Focusing on the Now

My week started with a Sunday celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our church's "mother" church. People from that church joined us at a special afternoon service with a meal and sharing from some of the original church members and builders. I didn't understand most of it because I have no connection to either church and a lot of it was history and stories which didn't pertain to me. This time then gave me a couple hours to think as I zoned in and out of the service. It was the start of a week filled with a lot of thoughts directed at home. This week was one of the hardest so far for being homesick. I find myself missing a lot of the comforts I have at home, my church, my friends, and especially my family. I tend to look at the pictures I have hung in my room a lot more than usual and listen to the playlist I made on my ipod of songs that remind me of people back home.
Because of so much downtime at night to think, my thoughts were not only those of home but I have been thinking a lot about my faith. A main reason for my joining Radical Journey this year, was to strengthen my faith and find answers to my questions. I have been struggling for a long time as to whether my faith is authentic or if I am just a "good person" because my parents raised me in the church. I don't have the passion for Christ that I crave and I don't know how to get it and it has been something that has been plaguing my thoughts for a while now. I am already finding that this year is forcing my out of my comfort zone and causing me to address these questions as I have more time to devote to contemplating my doubts and questions. My mom has written out a verse for every day of the year for me to read and one of them this past week was Isaiah 43:18-19, "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." I have been focusing on the past and my homesickness but God has bigger plans and I know that He is using this time to do a new thing in me and I just needed to get away from my comforts so I can focus on Him more.
I finished reading Radical by David Platt this week and I have started another one of his books called Follow Me. He says in Radical, "He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him. In the process he powerfully demonstrates his ability to provide everything his people need in ways they could never have mustered up or imagined." I believe God has placed me here so that I can rely on Him in new ways and discover my need for him. In Follow Me Platt states, "To be a Christian is to be loved by God, pursued by God, and found by God. To be a Christian is to realize that in your sin you were separated from God's presence, and you deserved nothing but God's wrath. Yet despite your darkness and in your deadness, his light shone on you and his voice spoke to you, inviting you to follow Him. His majesty captivated your soul and his mercy covered your sin, and his mercy covered your sin, and by his death he brought you life" and he says faith is "the realization that there is nothing you can do but trust in what has been done for you in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Faith is the realization that God's pleasure in you will never be based upon your performance for him. Instead, God's pleasure in you will always be based upon Christ's performance in you." It is easy for my to say God loves me and to say that God forgave me of my sins and I'm saved, but I am trying to navigate away from just thinking these things to feeling them. I am realizing that it is easy for me to have faith in the fact that the Bible is true and that Jesus came to earth, but that I don't have the faith that God totally accepts me as I am and wants to live in me. I don't have the faith to totally commit my life to Him and to accept wherever He leads me because I like to have control far more than I realized before I started this journey. I am hopeful that through this year I will learn to trust God fully and to let go of my selfishness and in doing so I can let go of my hypocritical feelings and live with the passion that only comes from knowing God and doing his will that I see in other peoples' lives and achieve this description David Platt gives in Follow Me, "When you come to Jesus, his Spirit fills your spirit. His love becomes your love. His joy becomes your joy. His mind becomes your mind. His desires become your desires. His will becomes your will. His purpose becomes your purpose. His power becomes your power. The Christian life thus becomes nothing less than the outliving of the indwelling Christ."
Work this week was filled with a lot of driving around Mpophomeni taxiing people around which isn't my favorite job because while I feel a lot more comfortable behind a manual, I still am not one hundred percent confident - especially after having the car accident. I was starting to get frustrated with work this week as I was tiring of driving everyone around all the time and often sitting around doing nothing because there wasn't a job for me at the moment. Mom's verse on Wednesday was a much needed reminder, "Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life" Philippians 2:14-15. I realized that I should be glad that I get to serve amongst such joyful people and that I should have a better attitude and smile while driving people around because I am helping people since they don't have the ability to drive like I do. Some highlights from work include being taught a traditional Zulu dance by one of the girls (and getting made fun of by everyone else), learning a few more names, getting taught Zulu by a staff member and some kids (unfortunately I don't remember any of it), and eating two delicious Zulu meals, taking pictures with the younger kids.
Other highlights and interesting events from this week were eating my first chicken foot that wasn't a gummy (eating may not be the right word as I only ate about three bites - they weren't nearly as tasty as the chicken feet from the Old Dutch Cupboard!), taking a kombi into town and back home by myself, seeing some of Justin's baby birds, having a hot breakfast at the mall with Emily and Lydia, finishing my first journal after only two months, greeting a gas attendant in Zulu instead of English when she said hello causing her whole countenance to light up as she started laughing at my attempts of pronouncing the answer to her question "Unjani?" (How are you?), and having a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon at Emily's boss's house since he invited us over for lunch.
As you have been reading, South Africa is proving to be challenging, exciting, filled with laughter and homesickness, questions, and answers. I can't believe that I have been here for almost two months already - time is flying by and I am going to try and take advantage of the time I have here. You probably also have realized by now that I am enjoying writing blogs as they tend to get lengthy but I have come to enjoy expressing myself through them as I am not always the most talkative or open person as many of you well know!