The hard road and the good gifts along the way...

Since the beginning of my time here in Namibia, I have continued to be amazed at the way God delights to give good gifts to His children. There have been many hard days—days of feeling clueless, helpless, inadequate, days of missing home so much it hurts. Sometimes the hardest thing about those days is knowing that Christ has not called us to an easy road, or a comfortable life…He has called us to take up our cross and follow Him (a hard but not joyless road). Knowing that, because I follow Christ, hard is going to continue to define my life for the rest of my life is often difficult to swallow. Deep down inside of me, though, that’s what I want because looking to the JOY, the reward set before us, makes the “hard life” seem like no sacrifice at all. And that’s how it should be.

To live radically, following Christ at any cost to self, and to still be able to say at the end of it, “I never made a sacrifice,” because Christ and His presence is beyond worth it. We trade all that we have for all that is BETTER.

Knowing that hard is good, that God has my best interests at heart and is always working for my good means that any sense of entitlement I might have that things should be better must go out the window. Instead, the accurate response should be an awareness of my sin, and that I have earned NOTHING, I deserve NOTHING from the king of the universe.

And yet, even though that couldn’t be more true, the great king of the universe still delights to give good gifts to His children…to provide for their needs, to satisfy the desires of their hearts. He does all those things by giving us HIMSELF.

It’s an amazing thing to be aware of how much you don’t deserve it, and yet still receive His grace… His love without condition. God has been so, so good to me, and I am often most aware of this on the days that feel the hardest. Because even in the midst of it, God offers His presence to me in ways that I never would have expected.

Whether it be the beauty of the stars in a cloudless Namibian night sky, an encouraging e-mail from home, the smiles of the kids at school, a sweet conversation with one of the high schoolers, a good laugh with a best friend, a long run, a great song, fellowship with my team, or even just waking up with JOY, God has been giving me sweet gifts, even on the hard days. Especially on the hardest days. And I have never been more sure than I am now that the sweetest of all these gifts is the awareness of the PRESENCE of Jesus in all of these things.

When God opens my eyes to His goodness (and believe me, I am dependent on Him to even make me aware of it), there is nothing but gratitude no matter what is going on around me. Whatever He’s doing, I can rest in the truth that He is GOOD and longs to satisfy His children with the gift of Himself.

Thank you, Jesus, for BEING our reward, our hope, our help in times of need, our comforter, and the source of every good and perfect gift. May the good gifts of life, joy, comfort, hope, community, and creation ALWAYS, always point us to the Giver.

And for my faithful prayer supporters, here are some ways you can be praying:

-We are nearing the end of the school year here…pray that my last two weeks with the kids provide opportunities to teach them awesome truths about Christ that they can understand. Pray for the kids—that they would know and experience the love of Christ this Christmas, no matter what their life is like at home.

-The high schoolers that we have been spending time with will soon be going home for Christmas and summer holiday (its one in the same here!), so pray that the these last two weeks with them will be great time of continued relationship building and conversations about how Christ transforms our lives.

-For wisdom and creativity as we brainstorm how to best reach the high schoolers we have been building relationships with next term (we are thinking of starting a club, a discipleship group, etc.)

-Cathi and Alli (from our original U.S. team of six girls) leave for home on Sunday! We can’t believe their time here has already come to an end…pray for them, that God would give them peace to leave and a sense that He has used them here.

Thank you for your encouragement, your faithful prayers…they are one more way that I find myself absolutely blown away by the goodness of our God.

Much love,
Kristen