Gypsy Fever in Toronto

Gypsy Fever

Strange headline? Let me explain…

I have been on the road basically for the last 3 months with my projected departure date to Spain around a month away; and I have been wrestling in my mind to make sense of all the many rich and yet challenging steps on this journey to the mission field. Part this journey is so edifying in how the Lord has created me and is leading me, and part if it is scandalous to my identity…lately in my heart I have been feeling homeless, lost and stripped of who I feel I am. 

Let me share a few analogies I have heard today from missionaries also on this journey; and even though they didn’t know it at the time, they so clearly articulated my heart that I cried at hearing them.

Feeling Busted up a Little

We have heard of the jars of clay analogy before…but I have never heard this analogy quite like this. So if you have you ever felt inadequate before or insignificant to be used by God, that’s perfect! This analogy is for you, and me.

Some people can be so put together, so marked with godliness, and in right relationship with the Lord that it just beams in them, fills them to the brim and fills them with rich light and love. This was the analogy expressed by my classmate in the beginning of his testimony.

He then took a small empty box and he put on an overhead projector upside down, and turned on the light that then filled the box. He said this was how he initially saw his life; he was filled with the Lord and he knew Him and he even knew the Lord was with him. But the wall remained dark; and then he turned off the light and continued in his analogy.

He went on to express some very difficult trials that the Lord had began to bring his way in family circumstances and in life. He then had asked someone to bust up the box immeasurably; which it actually ended in two pieces and with numerous holes. He explained this is what his life looked like now, broken, and unrecognizable to some extent; but still he had great confidence in the Lord, and the Lords presence and the Lords providence in all of these circumstances. He then put the box back on the overhead projector and turned on the light; this time through the brokenness the wall shone.

His testimony was clear: The Lord will greatly shine through our brokenness, which is why it is truly best to embrace the Lord in His sovereignty when trials and challenges come our way. Why do we even feel as though life is supposed to look perfect? We can rejoice that we are broken jars of clay and that the Lord by His power can then best shine through us.

(2 Corinthians 4:5-18)  Great biblical read! Great testimony!

Later at lunch I sat down with an older missionary man
on his way to disciple missionaries in Costa Rica, He began to tell me stories and after he chuckled and admitted that he had no idea why he went off on such banter. At that I began to express to him how incredibly relevant those stories were to my life at this time and I began to weep. So he told me one more story which ironically was also so incredibly relevant to my life and tears continued to rolls down my cheeks and when he was finished the story he made no application or anything…he simply said and “and now I will stop” and just smiled at me. I think he knew that no application was needed; his word was for me at that time and very well articulated as a word from the Lord in how it applied to my life. These are a few analogies he left with me.

Created for Flowers or Apples

Apple trees are truly gorgeous for a time, as they form pedals and leaves and bloom to show their radiant and remarkable beauty.  However apple trees were not created for their flowers even though the flowers are quite remarkable, the are merely an indication of the process of fruit that is being produced which is what they are actually created for…apples. Although the tree doesn’t leap from flower to apple, the flower of course must first fall away completely making way for the seed that is beneath to grow to its full fruition. The beautiful pedals are naturally stripped away one by one, and what once stood magnificently as a glorious flower tree makes way for its intended apples. Our lives are as such, especially as a Christ follower, especially as an incarnational missionary. We like to cling to the flowers that we produce, we are even proud of them, we look beautiful and our identity is somewhat established in them. Then all a sudden the season changes and the pedals drop one by one, and we are left delirious and challenged as our identity is striped away. But once we truly allow our identity to fade and we remember the purpose to which we were called to, we begin to see that the apple is the identity that we were truly called to bare. In life as a Christ follower  (and incarnational missionary) we are called to deny ourselves and take up our cross as Christ first did, and as we do we will fade to the background as intended and allow the fruits of the Spirit to shine through us for a lost and broken world to see. (Luke 9:23-24)

The Vessel of Living Water

In a land full of lakes, a mediocre vessel or even a marvelous vessel filled with living water is insignificant. However to a dessert land, even the most mediocre vessel when filled with living water is the most invaluable resource.  The vessel itself has very little relevance in fact, and will probably go unnoticed, but it holds the most invaluable source of life that when movable can have the most distinctive purpose.  Our true value is defined from what’s within us, its where our greatest purpose comes from.

A Naked Gypsy

So in the process of travel, saying goodbye a million times, transition, losing my sense of home and sense of identity, being stripped of who I am, who I was, and wondering who I will be in this new world of Spain…I realize its all part of the process. Although I feel exposed in many ways, and home becomes a blurry word, I remember this journey my Lord has walked before; first as babe, and all the way to the cross.  So I too must remember the relevance of being broken and denying myself for Christ, deny myself for Him to shine and allow the pruning to bare much fruit as intended, to allow my identity to be filled with Christ whom lives in me, and remember this earth is all our temporary home. 

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