A Tough Week (re-discovering Jesus' Living Hope)

I cannot remember the last time I wanted a week to be over as much as I did this past week.  Truth be told- it was a crummy week.  I tried to wake up each morning with the notion that ‘yesterday had passed’ and that ‘today is a brand new day’.  That worked for about the first 90 seconds of being awake.  I couldn’t (and still can’t) “peg” exactly what was going on but this past week did remind me that I am very much human and that I need to learn how to deal with whatever  “it” was.

More importantly- I was reminded of the Living HOPE that we have in Jesus through a guest speaker on our weekly senior youth night.  Ironically enough, this guest speaker was also a past youth leader- someone who I served alongside with for 4 years in youth ministry.  Because of this, I knew of some of the pain and hurt that was shared.  I knew their faith was (is) strong and I admire(d) them for it.  

The message for the evening was simply called “hope” based from 1 Peter 1:3-9.  When I read the subheading in the NIV, “Praise to God for a Living Hope”, I knew instantly that this message was directed at me. 

As I listened, I could feel God convicting me.  Now, I should clarify.  I knew that God was NOT judging or condemning me but rather, the conviction that I felt came out of a Holy, loving, and hopeful place.  It was this... “Nikki- I see your hurt and I feel your pain.  In your weakness, allow ME to become your Strength.  Remember, in this world-you WILL have troubles.  Take a step back, relax, breathe and, as hard as it maybe, seek My face.  Or have you forgotten that I have overcome the world (John 16:33).  I won’t leave you.  I never will.  Spend time getting to know ME once again and allow my Living Hope to flow through you and within you”

Sounds simple right? Spend time with God and all will work out.  Never again will I have a bad day, let alone a bad week? Hold on.  STOP. PAUSE.  

Did you (I) miss the reference to how we WILL have troubles in this world? John16:31-33 says “Jesus answered them, “Do you finally believe? In fact, you’re about to make a run for it-saving your own skins and abandoning me.  But I am not abandoned.  The Father is with me.  I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace.  In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties.  But take heart! I’ve conquered the world” (The Message). 

I believe.  I do.  I wouldn’t be where I am today, without Jesus.  Without that Living Hope and that deep peace that He alone offers.  Yet why do I often feel as tho I am running to save my own skin and abandoning that Living Hope and Peace in the process?  I know Jesus but I was reminded that I need to continue to KNOW Jesus each and every day.  I cannot (will not) put my trust, or hope, in someone I do not know.

The question was raised, “How do we get to know someone? How do best friends become best friends when everyone we meet, starts off as a complete stranger?”  Simple.  We spend time together.  We get to KNOW each other through learning about one another.  It can be simple, basic things such as favourite colour or animal.  From there, as we spend time with one another, trust slowly begins to be built.  Soon deeper, more personal, things are shared between the friends, both trusting the other to maintain that level of trust.  Honestly, it’s a risk.  It’s a chance that must be taken for something that is genuine and real.  I want Jesus to, once again, become my best friend. 

I am well aware of what God was convicting me to do in my own relationship with Him.  It is something that I know has been lacking and it has been lacking a LOT.  Honestly, a part of me has lost my ‘zeal’ for all things God related but I also know that the Spirit is very willing but the flesh is so weak.  This past week- my flesh definitely won, but that doesn’t mean I am defeated.  Why?  In Jesus, I have a LIVING HOPE and its time I start to embrace it once again.  

I recently picked up “The Message” version of the Bible and I am LOVING reading it.  I cannot get enough of it.  As I re-discover stories I’ve heard thousands of times before, I learning to re-embrace Jesus’ living Hope inside of me.  

This.  This is what God was calling me to do. 

To slow down.  To Trust Him.

To pray and to spend intimate time with Him.

To rediscover His amazing Love and

To allow His Living Hope to reside in me once again

Dear Cambodia (a message from my heart)

Dear Cambodia

You’ve wrecked me.  I left your soil just over 2.5 years ago, yet my heart remains broken for you.  My feet yearns for the day that they will walk upon your land once again.  My eyes cannot wait to look upon the beautiful faces of your people. My soul is restless, begging me to return to you and share with you, the hope in which you have renewed in me.  I’ll be honest- I never thought I would fall in love with you in the way that I have.  Truth be told, at the time I thought you were ‘just another country’ in South East Asia.  A country in which I had to spend time in before returning to the red soils of Africa.

Isn’t that how God works though? Revealing Himself to us in ways we sometimes least expect it?  Ironic isn’t it? That you, Cambodia, were the one country in which I spent 2 months in?

Cambodia, I miss walking among your streets; taking in the many sites and smells.  I miss buying fresh pineapple for 10 cents from local vendors and walking among the rice fields.  As the rain hits the ground outside my home here in Canada, I recall sitting beneath the shadows of palm trees, sipping fresh coconut milk while enjoying the company of the local people.  Oh the lengths I’d go for a roadside smoothies consisting of dragon fruit/pineapple and apples and to taste a deep friend banana for breakfast once again.  Playing hide n seek among a Buddhist temple (opps!) and even hearing off tune karaoke…praying that it would end, now becomes a moment in which I yearn for.  Waking up early, reviewing the English lesson for the morning and then finishing up the day with worship, songs and testimonies from local Khmer university students, renewed my soul in a powerful way.  Time spent with my Phnom Penh Cambodian contacts, turned family, at “Beautiful Feet” dorm, are precious precious moments that I will forever be grateful for.  Words cannot express how they changed the course of my life in 3 short weeks.  To Ango, Asui and Kaka…thank you.  From the bottom of my heart, with everything that I got, thank you so very much.  Your friendship, your mentorship, means the world to me.   

Is this all Ironic? Coincidence? Perhaps a ‘freak thing’ that the one country that I had to spend two months in, is the one country in which I yearn to return to the most?

Or is it a part of God’s continual plan to break my heart for what breaks His? 

Cambodia through you, God began to begin to stir a passion deep within me, not only for a foreign land and its people, but a future career as well. Yes Cambodia, it is because of those two months of teaching English to your people, that God revealed another calling within my life, to me. A calling that came full circle in just over a year, when God led me back to Zambia to teach English.  February 18, 2014 while I was in the middle of my second month teaching English to local Cambodian university students, I journal the line, “I want to use my TESOL to be able to go back to Zambia, and teach at Seeds of Hope.”  May 1, 2015 I found myself back at Seeds of Hope at the start of a 3 month term of teaching English.  So Cambodia, today is April 16, 2016 and I cannot help but wonder at what point I will look back upon this entry and realize that it has once again come ‘full circle’.

James 2:14-19 says, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.  You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."

Cambodia, you are no longer simply a place on the map to check off that I have been too…rather you have become a ‘home away from home’ and one day I will return.  More so, now that I have seen, I know that I am responsible.  I know that my faith also requires action.  I know that it will be a few years yet before I return, but know that God is preparing me during this season of my life to better able to serve HIM among your people and your land.

You have captured my heart, Cambodia, in a very unique way.  You’ve captured my heart in a way that I thought only Zambia would ever hold.  I don’t know when God will lead me back to you, but I am praying and believing that He will…all in His due time.  Until that day; know that I am praying for you.  That God will continue to move through you and your people; to bring darkness into light, bringing about rescue and restoring justice in places of injustice.  Until that day we meet again, I promise I will continue to do all that I can right here and right now, trusting God each and every step of the way.

Holy Spirit convictions

Today is Ash Wednesday which also means that today is the start of the Lent season; the 40 days leading up to Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection (Easter).  It is during this 40 day period that (some) Believers (Christians) ‘give up’ something in their lives.  It doesn’t have to be something bad that they give up; in fact, it is often something that is good.  The point is to use that time to reflect on just how much we need Jesus in our lives each and every moment of each and every day.  Other Believers may choose to ‘add’ something to their daily schedules that will also help pull them closer to Jesus.  Waking up earlier to read the Bible, fasting, spending more time in conscious prayer are a few things that I have heard of people purposely ‘adding’ to their days during Lent season.  In the past, I have done both of these.  I have both ‘given up’ things and have ‘added’ things as well (separate years of course).  Like most things, I am really good at it for a while but keeping up that stamina is hard.

 

This year, I knew from the start that I would not be doing either one of them.  When I made that choice, I felt at peace about it.  After all, Jesus is supposed to be a part of our every waking moment of our lives 365 days a year…not just the 40 days before lent right? 

Enter Holy Spirit.

I’ve come to know myself (who I am) pretty well; especially over the last few years.  I have come to know how God speaks to me and I have come to trust those ‘feelings’ within me.  Learning to trusting those feelings has NOT come ‘overnight’ as it has been a long, hard, frustrating, rewarding, easy, and an incredible journey along the way with plenty ups and downs.  

Lately I have been having ‘one of those feelings’ and because I know the situation attached to it; the word ‘conviction’ is better suited in this case.  When God is trying to speak to me, His voice is constantly in the back of my head and I cannot ‘let it go’ no matter how hard I try.  NO matter how hard I attempt to distract myself or to ‘run’ from it (Jonah and the Big Fish anyone?!?!)  I had a very honest conversation with a friend/mentor of mine the other day in which I flat out said, “I know what the Holy Spirit is calling me to do, but I so don’t want to do it.  Jesus can make an exception to this situation right?  And He will allow me to act the way I (my flesh) wants to respond too right?  I mean, I have been so ‘good’ and have withheld for quite some time…Jesus can just close His eyes on this one right? I think I’ve earned it”.  My friend simply responded with a chuckle as they could totally relate to what I was/am wrestling with.  They also knew that I KNOW what to do because of how the Holy Spirit is convicting me.  Basically, they were just an ear to vent too.  The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!

So what does any of this have to do with Ash Wednesday and Lent season?  God calls us to be imitators of Him.  To see, feel and act against things in this world that bring Him pain.  To care for those who are marginalized and to help bring justice in places of injustice.  I don’t know how exactly it will look and I know it will carry on way past Easter (and probably for the rest of my life) but this Lent season I know God is going to work on me, and my heart, when it comes to truly learning about justice according to how Christ sees it as.  For me, it will have a focus on learning how to forgive those who I (my flesh) feels as though have no right to be forgiven, let alone be LOVED by God, when they are the root cause of so much deep pain in so many people’s lives. Surely God will be 'okay' with it, if I don't forgive them right? (*insert typical sunday school answer here*)

Even though I know it will not be easy; I am especially excited for the next 40 days to see how God continues to speak to me and convict me.  He may lead me to have some very difficult conversations with certain individuals that I will especially need your prayers for.  He may ask me to simply be silent, something that is even harder for me, and to trust Him through the process.

In closing I ask that, if my name crosses your mind, you pray for me and this journey ahead.

Thank you

This song has been on my repeat for many weeks now and every time I hear it; God uses it to speak to my soul.  I pray it does the same to you.