Running From a Reasonable Deadness of Heart

Quick Note for y’all, this was written over a period of 5 days but I didn’t have wi-fi and wanted to share the changes that are already happening in my journey on the race.

17 September 2022

I think it’s easy, considering the folks that I’m around, to forget that what I’m doing is hard. I’m blessed that so many people around me make it look easy, but I have been struggling, a bit and that is fine. I have been back in my earnest walk with the Lord for a little more than a year now and I’m already on a year long mission trip and I’m in Guatemala, ministering to poverty stricken areas. Just this time last year I was struggling with whether or not to continue in a relationship with someone I dearly loved but wasn’t honoring the Lord with. I’m in a very charismatic environment after having been bred in very traditional and fundamental churches (let’s go MI synod).

But here I am, outside of Paramos, Antigua, it’s 10:30 at night and it’s raining for the third or fourth time today. I am worried because I don’t really look like the people around me. I’m worried because I haven’t had the same experiences that they have had. I haven’t ever heard the Lord speak or had a person highlighted who I know I have to approach or been blessed with a word to give to somebody to encourage them. I have felt the Catholic-guilt that I have imposed on myself for not doing something here or not doing something there. I struggle in that I’m not confident in the gifts that I’ve been given because I have been listening to the lies that the enemy has been telling me for years that I am not good enough, that I am an imposter and I don’t belong and if anyone really knew who I was they’d ship me back to Colorado. I know it’s not true yet after even 6+ years of classical training, I feel completely inadequate as a vocalist and a musician. Then I’ve compounded onto the fact that I’m in a foreign country where I know a handful of phrases like ‘mi gusto queso’ that only go so far, I have to hand wash my laundry in a stone set up covered in earwigs, and my ministry site that I came here for, scares me.

This is hard and I get overwhelmed. I’ve dragged so much more than my luggage to Guatemala with me and there’s even more here to tackle. It’s upsetting but also a blessing that I’m coming to a realization on the 6th day here that it is ok to struggle and think that this is hard. How many of us hear “take up your cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24) and are like ‘herd Lord’ but forget the weight of what is on our backs. “Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden… for my yoke is easy and my burden is light,” (Matthew 11:28-30) are the words of Christ that have finally made their way through the cacophony to me. The World Race is overwhelming, there is a lot thrown at you with what feels like very little preparation or training, but God is good, and He equips me, He comforts me, He stands me back up and fills me with His love (Romans 5:3-5). He is a good father. I thank Him that I was able to have a conversation with the sensational (and single) Jaden Roberts about this. He delivers me from unseen sorrow and woe, and for the people here in San Lorenzo, Palima, and soon to be Petén, He provides and delivers. As hard as life is, I am so excited to see who He exalts because I know it won’t be those who go about as the envies of this world. It is going to be the same Jaden who is shooing away a cat that he’s allergic to, it is going to be the mom who gives everything to her children and who wants naught for herself but for them, it is the volunteers who take no salary so that they can give everything to their community. It is going to be the people who have hard lives and persevere in Christ, who hold onto nothing in the storm but Him and say “not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). 

18 September 2022/ 21 September 2022

Before reading this section, I ask that y’all read/ be familiar with the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30 and also listen to Jon Tyson’s sermon titled Jesus Stuff at Church of the City New York. This is very influenced by that, as I wrestle with my time in the church and what I want life to look like after the World Race.

I think being an American Christian is hard. We are bred in comfort and the predominant image that the church has is so lukewarm it is as of the enemy collaborated to create an ideal so mediocre as to leave us bereft of Christ and what He has given us. We forget that our God is the God of fire. He was in the burning bush, He led the Israelites in a burning pillar of flame, Elijah called on Him and fire came down to consume the sacrifice, the Holy Spirt at Pentecost came as tongues of flame upon the saints. I have the book, I know what was done, but forget that Christ says, ‘very truly I tell you, you will do these things and more.’ We are intended to be aflame with the Spirit and the gospel but as it is I am only theoretically warm and actually am shivering and frozen as we walk in religion and not a relationship, doing church stuff but not Jesus stuff. I have lived in a fruitless comfort that has asphyxiated my faith. But God has brought me here. He has put me in a place of discomfort, living to the point of tears. The world doesn’t understand what I or anyone else here is doing because the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world (1 Corinthians 2:14). I will flee from the reasonable deadness of the heart that has permeated the last 4 years of my life and I will bear witness on the frontline of His kingdom and the seemingly impenetrable vestiges of the enemy. God is working. He is working in dirt floors and tin roofs. He is working in flooded towns and steep mountain streets.

I think back to simply being back in New York, not just in my collegiate career but even a month ago and how I had to deaden myself to my surroundings in order to survive. How I and so many others turn and look the other way when panhandlers raise their hands and voices, how we walk faster and hasten our steps, how we allocate our funds and time towards self-indulgence instead of the raising up of the weak and broken. That is not the life I want to live, nor am I called to it. The solution isn’t just moving away but stopping myself as I race through life and loving those around me, strangers and all. Many will say it’s not that easy, but it certainly is that simple, to die to our flesh in obedience to the Living King (Galatians 2:20; 5:24; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Mark 8:35) because that is exactly what Christ did (1 Peter 2:24).

Now I’m sitting in our favorite Christian café in Paramos, a little sweaty from killing it (not really) in soccer ministry with OneWay. My journey in dying to my flesh and living for Christ thus far has been praying to the Lord for Him to break my heart for what breaks His, and He has very much answered my prayers. Right out of the gate on Monday we did a house visit in with somebody who, in spite of being in their 20’s, looked as though they were 13 and 80 lb. soaking wet. They looked this way because 5 years ago, they received a cancer diagnosis, with a dire prognosis that they only had 3 months more. They shared their passion for playing soccer and being a DJ. They spun a track for us for ~20 minutes and they were honestly great. Unfortunately, they had to go back to the hospital on the 20^th due to losing feeling in a leg and experiencing sharp pains in one of their arms. I can’t tell you how many times I had to choke back and blink away tears during our conversation, and how thinking back to it still elicits the same reaction. Then the next day we spent 4 hours in the bed of a truck, driving to and from Palima: a mountain town that lies far from the major cities and receives few outside visitors. We thought that we had seen extreme poverty in San Lorenzo, but the Lord checked us when we got there. In our house visits, we found not a single home that didn’t have dirt floors throughout, many didn’t have clean water, and their stoves were in poorly ventilated rooms and were often kindled with plastic bags. In spite of their lack, every single person was kind and welcomed us into their homes, one even sharing tortillas and beans with us which surely did not come out of their excess. Even though it broke many hearts that many families had no father figures as they commonly immigrated to the U.S. and abandoned their families, we still saw smiles, and it was those smiles I think, that broke me down the most. Even the midst of their loss and pain, they had Christ, and in Him they found joy and contentment and I don’t know why but their love in everything just breaks me. In my families own financial struggles we were often stressed and anxious yet they here they were with so much less and they still smiled and shared and blessed us. There is so much in them that I was. I wish that I was as trusting in Christ as they, and as steadfast in Christ as they, as generous as they. I saw Christ so much more in the face of a woman with a whopping 10 kids who smiled as she shared what little food she had with us, or in the face of the woman who asked for prayer for her husband, not for her sake but for his and their children, as he was an alcoholic who didn’t come home and she was worried for him and her kids.

There is still so much that I have to wrestle with but thankfully (maybe) I will have 12 hours to do so on Friday, as we leave from here outside Paramos to Poptun in Peten to establish an entirely new ministry. I may or may not be considering getting cleats there as I’m doing a lot of soccer ministry and miss playing soccer. If anyone has any great soccer exercises and drills please let me know! But as I finally close this blog I just ask that y’all pray for the communities in San Lorenzo, Palima, and Peten, that the Lord would provide for them, strengthen their faith, and answer their prayers. Pray also for the American church as a whole, as it is leading itself towards lukewarmness. Here I’m seeing people in a living an breathing faith and I want so desperately to see that in my home and in the lives of those that I love and cherish. Pray for my team as we prep to head out in two days and that we would be led in ministering with love and patience and that the Lords peace would fill our lives, that we would act truly as ambassadors or Him, pointing to Him and glorifying Him in all that we do. See y’all in Peten!