Four score divided by 80 fortnights ago, I set out for this whole World Race thing. And I've yet to blog anything...until now. I haven’t forgot you all (just some of you…I think… I don’t remember)…
I just don’t feel inspired to write. I haven’t and honestly I still don’t, but here I am typing away in the church enveloped by the sounds of overly loud motorcycles and trucks puttering outside the window of the church where we are staying and the sound of singing children in the next room… and of course some Needtobreathe from my computer.
I just don’t feel inspired to write. I haven’t and honestly I still don’t, but here I am typing away in the church enveloped by the sounds of overly loud motorcycles and trucks puttering outside the window of the church where we are staying and the sound of singing children in the next room… and of course some Needtobreathe from my computer.
Before I really begin let me say this… The church body here is super hospitable and wonderful. They are greatly in tune with community and sharing things as each has need to a degree that is encouraging to see anyone reach. And my team is absolutely wonderful (understatement)… so far at least ha. So in spite of what message the rest of this blog MIGHT send (if misinterpreted) I am incredibly blessed.
That being said, the truth is… we've been in the Dominican Republic since the 13th of January and I quite honestly don’t know what to think or feel. I haven’t felt a lot in terms of what I expect that you might expect. I've not had this incredibly wonderful or breaking experience. I've just had an experience. It’s not been bad by any means, there have been many fun and tiring days, and of course the occasional frustrations that come from a language barrier and children screaming at us through caged windows like zoo animals, “Americanos! Americanos!” And of course, there’s the occasional desire to backhand Dominican boys and “men” when they whistle and “spppp” at the women on our team when we walk by.
It’s possibly surprising that in the midst of an experience and trip of a lifetime I don’t “feel” anything extra special or extra crazy. I don’t “feel” God any more than I have in the past, and honestly many times I “feel” Him less. But maybe that’s the point. I serve a God that’s bigger than my feelings, or lack thereof, and bigger than my view of what He even feels like. I've felt him in very hair tingling ways in my life, but honestly as a Christian inundated with the contemporary worship culture I've come to experience God in but ONE of the many ways He is experienced, and my subconscious has become naive enough to think that it has an exhaustive understanding of what God feels like. No doubt I intellectually know this to be foolish, but it doesn't stop me from having that uneasy guilty feeling that I must not be doing something right to not be feeling God in the same ways that I have in the past. But in the end that’s garbage.
So what have I found here in the Dominican Republic so far? I've found a familiar foe, my pride. I find it in the feeling that I feel guilty that I haven’t felt my standard of what God “feels” like. I find it in my feeling that I have a right to privacy to escape the children, which has sometimes turned into a borderline bad attitude. (It’s just that… at times… they are so annoying… and the last couple of days we worked with them those times became more frequent).
But in spite of all these things I am blessed to know that I serve a God bigger than the pride that sticks to me like the gross sweat I wake up with every morning. I serve a God bigger than my lack of “feeling,” and bigger than my understanding of what “feeling” Him is. I serve a God bigger than all my crap and imperfections. This doesn't mean I should feel comfortable resting in those faults, but that I can have confidence and thankfulness in the One that continues patiently and steadfastly love me while I continue to figure things out. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe not “feeling” God is the way to “feel” God.
