Walking Dirt Roads with Low Visibility
The other day I was walking in our neighborhood with a friend. As we headed up to my house, you could see the tree-covered mountains towering in front of us, and though the sky was somewhat gray, the sun also gleamed down at moments. Our path was illuminated, and the destination was clear. My eye’s reach wasn’t limited and could drink in the faraway views. But, by the time we descended the hill from my house again, all of that had changed. The grayness of the clouds had shifted to a fine mist nestling into our neighborhood, preparing for a later downpour. And, those same mountains that stood so firmly before us as protectors of the valley below were no where to be found. Our path was still illuminated by the light of day even if the sun wasn’t accompanying us much anymore, but the possibilities of far-off destinations were concealed by the low visibility. And, as I looked out on that lingering grayness and felt the cool mist across my face, I couldn’t help but feel that nature was reflecting the state of my soul.
The past couple of years, paths have been illuminated before me, but sometimes, those paths have either felt like dead-ends, or they really have been dead-ends in terms of destination. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t reap some benefit by walking them, but when your heart is set on arriving, it’s hard to take note of the maturity and wisdom you’re collecting along the way.
Recently, I sat down and reflected a bit on this season of more ongoing questions than answers. I let myself feel the tension and whispered almost half-heartedly, “Please, Jesus, just speak to me,” trying to convince myself to be content with presence over answers. I realized in this time that part of my disorientation is that there has been a sort of shift in my life and relationship with God. I don’t think it’s a negative change, but is one that has caused some of a sense of loss and a sense of hope at the same time. Throughout most of my life, being an introvert especially, and being an INFJ (for you Myers-Briggs nerds like me), my relationship with God has existed in a very rich, private space in my being. More often than not, when with other people, in Christian communities or church, I have felt limited, like I didn’t know how to communicate myself in a way that would convey the depth of meaning I feel. I have felt other, odd, and at times a nuisance. I have felt the frustrated longing that if I could just find the way to paint a clear picture of what God is showing me or who I know I am in Him that I could finally feel understood by another human. But, that way has proven to be elusive within the communities of people I’ve been in (other than my family who has always understood me better than anyone). The loneliness that resulted from feeling so misunderstood has always driven me deeper into the heart of the Father. I’ve resided in that secret place sharing hopeful dreams and feeling the shield that they might not get me, but He does. About a year and half or so ago, that loneliness came to such a demanding breaking point that even in the secret place I didn’t feel fully content. I was so tired of being rejected and wanted to understand why God and I could be such good friends but I couldn’t seem to find my place among His people. And, my desperation in this season to get out of that dark place let me to actively seek out some new communities and some safe people.
Now, my life feels upside down because I don’t feel lonely and because I have encountered some people who seem to get me, people who echo some of my same experiences, who walk the same weary road of disappointments, and who may not have answers but readily provide the company of “oh yeah, I’ve been there and I have felt that.” People who lead me with their own fight for maintaining hope. People who let me have something to offer and let me mutually receive. The lack of loneliness in my life is such a drastic shift for me. When Raúl and I first got married, the poor guy had such a hard time knowing what to do with me because I was so lonely and therefore so needy. And, I feel grateful. But at the same time, this is foreign territory for me to traverse. I was so used to connecting with God inside of our inner world. I could serve with others and participate in ministry, but the majority of my safety, clarity, and hope came directly from that trust we developed, those visions we shared, that private space. But I got to a place where the pain of human rejection was so great, and the questions that mounted from feeling shut out by God’s people were so towering that I couldn’t reconcile that safe space with my outward experiences. Something about it started to feel unsteady.
Thus, I feel like this season is a time of God showing me that I can find an external place to belong, that I won’t always have to retreat into hiding, and that He can speak to me using other safe people. It’s special to finally have that opportunity when I had really lost all hope in people. But, at the same time, it’s a bit like when you’re used to someone living in your house with you every day, but suddenly, they live somewhere else and just give you a phone call every so often. There is still communication, but it’s not quite the same. My paradigm for relationship and communication with God was always from the inside looking outward. Now, it seems to be from the outside looking into me. It’s new, and because it challenges my paradigm, it has created some sense of a fog. It’s off of the well-worn path and into a forest of new things to discover. It’s good, but it’s not familiar, and therefore, not comfortable. And, because I’m not used to it, sometimes, I feel like I must be doing something wrong. In reality, I think God is taking the time to restore my trust again.
I read a lot of counseling books just because it’s a subject I’m infinitely interested in, and something I’ve learned is that people who have been hurt by other people, abused by family, or lost all hope because of the pain they have experienced through betrayals or manipulation or whatever other darkness, can’t start healing until they have other safe people to support them. Yet, how do you convince someone that safe people can exist when their experiences tell them otherwise? It all seems like an oxymoron. But, it’s something that resonated with me while reading Emily P. Freeman’s book, Simply Tuesday.
In talking about a lack of clarity and wrestling with doubt, she says:
“Going to Jesus when you doubt Jesus seems kind of like using a word in its own definition. Why would you ask someone you doubt to confirm the thing you doubt?”
But she goes on to show how John the Baptist is an excellent example of this. John walked out his God-given ministry. He was obedient and true to who God called him to be. But, when Jesus came, He challenged everyone’s preconceived notions of how a Savior should be. When Jesus came, life as John knew it started shifting and in some disappointing ways. A lot of his followers left him to follow Jesus, which I’m sure John knew with his mind was good and what was suppose to happen, but as a human, it probably felt painful and lonely. And, John was thrown into prison. Circumstances were not contributing to a sense of spiritual accomplishment by any means. Emily P. Freeman goes on to say:
“Though he [John the Baptist] knew the truth in his mind, his heart was downcast. His was a relational question, not a theological one.”
I feel that statement so deeply. Now that I have safe people around me, I am still grappling with prior hurts and still questioning how present circumstances and difficulties can reflect who God is. That seems silly to me because I’m out of the threat now, that season has ended. But, there are still aspects of those experiences that haven’t been resolved. I know that God makes all things possible. I know with my mind and theology that God is good and a God of victory. But, He doesn’t always relationally feel good or like a God championing victories on my behalf. But, I feel hope when I read what followed in Emily P. Freeman’s book.
She talks about how John sends some of his followers to ask Jesus if He is the one they’ve been waiting for or not. Logically, this seems silly because if you’re doubting, you wouldn’t typically go to the person you doubt in order to receive some kind of a confirmation. But, that’s what he does because it’s not his mind that needs reassurance, it’s his weary heart. He needs to feel seen by the One for whom he prepared the way. He needs to know it wasn’t in vain.
Emily P. Freeman has this to say about how Jesus responds:
“Here is a man who is questioning, not just his entire life’s purpose, but God himself; a man who seems disappointed in the way things are turning out. . . . First, he [Jesus] points outward, telling John’s friends to listen, look, and then tell John what they observe—blind people see, lame people walk, deaf people hear, sick people are made well. John would recognize these outcomes as ones prophesied by Isaiah (Isa. 35; 61). In other words, evidence of me is everywhere. But then, just as John’s friends are walking away to deliver the answer, Jesus turns to the crowd and begins to talk about John. ‘Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist’ (Matt. 11:11). Jesus praises John in the midst of what was perhaps the darkest, most discouraging time of John’s life. . . . In other words, my [Jesus’] works are evident in the world, but my life is evident within you [John]. . . . He does this for John’s benefit, I know. He loves John, wants him to know he is not forgotten, even in his smallness. And he’s reminding John that his is a life of faith and trust, not experience and sight.”
Years ago, before moving to Honduras, I was obsessed with the song, “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin” by Colin Hay. The lyrics go like this:
Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I’ll keep checking the horizon
I’ll stand on the bow, feel the waves come crashing
Come crashing down, down, down on me
And you say, be still my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in
But don’t you understand
I already have a plan
I’m waiting for my real life to begin
When I awoke today, suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams, I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path, up this cobbled lane
I’m walking in my old footsteps, once again
And you say, just be here now
Forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin
Just let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I’m waiting for my real life to begin
Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I’ll keep checking the horizon
And I’ll check my machine, there’s sure to be that call
It’s gonna happen soon, soon, oh so very soon
It’s just that times are lean
And you say, be still my love
Open up your heart, let the light shine in
Don’t you understand
I already have a plan
I’m waiting for my real life to begin
On a clear day, I can see, see for a long way
On a clear day, I can see, see for a long way
I’m tearing up just writing the lyrics because listening to this song on repeat when I was waiting to move to Honduras and holding so many dreams in my heart and so much promise in my soul, it just felt like an ongoing conversation between God and me. Hope was a constant friend I clung to. And my expectations in the waiting were always for something good. Now, like John the Baptist, I know that I can still be that person, but there are still relational questions to resolve. But, with the safe people around me, hope is rising anew that the previous losses don’t have to continue to conceal the visibility of the new purposes before me.
We live in a community off of a main highway, a community with a small maze of dirt roads. In the rainy season, those roads are full of potholes and treacherous drop-offs. Recently, the local government starting fulfilling a petition to pave our neighborhood roads. For nearly a month, the only road to our house has been blocked off by workers laying cement tracks and placing large rocks and covering them with concrete. Going anywhere requires a walk to our car parked beyond the road work, and bringing home groceries is a workout. We look forward to a smoother ride and not having to dodge every hole that ends up being deeper than you’d think. Our shock absorbers will likely breath a sigh of relief. The old dirt roads carried us forward to our destinations, but they often left us banged up, full of mud, and fighting for enough space amidst water tank trucks, scrambling little kids, and stray dogs. And, that’s how I feel about some of my past experiences, past communities, and past ministerial situations. You become accustomed to dodging potholes like you become accustomed to defensively anticipating betrayals. You become accustomed to changing your shock absorbers often just as you become accustomed to the inconsistency of the communities you find yourself in. You become accustomed to getting mucked up with painful experiences like the mud that coats our tires and undercarriage. You become accustomed to fighting to find your place and where you fit. You still move forward. It doesn’t mean you’ve left the path to God’s purposes for you. But the way is not smooth.
I’m currently reading Destined to Win by Kris Vallotton, and a recent chapter shed light on the fact that many of my questions and dead-ends have actually been because of not finding the right people. I will be the first to tell you that in my experience, what is most lacking on the mission field isn’t necessarily money or resources but people—reliable, dedicated, trustworthy people. I have tried to fit myself into round holes when I’m clearly a square peg so many times because there was no one else, and I hadn’t found anywhere else to go. And, as a result, when I’m disappointed, or I can’t seem to move forward because I’ve been let down by the people around me, I start to question if I’m in God’s will or if I missed His vision. Kris Vallotton puts it like this:
“It seems as if most of us are asking what we are called to do when we should first be asking who we are supposed to be with. It’s only when we find our people that we can fulfill our purposes. The truth is, our purposes lie in our people! . . . I simply can’t find my God-given destiny without finding my God-given place in the body.”
Now, the big question then, of course, is how to find your people and where you belong. I’ll admit that I don’t have a clear-cut answer for that. But, what I can say is that I have faithfully kept trying, and in this season of feeling like I’ve finally found some safe people, the smoothness of the ride is overwhelming. You truly don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve found it. With that said, I don’t know that I’ve found “my people” yet, as trust and relationships are still being built, but I’m encouraged by considering this:
Heidi Baker, missionary to Mozambique and founder of Iris Global Ministries, which has bases all over the world, thousands of churches in Mozambique and other places in Africa, was serving in Mozambique alongside her husband, Rolland in the 1990s. They had been given an orphanage and were responsible for so many hungry, demonized, and needy kids. They were up against non-stop obstacles from the Mozambican government. Their ministry was limited, and they were in desperate need of help. They were making some progress as they had a few established churches they had planted. But it was a lot of work and slow going on their own. Around this same time, they met Surprise Sithole, a Mozambican man who had had a radical conversion experience directly from God. Born in a family of witch doctors, God personally told Surprise to leave his house. He obeyed, was adopted by a Christian man, and later found out that his whole family had been killed by rival witch doctors. God was working in and through Surprise in miraculous ways, and he was so anointed within his own country. Once Heidi and Rolland met and started working with Surprise, their ministry took off in some radical ways. There were other spiritual encounters with God that contributed to the greater anointing and greater fruit they started experiencing. It wasn’t just because of Surprise. But, a large piece of that puzzle was finding their people. To put that into perspective, they had been missionaries in Asia and England for many years before, and perhaps, they had found some of their people in those places too. But, the radical, only-God-can-do-that kind of fruit and miracles they have experienced didn’t fully manifest until Mozambique and not really until God connected them with like-minded people.
Moses felt the zeal to liberate Israel while he still lived at Pharaoh’s house. He caught the vision for his people to be free in that time. But, his efforts without maturity and without his people resulted in his murdering someone and having to be on the run in the desert for 40 years. During those 40 years, he learned to hear God’s voice. He learned to keep close company with God. He learned how to live in family with Jethro and Zipporah. And, when it was time for Moses to return to Egypt, God sent Aaron to meet Moses in the desert. Moses passed through the desert to develop maturity and found his right-hand man before he took on his life’s calling.
The road of potholes and low visibility isn’t the one I’d choose because who doesn’t crave comfort and smooth sailing? But, it’s a road that has been traveled by so many others before me. And the fact that it’s marked by mess and pain doesn’t mean that I’ve left God’s will or that I’m not moving forward. How sweet it will be when it all falls into place for His purposes. Until then, just as Jesus learned obedience through suffering, I am learning faithfulness in the midst of lack and questions. I am learning to value presence over answers and daily relationship over ongoing clarity. And on the road, while I may not find “my people” when I want to, I want to be able to say that the people who have encountered me or walked by me for a season, can take away a piece of who God is just by being around me. And, I pray that my heart would be malleable enough that the iron even of those who aren’t “my people” can sharpen my iron.
The past couple of years, paths have been illuminated before me, but sometimes, those paths have either felt like dead-ends, or they really have been dead-ends in terms of destination. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t reap some benefit by walking them, but when your heart is set on arriving, it’s hard to take note of the maturity and wisdom you’re collecting along the way.
Recently, I sat down and reflected a bit on this season of more ongoing questions than answers. I let myself feel the tension and whispered almost half-heartedly, “Please, Jesus, just speak to me,” trying to convince myself to be content with presence over answers. I realized in this time that part of my disorientation is that there has been a sort of shift in my life and relationship with God. I don’t think it’s a negative change, but is one that has caused some of a sense of loss and a sense of hope at the same time. Throughout most of my life, being an introvert especially, and being an INFJ (for you Myers-Briggs nerds like me), my relationship with God has existed in a very rich, private space in my being. More often than not, when with other people, in Christian communities or church, I have felt limited, like I didn’t know how to communicate myself in a way that would convey the depth of meaning I feel. I have felt other, odd, and at times a nuisance. I have felt the frustrated longing that if I could just find the way to paint a clear picture of what God is showing me or who I know I am in Him that I could finally feel understood by another human. But, that way has proven to be elusive within the communities of people I’ve been in (other than my family who has always understood me better than anyone). The loneliness that resulted from feeling so misunderstood has always driven me deeper into the heart of the Father. I’ve resided in that secret place sharing hopeful dreams and feeling the shield that they might not get me, but He does. About a year and half or so ago, that loneliness came to such a demanding breaking point that even in the secret place I didn’t feel fully content. I was so tired of being rejected and wanted to understand why God and I could be such good friends but I couldn’t seem to find my place among His people. And, my desperation in this season to get out of that dark place let me to actively seek out some new communities and some safe people.
Now, my life feels upside down because I don’t feel lonely and because I have encountered some people who seem to get me, people who echo some of my same experiences, who walk the same weary road of disappointments, and who may not have answers but readily provide the company of “oh yeah, I’ve been there and I have felt that.” People who lead me with their own fight for maintaining hope. People who let me have something to offer and let me mutually receive. The lack of loneliness in my life is such a drastic shift for me. When Raúl and I first got married, the poor guy had such a hard time knowing what to do with me because I was so lonely and therefore so needy. And, I feel grateful. But at the same time, this is foreign territory for me to traverse. I was so used to connecting with God inside of our inner world. I could serve with others and participate in ministry, but the majority of my safety, clarity, and hope came directly from that trust we developed, those visions we shared, that private space. But I got to a place where the pain of human rejection was so great, and the questions that mounted from feeling shut out by God’s people were so towering that I couldn’t reconcile that safe space with my outward experiences. Something about it started to feel unsteady.
Thus, I feel like this season is a time of God showing me that I can find an external place to belong, that I won’t always have to retreat into hiding, and that He can speak to me using other safe people. It’s special to finally have that opportunity when I had really lost all hope in people. But, at the same time, it’s a bit like when you’re used to someone living in your house with you every day, but suddenly, they live somewhere else and just give you a phone call every so often. There is still communication, but it’s not quite the same. My paradigm for relationship and communication with God was always from the inside looking outward. Now, it seems to be from the outside looking into me. It’s new, and because it challenges my paradigm, it has created some sense of a fog. It’s off of the well-worn path and into a forest of new things to discover. It’s good, but it’s not familiar, and therefore, not comfortable. And, because I’m not used to it, sometimes, I feel like I must be doing something wrong. In reality, I think God is taking the time to restore my trust again.
I read a lot of counseling books just because it’s a subject I’m infinitely interested in, and something I’ve learned is that people who have been hurt by other people, abused by family, or lost all hope because of the pain they have experienced through betrayals or manipulation or whatever other darkness, can’t start healing until they have other safe people to support them. Yet, how do you convince someone that safe people can exist when their experiences tell them otherwise? It all seems like an oxymoron. But, it’s something that resonated with me while reading Emily P. Freeman’s book, Simply Tuesday.
In talking about a lack of clarity and wrestling with doubt, she says:
“Going to Jesus when you doubt Jesus seems kind of like using a word in its own definition. Why would you ask someone you doubt to confirm the thing you doubt?”
But she goes on to show how John the Baptist is an excellent example of this. John walked out his God-given ministry. He was obedient and true to who God called him to be. But, when Jesus came, He challenged everyone’s preconceived notions of how a Savior should be. When Jesus came, life as John knew it started shifting and in some disappointing ways. A lot of his followers left him to follow Jesus, which I’m sure John knew with his mind was good and what was suppose to happen, but as a human, it probably felt painful and lonely. And, John was thrown into prison. Circumstances were not contributing to a sense of spiritual accomplishment by any means. Emily P. Freeman goes on to say:
“Though he [John the Baptist] knew the truth in his mind, his heart was downcast. His was a relational question, not a theological one.”
I feel that statement so deeply. Now that I have safe people around me, I am still grappling with prior hurts and still questioning how present circumstances and difficulties can reflect who God is. That seems silly to me because I’m out of the threat now, that season has ended. But, there are still aspects of those experiences that haven’t been resolved. I know that God makes all things possible. I know with my mind and theology that God is good and a God of victory. But, He doesn’t always relationally feel good or like a God championing victories on my behalf. But, I feel hope when I read what followed in Emily P. Freeman’s book.
She talks about how John sends some of his followers to ask Jesus if He is the one they’ve been waiting for or not. Logically, this seems silly because if you’re doubting, you wouldn’t typically go to the person you doubt in order to receive some kind of a confirmation. But, that’s what he does because it’s not his mind that needs reassurance, it’s his weary heart. He needs to feel seen by the One for whom he prepared the way. He needs to know it wasn’t in vain.
Emily P. Freeman has this to say about how Jesus responds:
“Here is a man who is questioning, not just his entire life’s purpose, but God himself; a man who seems disappointed in the way things are turning out. . . . First, he [Jesus] points outward, telling John’s friends to listen, look, and then tell John what they observe—blind people see, lame people walk, deaf people hear, sick people are made well. John would recognize these outcomes as ones prophesied by Isaiah (Isa. 35; 61). In other words, evidence of me is everywhere. But then, just as John’s friends are walking away to deliver the answer, Jesus turns to the crowd and begins to talk about John. ‘Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist’ (Matt. 11:11). Jesus praises John in the midst of what was perhaps the darkest, most discouraging time of John’s life. . . . In other words, my [Jesus’] works are evident in the world, but my life is evident within you [John]. . . . He does this for John’s benefit, I know. He loves John, wants him to know he is not forgotten, even in his smallness. And he’s reminding John that his is a life of faith and trust, not experience and sight.”
Years ago, before moving to Honduras, I was obsessed with the song, “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin” by Colin Hay. The lyrics go like this:
Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I’ll keep checking the horizon
I’ll stand on the bow, feel the waves come crashing
Come crashing down, down, down on me
And you say, be still my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in
But don’t you understand
I already have a plan
I’m waiting for my real life to begin
When I awoke today, suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams, I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path, up this cobbled lane
I’m walking in my old footsteps, once again
And you say, just be here now
Forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin
Just let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I’m waiting for my real life to begin
Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I’ll keep checking the horizon
And I’ll check my machine, there’s sure to be that call
It’s gonna happen soon, soon, oh so very soon
It’s just that times are lean
And you say, be still my love
Open up your heart, let the light shine in
Don’t you understand
I already have a plan
I’m waiting for my real life to begin
On a clear day, I can see, see for a long way
On a clear day, I can see, see for a long way
I’m tearing up just writing the lyrics because listening to this song on repeat when I was waiting to move to Honduras and holding so many dreams in my heart and so much promise in my soul, it just felt like an ongoing conversation between God and me. Hope was a constant friend I clung to. And my expectations in the waiting were always for something good. Now, like John the Baptist, I know that I can still be that person, but there are still relational questions to resolve. But, with the safe people around me, hope is rising anew that the previous losses don’t have to continue to conceal the visibility of the new purposes before me.
We live in a community off of a main highway, a community with a small maze of dirt roads. In the rainy season, those roads are full of potholes and treacherous drop-offs. Recently, the local government starting fulfilling a petition to pave our neighborhood roads. For nearly a month, the only road to our house has been blocked off by workers laying cement tracks and placing large rocks and covering them with concrete. Going anywhere requires a walk to our car parked beyond the road work, and bringing home groceries is a workout. We look forward to a smoother ride and not having to dodge every hole that ends up being deeper than you’d think. Our shock absorbers will likely breath a sigh of relief. The old dirt roads carried us forward to our destinations, but they often left us banged up, full of mud, and fighting for enough space amidst water tank trucks, scrambling little kids, and stray dogs. And, that’s how I feel about some of my past experiences, past communities, and past ministerial situations. You become accustomed to dodging potholes like you become accustomed to defensively anticipating betrayals. You become accustomed to changing your shock absorbers often just as you become accustomed to the inconsistency of the communities you find yourself in. You become accustomed to getting mucked up with painful experiences like the mud that coats our tires and undercarriage. You become accustomed to fighting to find your place and where you fit. You still move forward. It doesn’t mean you’ve left the path to God’s purposes for you. But the way is not smooth.
I’m currently reading Destined to Win by Kris Vallotton, and a recent chapter shed light on the fact that many of my questions and dead-ends have actually been because of not finding the right people. I will be the first to tell you that in my experience, what is most lacking on the mission field isn’t necessarily money or resources but people—reliable, dedicated, trustworthy people. I have tried to fit myself into round holes when I’m clearly a square peg so many times because there was no one else, and I hadn’t found anywhere else to go. And, as a result, when I’m disappointed, or I can’t seem to move forward because I’ve been let down by the people around me, I start to question if I’m in God’s will or if I missed His vision. Kris Vallotton puts it like this:
“It seems as if most of us are asking what we are called to do when we should first be asking who we are supposed to be with. It’s only when we find our people that we can fulfill our purposes. The truth is, our purposes lie in our people! . . . I simply can’t find my God-given destiny without finding my God-given place in the body.”
Now, the big question then, of course, is how to find your people and where you belong. I’ll admit that I don’t have a clear-cut answer for that. But, what I can say is that I have faithfully kept trying, and in this season of feeling like I’ve finally found some safe people, the smoothness of the ride is overwhelming. You truly don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve found it. With that said, I don’t know that I’ve found “my people” yet, as trust and relationships are still being built, but I’m encouraged by considering this:
Heidi Baker, missionary to Mozambique and founder of Iris Global Ministries, which has bases all over the world, thousands of churches in Mozambique and other places in Africa, was serving in Mozambique alongside her husband, Rolland in the 1990s. They had been given an orphanage and were responsible for so many hungry, demonized, and needy kids. They were up against non-stop obstacles from the Mozambican government. Their ministry was limited, and they were in desperate need of help. They were making some progress as they had a few established churches they had planted. But it was a lot of work and slow going on their own. Around this same time, they met Surprise Sithole, a Mozambican man who had had a radical conversion experience directly from God. Born in a family of witch doctors, God personally told Surprise to leave his house. He obeyed, was adopted by a Christian man, and later found out that his whole family had been killed by rival witch doctors. God was working in and through Surprise in miraculous ways, and he was so anointed within his own country. Once Heidi and Rolland met and started working with Surprise, their ministry took off in some radical ways. There were other spiritual encounters with God that contributed to the greater anointing and greater fruit they started experiencing. It wasn’t just because of Surprise. But, a large piece of that puzzle was finding their people. To put that into perspective, they had been missionaries in Asia and England for many years before, and perhaps, they had found some of their people in those places too. But, the radical, only-God-can-do-that kind of fruit and miracles they have experienced didn’t fully manifest until Mozambique and not really until God connected them with like-minded people.
Moses felt the zeal to liberate Israel while he still lived at Pharaoh’s house. He caught the vision for his people to be free in that time. But, his efforts without maturity and without his people resulted in his murdering someone and having to be on the run in the desert for 40 years. During those 40 years, he learned to hear God’s voice. He learned to keep close company with God. He learned how to live in family with Jethro and Zipporah. And, when it was time for Moses to return to Egypt, God sent Aaron to meet Moses in the desert. Moses passed through the desert to develop maturity and found his right-hand man before he took on his life’s calling.
The road of potholes and low visibility isn’t the one I’d choose because who doesn’t crave comfort and smooth sailing? But, it’s a road that has been traveled by so many others before me. And the fact that it’s marked by mess and pain doesn’t mean that I’ve left God’s will or that I’m not moving forward. How sweet it will be when it all falls into place for His purposes. Until then, just as Jesus learned obedience through suffering, I am learning faithfulness in the midst of lack and questions. I am learning to value presence over answers and daily relationship over ongoing clarity. And on the road, while I may not find “my people” when I want to, I want to be able to say that the people who have encountered me or walked by me for a season, can take away a piece of who God is just by being around me. And, I pray that my heart would be malleable enough that the iron even of those who aren’t “my people” can sharpen my iron.
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