Kernel of Wheat
Sometimes God leads us places that scare us. Sometimes He asks us to give up things that we never would have imagined giving up before. What is the beauty in that?
There’s beauty in the fall. Surrendering things to God often brings people to their knees.
There’s beauty in letting go and realizing that you’re free now, and that everything’s going to be alright just because He’s holding you so close.
There’s beauty in watching as you go from fear to freedom, as God takes hold of your empty hands and begins to guide you in ways that you could never have thought possible.
It’s an amazing feeling to watch as a void forms in your heart from all of the things you’ve given up only to be filled with something completely new: peace, an indescribable peace. And joy that goes beyond understanding or circumstance.
It’s beautiful to see things you couldn’t see before and to understand a point of view in life that causes hope in the midst of sorrow and joy at the end of tears.
And it’s a beautiful feeling to realize that God loves you for more than what you can offer Him. It’s funny…before I started laying down my rights (everything I was holding in my hand) I thought they were what He wanted. I thought He wanted my life- my job, my family, my hopes and dreams, everything. I thought He wanted to be in control of them. But it wasn’t until I let go of these things that I realized that wasn’t what He was looking for. He was looking for my hand.
He just wanted my hand. It’s hard to hold onto someone’s hand when it’s holding other things so tightly already…but when it’s just an empty hand it’s easy to hold and not let go. It’s an amazing feeling to realize that God loves me far more than all that I can give Him. I never would’ve realized that had I not given up everything and seen how He loves me when I have nothing left.
All these things didn’t come to be realized right away. It’s hard to see beauty in losing things. I think it always will be hard to lose things.
But it’s worth it.
It always will be.
For those of you who don’t know there’s a potential that I could be going to Kenya after finishing the school I’m attending now. I would go and work in the slums of Nairobi. Its five square miles of 2.5 million people who live in the poorest of circumstances and are considered to be the lowest of low. The people live in their own waste. I would be working with the kids in this environment for anywhere between 1-6 months.
It’s hard to not be scared at this point. There’s honestly no guarantee that I won’t get seriously sick or something. God doesn’t promise tomorrow for any of us, as I have clearly seen since coming here. Death is so normal here…no matter who you are. And going out to Kenya to work in places where it can be dangerous means I have to be prepared to give my life up now.
How do I give that up? How do I give up my rights to a normal life with the ones I love? It’s honestly so hard…Sometimes I just think about the fact that my sister is getting married soon and it makes me want to cry. Because even now I want to be home with her (Kaihla I miss you so much). I have to be ready to give that all up though. I have to be ready to not return home in case something happens and I know I won’t get to.
This is where laying down my rights gets hard…I have to lay down my rights (and keep them down) of seeing my family again. I have to lay down my rights to get married. I have to lay down my rights to my reputation because even as people read this I’m sure that I’m going to be misunderstood (understandably).
Realizing the need to lay all of this down was pretty hard. It is the worst part about it all. But God has been so good to me…
One thing He taught me that’s really helped happened while I was praying a couple months ago about staying longer in Africa. I felt Him tell me that He’s not going to make me stay.
This was a bit odd to me until one day I realized what He meant by it: it’s my choice. It always has been and it always will be. I can stay or go and it won’t make a difference in His love for me because His love for me depends on deeper and greater things than just what I can give Him or do for Him. So no matter what I choose He’ll love me just the same and be proud of me just the same.
Here’s the other part to that:
I believe now that He doesn’t choose suffering for us. I don’t believe He wants anyone to suffer. We are blessed if we suffer for Him because He is with us in it and through it. In life we have two major choices: to suffer with Him or to suffer without Him. But when we live a life with Him then we always have the promise of joy after sorrow and hope in the midst of our suffering. We live a life where the best is always yet to come. That’s the difference between a life with Him and one lived without Him. He creates peace and eases our hurts until He can guide us through our struggles to a brighter and better day than the one before. We know of His guidance and love and His wild pursuit of our confidence in His love for us. Can we believe Him, though, is the question. And whether we do or not we live out our lives for Him in the promise of a better day than the rest. It makes sense in a way that can only be understood by the ones who live in this way. But it’s a way that’s been made for all- it’s paved by grace, not judgment- love, not fear.
This is why I think that when we who believe in Him suffer and die for His sake He’s touched. It pleases Him and is so precious to Him. It’s because He doesn’t choose that kind of life for us, we choose that kind of life for Him. Why would I want to live my life out in any other way than this?
This is the kind of life that will make a difference to people. Not because it removes their suffering but because it offers them a hope that cannot be denied. It gives them faith and comfort in the midst of suffering. He’s with us.
The next thing I’ve been learning is that part of God’s will for us lies in who we are and not just where we are, what we’re doing, and who we’re with. And if we let Him He will guide us in all of these points, not just one or two. It’s our choice to let Him though.
I realized that part of who I am is going to be changed as I make my choice of whether to stay or to go home. I realized that the reasons I had for going home are completely selfish and I have the chance to feed that selfishness or to fight it by taking the second option instead.
If I stay for no other reason than that I don’t want to go home in selfishness then that, to me, is reason enough. And I will fight for that reason with all my heart because I don’t want to make a decision like that with the wrong heart... I won’t be the only one to suffer for it if I do. I believe that the way someone finishes one thing determines the way they enter the next.
Even having learned all of these things I’ve mentioned so far I still had major doubts about God’s love for me if He’s willing to guide me into danger. I really felt stuck between a rock and a hard place for quite some time now. If I choose to live a life without laying down my rights then I lose the greatest treasures I’ve ever known in life. If I choose to live a life with my rights laid down, however, it could mean that I die young or that I lose the life I want to live back home in America where there’s a margin of difference in safety as compared to Africa or some other third world country.
How could God love me as much as He says He does if I lose everything and spend the rest of my life here suffering? How could He love me more than the people that I’m suffering under and suffering for, if He knew that I would and sent me anyways? How could He allow me to die young?
One day I was praying and talking to Him about how scared I was at the chance of dying young. His response is one that I’ll never forget:
“Would you like me to extend your life? It’ll mean more suffering for you if I do.”
I never thought of it that way before. My days are numbered because He knows I’ll suffer more if I live here longer than what He’s appointed me to live.
Probably one of the biggest fears I’ve been suffering with is the fear that I’d die because He didn’t care enough about my life to let me have the one I wanted. Like many kings and military leaders in history who have said of their soldiers, “what’s a few lives compared to the freedom of a country?” I believed God was saying the same about my life. What’s the life of one compared to the lives of many who would be saved because of her witness?
But I don’t believe it’s like that anymore.
I confess that I don’t understand why or how it’s not, but I still believe it’s not. Because I believe that He is for me, and that no matter how scared or weak I am I can believe that He will never forsake me. Especially in the times I am scared and weak. And I can remember that, regardless of what comes. I know that He is for me and nothing else matters. It no longer matters what suffering comes my way, I know it’s not because He chooses it for me- I’ve already chosen it for Him. I know that He is for me no matter what and will deliver me regardless of what that deliverance looks like. And I know that He will never forsake me- ever.
There’s one final thing that I now know concerning these matters.
I was sitting in class this last week singing songs and praying with everybody else in the DTS. As I looked around the room I saw so many reactions to the feeling that God was there in the room with us. I saw people lifting their hands, people swaying, people with their eyes closed, people with their heads down. Something occurred to me in that moment- these people came from so many different homes, environments and cultures within Africa, yet all of them were changed by the same hope that we all had experienced and were even then experiencing.
They were being changed- I had seen change in every one of them since starting the DTS. They were mostly the kids whose parents thought weren’t going to make it in life- the tough, rebellious kids. And here they were, worshiping the Lord in full reverence of who He is and everything He has been to them so far.
I realized then that He is the change in them- in us. We all have been changed by Him in such drastic ways…It had never been more evident to me than in that moment. Because He loves us so much…He believes in us whether we believe in Him or not.
For God chose what is low and despised in the world, the things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are…that verse was once spoken about me. Now I see how it is true for others as well. These kids in the slums of Nairobi…It is very evident that most of them aren’t going to live that long.
I’m scared of just giving up the choice of living a long life. Those kids don’t even have that choice. I’m scared of giving up my hopes and dreams, my choice to seek happiness with a husband and children of my own one day. Those kids don’t even have that choice. I’m scared of giving up the choice to gain wealth and security. Those kids don’t even have that choice.
What do I have that I can’t give up for them? The truth is I have nothing that I can’t give up for them so that they can have the hope that I have. So that one day they will lack nothing, but will dance on streets of gold that’ll look cheap compared to the joy of knowing their Maker and belonging to a family that will never die; cheap compared to never going hungry again, never worrying or fearing, never shedding another tear.
For the joy of seeing hope in just one person I am willing to give up my hopes. For the joy of seeing one person gain laughter I am willing to shed more tears. For the joy of seeing one person love another selflessly I am willing to be hated. For the joy of seeing children believe that God has a future for them I am willing to give up my future. I am willing to give up this life that they may have eternal life.
Is that such a small price for me to pay? No, I don’t believe it is. Even Jesus was afraid for His life:
“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name!”
He knew what it was worth, and now so do I.
I understand so much more about laying down my life now and the value of surrendering in Jesus’ name. I’ve seen it in action, and with this trip to Kenya I will hopefully get to see it in action even more.
“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
-Philippians 1:20-21
All of this isn’t to say that I’m not going to see my family again or get married and have a family of my own or anything. It just means that it’s in God’s hands, and I’m trusting Him with whether I do or don’t. And all of this isn’t to say that going to die (breathe, mom. Just breathe), it just means that I’m going to die to myself from now on. And I know that whether here or in heaven such an act will cause even my greatest hopes to be fulfilled in ways more beautiful and incredible than I can imagine.
“’Sir,’ they said, ‘we would like to see Jesus.’ Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
Jesus replied, ‘the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life in this world will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My father will honor the one who serves me.”
-John 12: 21a-26
