To Infinity and Beyond

I’ve been really struggling to write lately. I can’t tell you how many blog posts I have begun to write only to abandon it, partially written.

Truth be told, it has been a tough couple of months of waiting, learning, and trusting. But it has also been good season of growth. Jesus has been teaching me so much about so many different things and it has been a struggle to fully express my thoughts and emotions at any given time.

I won’t share everything with you –  ain’t nobody got time for that. 

But I’ll share a little piece.

Since I got home in January my sister’s dog, Buzz Lightyear (Buzz for short), has been my little companion. He is part lab and part basset hound – imagine a lab whose legs were chopped off at the knees and body stretched out a bit.

Anyways when I moved back home I made it a priority to take him for a walk regularly. Now it is our little habit and we walk around our neighborhood just about every day.  

You’d think with this many walks Buzz would be pretty good at walking on a leash. But that would be false. I’m pretty sure I have rope burn on my hand from taking him out earlier today. He gets excited by things he sees up ahead (neighbors and bunnies) and he tries to pull ahead to get to them. He stops every few seconds to sniff a blade of grass or something gross. He loves to stop and eat the grass – not just any grass but the tall floppy grass that missed a few mows – even though he always immediately throws it back up. Sometimes something behind us grabs his attention and he continually turns around and stops walking to check it out (this is actually a little unnerving since we have coyotes that roam the area and a possible panther sighting a few weeks ago).

Recently on a walk with Buzz I felt a little frustration that after six months He hasn’t learned to walk on a leash well, that the only time he willingly walked by my side without pulling is when he was tired.

In that moment I felt that there was some comparison to my walk with the Lord in that situation.

How many times am I not content with where I am and eager to run ahead to the next new thing, I get distracted, I look behind and anxieties and fears consume me, and sometimes I stumble into the same temptation and sin that makes me sick each time I turn to it.

Thankfully Jesus doesn’t respond in frustration. He never grows impatient with me. He never gives up on me. He gently nudges me and draws me back to the path we are walking together.

As I thought about this and processed this image the Lord gave me, I knew there was a piece I was missing. I hadn’t seen everything He wanted me to see in it.

Another day, on another walk with Buzz the revelation came. I was in a hurry, wanting to be sure he still got some exercise, but I had somewhere to be and I was walking faster than normal to be sure I made it back in time. But Buzz was just frolicking along, enjoying being outside and sniffing all the smells.

And that is when it hit me. Buzz is so unconcerned with the path we take, the time it takes to get there – he is just happy to be outside with me. He would gladly go where ever I led us. Yes, he gets excited or distracted but he is thoroughly enjoying his time with me.

I want to live more like that. To be content just to be with Jesus, trusting Him with each step, not rushing ahead to the next exciting thing on horizon, to not be so focused on the destination that I lose sight of the beauty of the process.

I came into this time of support raising viewing it as a means to an end. I was here just to build the team of people who would partner with me in the ministry I will be doing in the Philippines. I came in with an expectation of how long that would take and I was very wrong. There have been days when I felt frustrated to still be in this process, but the truth is that the Lord is doing so much more than I could have anticipated. This season wasn’t just about getting from point A to point B, it has been about the Lord working in my heart and preparing me for the Philippines.

He is far more concerned with who we become in the process than getting us to our destination in the shortest amount of time.