Struggles

It seems like most of what I've been writing recently have been towards the negative "get my butt in gear" kind of messages. But this may be but another.

It has been real difficult for me to come back here and throw myself into the work that has to be done here. I had, as I've described it, too good a time at home. While I'm not trying to make excuses for my less than exemplary work effort these past few weeks, it has made me think.

I've been preparing for this team I'm leading since I got down here, doing so much a day and taking my time preparing for their arrival. I only have a few more things to do before they get here tomorrow evening. If you know me well, this may seem like a huge difference in my life and truthfully, it is. I'm prone to procrastination. I don't know if it's genetic, but it has run through me for quite a while now. This preparation that I've been undertaking has been against my normal ways of doing things. If this was a paper I had to write at North Park, I would be just starting on it, hoping to finish with a decent work in the next 36 hours I have to write it. It would get finished after working furiously, in about 48 hours and then I would turn it in for an average grade, some where around a B. But here instead I have about 8 hours MAX work to be done and that includes packing, buying some food and withdrawing an uncomfortable amount of cash.

It's also given me a lot of time to thought as to what my heart desires when I eventually get out of ceme... er, seminary. Missions? Not at this juncture. My heart is tugging towards the Church. To be a pastor, mentoring, discipling and encouraging. To equip others to give their lives over to missions, bringing people into worship of the King of kings, that their hearts might be united with Christ and His purposes in their lives.

But for now I must realize that God has placed me here for such purposes as these. And so I concentrate on what He has given me in the next months of my life, specifically the next hours. Pray that this team would come with open hearts and hands. Pray that their would be a revival in this community, Boruca, where we are going. Pray that those coming would not see their missionary-status ending at the end of this week, but that they would carry what they have learned back with them to the States and live missionary lives where ever God places them.