With Love, From Iloilo, Part 3

Thoughts from culture shock:

When I thought about missions work (prior to ever stepping foot off of U.S. soil), I thought it would be about helping people. I thought it would be about how noble I would feel about myself. I thought it would be about altruistic sentiments and alleviating guilt about having so much while the rest of the world has so little.

I didn't think very much about how hard it would be on my pampered flesh and how much I would dislike feeling sweaty all of the time, eating unfamiliar food, not having hot water to bathe in, or the smells of poverty assaulting my senses.

It’s very easy to be a Christian in America.

After I had been in Iloilo for a few days, I began to see how much my “uncomfortable-ness” was making me depend on God. And that was a good thing! How funny that I worked so hard so much of my life to be comfortable! I would fight you to stay in my comfort zone. And all the while those efforts could be thwarting God's purposes for my life.

I am pretty sure after what I have experienced that always trying to keep my flesh comfortable will take me out of the will of God. God’s will is not always easy on our flesh. Change is not comfortable, so if we are always comfortable it means we are not changing, which means we are not growing.

Ouch.

I know we should have the comfort of the Holy Spirit, but that’s different than having everything on the outside always feeling great and to my liking. What this means to me is that I am going to have to purposely take myself out of my comfort zone when I am back in my middle-class home of comfort and relative ease, where most of my fleshly desires are pretty easily satisfied. I will have to stretch myself on purpose so that I can remember how dependent I am on God. I will have to put my flesh under and make it my slave, like Paul said, in order to not be disqualified for the prize.

It’s very hard to be a Christian in America.