When you go to another country to minister to people, your flaws become very obvious to (at the very least) yourself. I knew I could be self-centered (I mean I do have a blog about my life...)and selfish, but man am I ever.
It's easy to minister when you get to do it on your own time, but I'm *living* in a forgin country for the purpose of ministry.
Right now, it's my life, and sometimes, I just plain don't feel like it. I suck it up and do it anyway, but it's harder when the ministry is, being available for the CG kids. I live with them. It's much easier to think "nah, I'd rather not. I don't feel like it right now.". I think about my own wants, a lot.
Now, there's nothing wrong with taking care of myself. I do need time to myself at times, but what I'm talking about goes beyond that.
This is an area I'm really being stretched in, and it's definitly good, don't get me wrong, but man... No doubt I'm human.
Shalom
One of the reasons I wanted to minister in a foreign country was because I felt like most of the time I wasn't serving God very well, and I thought if I went to minister in a foreign country, I would be serving Him all the time. That might have been wishful thinking, but I still think there might be some truth in it. Volunteering to live somewhere, if you feel God calling you there, knowing that your life will be harder there, might make everything you do there more beneficial.
ReplyDeleteSome of my flaws became obvious to me in some Internet discussions, where I was trying to practice and promote fellowship across the widest ideological divides. It took a long time for me to see it, years in fact, but finally I became aware that my posts were often full of vanity, arrogance and unkindness. I wasn't maligning and scolding people like people often do in some discussions, but still there was often a lot of unkindness in my posts. I've made a lot of progress, but I'm still struggling with all that.