Why do I always feel like God is disappointed in me? And other musings at 4am.

So, I'm packing to leave for East Asia in a few hours and wanted to post some prayer requests.  And as I thought about the trip, the first thing that came to mind was, wow, I hope the missionary we are going over there to support isn't disappointed in me/us.  What if she thinks I'm not spiritually mature enough to be there?  What if she thinks, this chick should have just stayed home for all the good she's doing?  From there my thoughts wandered to...maybe God won't even use me because I didn't prepare enough. Because I didn't have enough quiet times.  What if He's disappointed in me, too?  I'm familiar with that emotion, so I thought, I need a good dose of grace right now...a good reminder that I don't have to earn my way into God's favor.  I checked for the latest Tullian Tchividjian blog, and he didn't disappoint.  Here's an excerpt:

Having talked to many, many Christians over the years, I know for a fact that a lot of them (like Genna) think that God is perpetually disappointed with them. Maybe it’s time the church spends more energy reminding Christians that God’s love for them is not dependent on what they do or don’t do, but rather on what Christ has done for them. For, as Luther said so well, “God does not love sinners because they are attractive; sinners are attractive to God because he loves them.

Very timely, eh?  Not that I shouldn't have spent time alone with God or prepared to go on this trip.  But God is not looking at me with a smirk, saying, call me when you've got your crap together.  God uses all sorts of screwed up people in the Bible to do great things...so that HE gets the glory, they don't.  So that His power is made perfect in my weakness.

Anyway, here are the prayer requests that started this tangent:

* Please pray that our team will have conversational opportunities to share the gospel.  Ideally, "Hi, Stranger from the US; can you tell me what you believe?"  If it's not that easy, please pray that we are bold!

* Pray that God will open the minds and hearts of everyone we come in contact with so that they see His truth!

* Pray that we will be an encouragement to the missionary we going over to support.

* Pray that my family and fiance (will blog about that soon!) will not miss me too much over Christmas.

* And finally, practically, please pray that we make all of our flights, are rested, don't get sick, are able to use the strange toilets, and that I don't keep my roommate up every night snoring. I'm serious about that.  I'm worried.

Thank you all for your support - whether it was monetary, encouragement, or prayers.  All mean so much to me.  And Merry Christmas!  I'll end with an excerpt from a blog post my pastor wrote in the wake of the recent school shooting:

Behold the cross, and see the goodness of God: He is present amidst evil. Oh, the wonder of what we celebrate at Christmas. God Himself enters an evil, sin-sick world and lives among a sin-sick rebellious people. A people who reject Him—who reject Christ, God in the flesh—and nail Him to a cross. And God Himself, in His Son, takes all the payment and punishment due sin and evil in your life and my life upon Himself.

My trip is now paid for. And yet again I have a good story about it.  

First – this is what I had written at 6:30pm on Monday night:

I only have $840 to go!  $340 needed by the 6pm service this Sunday 10/28 (yes, they were that specific), and then $500 by 11/18.  I don’t know why I doubt God when He always takes care of these trips for me.  Typing that sentence I am convicted because I didn’t leave it with, “always takes care of me.”  I was specific in how I perceive God providing for me. I believe he has taken care of my mission trips in the past.  But do I believe that He really takes care of me in every way and all the time?  Possible future blog topic.

There is no update to the unexplained fudge on my apartment door.  I do not believe someone is out to poison me. I also do not believe it was a surprise from a friend, as few people know where I live (Hospitality is not one of my official Spiritual Gifts.) Therefore, the only logically explanation is that somebody got the wrong door and meant to poison my neighbor.  Ha!  

I am thinking about considering possibly maybe blogging about my efforts to spend some time alone with God each day (in the Southern Baptist world, this is Having a Quiet Time. I do think people can be legalistic about QTs.  I don’t want to do something because “good” Christians do it. Or to check something off a To Do list.  Or so I can tell my mentor that I had one.  But I do want to hear from God.  

I’m jealous because God talks to my bf Kevin.   (When I typed boyfriend I felt like I was in 7^th grade, so I changed it to “bf” because that sounds SO much mature, right?)  God told Kevin not too long ago to buy me a laptop.  When all he wanted to do was pick up some toilet paper at Walmart.  When he said, "Hey boy," (that’s how God addresses him), "put down the toilet paper and go look at the computers," it was about much more than God telling him to be generous and thoughtful.    It was God telling Kevin to put his money where his mouth was.  Because having your girlfriend go on a mission trip right on top of our first Christmas together…when he had fun plans for us to visit our families together, participate in my annual nursing home caroling event, go to a Christmas Eve service together, watch my niece and nephew and his kids unwrap presents…well, that’s hard to hear.  And although Kevin told me he was fine with it, God knew he was harboring some resentment.  So as he weighed the benefits of Charmin versus Cottonelle, God said, "Boy, if you say you love her, you will support her 100% percent, with your words and your heart."  He also said, "Boy, if you love ME the way you say you do, you will WANT her to go on this trip."

He knew my ancient desktop had died recently, and I was trying to raise money for this trip but needed a computer, too.  So after trying to ignore God, which is pretty much impossible, he gave up and obediently proceeded to the electronics department and bought me a brand new laptop.  It was his way of telling me...and God...I am “all in” with this.

I wish God spoke as tangibly to me.  But it probably helps that Kevin dedicates a good amount of time to studying the Bible and praying.  So what’s holding me up?  Why do I see it as a chore?  Why do I feel like even if I did dedicate that time to God I wouldn’t hear from him?

I started the book, Anything, by Jennie Allen last night. She talks about saying to God, what do you want from me?  I’ll do anything.  What do you want me to let go of, do, give up, change?  And how praying that prayer changed her life.  As I walked into work this morning I told God, I want to pray that, but I’m not even sure if you are listening.  Are you real?     

So that’s what I had written at 6:30pm on Monday night.

At 7pm God was real to me.

At 7pm the rest of my mission trip was paid for, in one lump sum from a completely unexpected source.  So unexpected that I really feel like it was God sending me a message.  Not just that he will always take care of my needs. But it was Him saying, hey, don’t doubt I’m here.  Don’t doubt I’m going to use you.   I see you.  And with that confirmation came a kick in the pants.  I had been feeling like God is mildly disappointed in me the majority of the time.  Like he says, Seriously, Laura?  You haven’t progressed any further as a Christian?  And I’ve been feeling like he was going to finally get fed up and teach me an unpleasant lesson.  But like Jon Acuff says in a recent blogpost, what kind of God am I imagining?  One that is just sitting back waiting for me to screw up again and then smite me while saying, See? I told you to obey me. 

But no, he gave me a kick in the pants in the kindest, most loving way.  With that that check for $1000, he showed me, I’m going to use you, and you need to be prepared. Don’t keep wasting your time.  I have things for you to do.

Can't you just see me in an Indiana Jones hat?

I wanted to trek through jungles sporting an Indiana Jones-ish hat.  Or maybe climb mountains to reach remote villages, returning home with a Jillian Michaels body.   Oh, the difficult decisions when researching Brook Hills mission trip offerings last year; how would I decide which country I wanted to see the most?

Was it possible my motives were not ideal?

So, I didn’t go on a trip last year.  And may not have gone on one this year if I had not read this post on my friend Jenny’s blog.  So I did what she did; I asked the church what trips needed people the most instead of asking myself where I wanted to go.  I got an email back saying we need people on a trip to India, and by the way, would you lead it?  You would just need to be very organized, reliable, and make sure everything runs smoothly during the trip.

Flash back to the fall of 2010.  To help my friend, Dave, who’s leading the mission trip to Cuba I’m on, I have offered to keep up with all the money, receipts, and monetary transactions.  We have a layover in Mexico, and I’m enjoying a great quiet time on the terrace outside the hotel.  A little later we are gathered in Dave’s room for a team devotional.  Someone is sharing verses on worry.  I think smugly, I’m not one of those anxious travelers.  I’m easy-going and flexible!  I’m not worried about customs, flying, or being questioned as we enter Cuba; I’m not worried about anything!

Oh crap.  Where’s the money?  Where is my adorable Kavu purse that makes me look young and hip?  Where’s my adorable Kavu purse that has ALL THE MONEY FOR OUR TRIP IN IT?  It’s on the terrace of a slightly sketchy hotel in Mexico.  That’s where it is.  Ok, if I run out of the room right now I’ll have to confess my egregious mistake to Dave, and he will a) retract my money handling duties, thus adding more stress to his life or b) he will want to retain his faith in me but will worry the entire time about my reliability.  I sit on the bed, cold sweat pouring down my back, feeling sick with…worry. Yes, I am WORRIED. We finally finish the longest prayer in the history of prayers, and I make a mad dash to the lobby of the hotel.  I am waved down by a hotel attendant who is holding my purse. With all of the money intact, not to mention my passport.  And Dave remains confident in my ability to assist him. 

No, maybe I’m not the best person to lead a trip to India.  So, like the responsible person I am, I ignore the email.  Because although I do believe I could keep up with the trip money (I never, ever took that purse off except right before I slipped under the covers at night. And I put it back on when I sat up in bed the next morning), leading a trip scared me.  But after a few weeks, I do email back and find that the trip is already full.  In fact, the Brook Hills website has no more open trips for 2012. Well, maybe next year.

Then I get an email asking if I’m interested in a trip to East Asia over Christmas. It’s a very small team, and the purpose is to support a university teacher there who is a believer.  She hosts gatherings in her home for students who are atheists, Muslim, and Buddhist, where the students practice their English, socialize and study the Bible. The students are very interested in American culture, and she has requested that a team come over during Christmas to have Christmas parties, with the goal of sharing the Gospel as the team talks about American holiday traditions.

From what I understand, most of the students in this culture give little thought to what happens after they die, and the Gospel is a foreign concept to them. The team will help the partner strengthen relationships with the students she is investing her life in.

I’ll leave the process of how I came to say yes to the trip for my next post.  In the meantime, if you would like to support me, I have to come up with $2500 for airfare, housing, and food, with $2000 of it due October 21^st.  Yep, that’s a lot. Yep, that’s soon.  If you were even thinking about getting me a Christmas present, please feel free to donate that money early to my trip!  The donation will:

·         Increase your tax return.

·         Give you warm fuzzy feelings inside knowing you are helping in the spread of the Gospel to college students who have never heard* of Jesus.

·         Give you permission to ask me (after November, please) to buy junk stuff that your kids are selling at school.

·         Make you more invested in the trip, thus causing you to pray more for me. Because if you are going to give me your hard earned dollars, then you are going to want to make SURE God does something great with our team and those students, right?

*Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”  Romans 10:13-15

See the sidebar about how to donate.  And stayed tuned for the next post; I’m back!