I’m here!!! I’m finally here!

Here is a post I didn’t get to put up, but I wrote it the day I left:

(10/11/2010)

…going to Africa has been talk for so long.

Months of paperwork, training, and hoping, wondering, praying…now have led up to this moment…I can’t believe it’s here!

I’m waiting to board my plane in Atlanta…the chaos of packing, checking in heavy luggage….well…it’s half way over at least….and within hours, I will be at my destination. It’s no longer talk….it’s really happening!

It amazes me how the God of the universe would see fit to let me take on such a journey. As is reality for all of us citizens of His Kingdom, I am constantly reminded of my weaknesses…what feeble attempts I conjure up to try and serve Him….

And knowing that there is nothing really, good in me to bring to the table accept what He has given me…which is my salvation…the one good thing we as His children have to share w/ the world…this hope.

I wish I could go and set records on how many people I could lead to Christ…I wish I could do great things for His kingdom, paint awesome pictures that lead many to His throne, and leave a legacy of faith and obedience that would challenge others to do the same….but, at the same time, this is not about making my name great...it’s about His. And making His name known is the goal….that every knee would bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord …what will last is this eternal hope planted…what an overwhelming task…impossible in our own power…but not w/ His.

In Elisabeth Elliot’s book Shadow of the Almighty, a biography she wrote after her husband Jim was martyred in Ecuador, she writes:

“Obedience leads to knowledge. Obedience is the expression of love to God. Obedience means that we live in God. And if we live in Him, our lives bear the stamp of Christ….Those who want to know Him must walk the same path with Him. These are the ‘martyrs’ in the Scriptural sense of the word, which means simply ‘witnesses’…in life, as well as in death, we are called to be ‘witnesses’…to ‘bear the stamp of Christ.’”

So, if there is one thing we all could accomplish in our journeys ahead…may it be simple, yet very courageous, and sometimes costly obedience…it doesn’t matter what abilities we have or don’t have…what matters is our availability…and obedience…in simply witnessing…bearing the stamp.