Sit. Stay. Good God.

First let me just say that I had an amazing experience yesterday at church and I was able to share some heavy burdens that I am carrying with God and give Him control. So I feel much more peace today.

But…I have been seriously struggling lately.

I am just frustrated in general.
I am frustrated about where my spiritual life is right now.
I am frustrated with my work here and all my projects because I try to ask people to do things and meet deadlines and it just doesn’t happen. (I have been told that this is just how it is here and that I need to be flexible. They told us the same thing BEFORE we left for the mission field and now I am just experiencing it for real.)
I am frustrated with this city some days. I miss home. I miss feeling in control. I miss predictability and knowing what happens next.
I am frustrated about girl situations and I wish I didn’t have to deal with dating anymore.

I don’t know from experience obviously but I have heard that marriage does not solve your problems…I have heard that it MAGNIFIES your problems. I think I am going through a similar process right now.

Becoming a missionary did not solve my spiritual problems. You can’t hit a switch or a button and suddenly become instantly holy or suddenly live up to the pedestal that people want to put you on sometimes.

Being a missionary has MAGNIFIED my problems.

It has brought my tendencies and struggles to the forefront in a way like I have never seen before. Part of it is just the fact that I think I am under attack more since I decided to move here. Satan is really attacking me and he knows my weaknesses. My temptations feel stronger here. And I feel like there is a war going on inside me. This makes me frustrated as well but I am also trying to praise God because I am attacked. Sometimes I think that maybe God brought me here because He knew that I would be forced to deal with my weaknesses faster if I was here.

I think if we are under attack from the enemy it means that we are doing something right. In fact, if you don’t feel attack or conviction it means you are not a target anymore. That scares me.

I always want to be a target. But I always want to remember that I am on the winning side. I just want to go to a different level in my relationship with Christ and I am realizing that in order to do that I have to do some things differently in my life. Some things just have to change.

I just hate how I put God on the shelf sometimes. Sit. Stay God. I got this. There are times when I just flat out refuse to involve Him in my life. I know that I am going to take Him down from the shelf in a few days and walk with Him again but I love to sit Him there while I do my own thing sometimes. This is the same temptation that Jesus felt when Satan asked Him to bow down to him temporarily and he would give Him all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus could have temporarily bowed down to Satan and then picked God back up off the shelf right after. But He knew better. He knew to “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” He knew what was at stake if He temporarily set God inside. I was at stake. You were at stake.

Saving humanity is obviously not at stake when I set God aside here in La Paz, Bolivia. But the truth is that we really don’t know what is at stake when we set God aside. And I am just tired of temporarily setting God aside because I want to meet MY needs in MY own way. I am abusing His grace and love because I know that after I have done my thing for a few days He will be right there to meet me again when I come back to Him.

That is not how I want to live my life.
Walking with God and then setting Him aside when He is inconvenient.

I just want to walk with Him. Period.