Ups and Downs

I have ups and I have downs. Some days are better than others.



I love this place and I hate this place sometimes all at the same time.

The more people and ministries that I meet = the more potential work that I have. Basically, most Christian ministries here need/want someone to help them with marketing. Everybody wants to communicate and promote what they are doing and there are not exactly marketers just running around the city wanting to help these ministries. This is both good and bad. Bad because I really do feel like an army of one sometimes and good because it makes me really feel like God brought me here to meet needs that are not really getting met.

The possibilities are starting to make my head spin though and last night I felt the weight of all of these possibilities in my stomach. I just felt sick. Not really physically sick but just the “you are never going to succeed here” sick. It is just my nature to want to help everybody but it is just not possible. I have to figure out, with God’s help, how to set some boundaries. I am not going to be able to help everyone with their marketing project and if I try I am going to go insane.

I remember in one of Andy Stanley’s books he says something like “devoting a little of yourself to a lot of different things means that you are really not devoting yourself to anything.” That is so how I feel right now and it is a fear that I have. I am scared that I am going to try to devote myself to so many things here in La Paz that I am going to end up doing nothing.

The temptation to be busy is strong right now. And it is such a good temptation because you think that you are doing a lot for the kingdom of God by keeping busy and doing a lot of stuff. But what is happening behind the scenes is that through your busyness you are drifting farther and farther away from God. I feel the temptation. I want to prioritize work over spending time with God. And I am not going to lie to you and tell you that work does not win out some days because it does. Some days I think I pray at night just because I feel guilty. I pray at night sometimes because I feel guilty that I did not include God in my life during the day.

With every new day here there seems to come new service opportunities. Sometimes I meet people and they are like, “Hey, you are that marketer guy aren’t you? Well I have this project…”

Everybody could use my help and my problem is that I want to help everybody.

I mean, I don’t want to work hard to earn God’s love. I know that He already loves me so that is not the issue. My issue is that I want to work hard to make God proud of me. And the more proud of me He is, the better.

But my fear is that in my quest to make God proud of me I am going to miss God altogether.