that life to bring glory to the One who gave me life. I have the choice to allow life and it's burdens chain me down and hold me captive or I can give them to Jesus and stand firm in the freedom he has given me from those very burdens. Paul chose to walk in freedom and he also chose to live his life always speaking louder everywhere he went to bring glory to the name of Jesus. That is the upward call of Christ I choose to live for each day...
I've gone through certain things this first week in Antigua that I know without a doubt that had it not been for the fire God allowed in my life that changed me and prepared me and cleansed me and purified me...I would not have walked through them the way I did.
Joe, the handyman, called me over to see Fuego erupting and as I walked over to where he stood, I was amazed. I had never seen anything like the thick, black smoke billowing out from the top of Fuego's crater. It was so impressive.
Volcan Agua
"Praise be to the Lord my Rock who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold, my deliverer, my whiled, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me. O, LORD, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are a fleeting shadow. Part your heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains so they smoke. Send forth lightening and scatter the enemies; shoot your arrows and rout them. Reach down your hand from on high; deliver me and rescue me from the mighty waters, from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful.
I will sing a new song to you, O God...
Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughter will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace...Blessed are the people of whom this is true; blessed are the people whose God is the LORD." Pslam 144:1-15
Speaking Louder 'Til the Whole World Hears
1 comment:
WOW!I thank God for you and the words he puts in your mouth.
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