On the way
Well its only two hours out and counting now before we arrive. The flight has actually been quite pleasant: no layovers, uncrowded, decent food, and of course the free video games. How can it get any better than that? Well maybe if I could beat the computer more consistently in Chess…Anyway, I’m sitting here doing my best to read and study while not letting my mind wander off. But I can’t stop thinking about how amazing it is that God has a plan for our lives that He designed before we were even born into the world. Here I am, a boy from back woods Central Florida getting ready to go to India on my fourth trip! Could I ever have imagined as a little boy that anytime in my life I would be able to afford to go to India? Could I ever have imagined as an agnostic college student that I would go to India to serve in the name of Christ? Could I ever have imagined that the first trip to India I took by myself (which was so difficult) would be used by God to later help coordinate and lead future teams? The first trip I didn’t even know why I was going as I was going! I sit here on this plane knowing now with my heart that God has a purpose for each of us that is extremely significant in His eyes. Look back in hindsight at your own life and see where some of the periods full of questioning and doubt were later answered and clarified by future events. Stop and really think about it. Stop and ask God to “align” at least some of the “pieces of the puzzle” that has been and is your life. It’s mind blowing how Sovereign our Lord is! So here I go again. I should say, here we go again. After two years of confusion over the direction that God had taken me, two years of my life that still doesn’t even come close to making sense, I have peace knowing that in time it will be used by God as part of His plan for my life. I will see the hand of God in it someday. I guess I just want to share with you that while life is confusing and painful and lonely sometimes, God is there in the midst working for the greater good of you and of others. You have to see it that way. That’s hope I guess, that expectation that God is somehow working to bless us. I just want to say, thank you God for the blessings in my life. Who am I to deserve the right to call you Father? Who am I to deserve to have such a beautiful wife and baby and home? Who am I and what is my family that you would choose me to love people from the other side of the world? Like Jeremiah, we were all with God and known by God before we were born. Paul writes that “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” and “for God’s gifts and call is irrevocable.” God has wonderful things to do with you and your life. You have purpose. Your life has purpose. And know this, regardless of what we have done or what has been done to us, we are not disqualified from the plan that God has for us. If you need proof, just look at my life and the ton of mistakes I’ve made, the utter faithlessness that I often live. And yet He still uses me today. God wants to reveal to you the plan, the path He has for you. Mostly He just wants you to trust him given your uncertainties and pains. Ask for eyes to see it. Ask for faith to believe it. Ask for hope to have the strength to chase it. Thank all of you who have continually believed in me in spite of myself. Today, may God use me to bring Him glory through the “earthen vessel” that is my life. Pray for us guys…here we go again!