Things are Going Well

Working together, not having a room alone, having a busy schedule, being sore, exhaustion, living with many people while doing something for God and others is probably the single greatest catalyst in my spiritual growth.  Mission trips are like Angel Food (a once a month project) on steriods for 6 days.

Being with the people, lacking alone time, and adjusting to a group requires extra time with God to do well and to survive.  The spiritual warfare pushes the need for God even more.  Then pile on real exhaustion, and schedule change - you get it.

This is why most people simply avoid things that push them.  We all want to have the best production from our spiritual lives but we want the novella without any character development.  We want our field to produce huge crops (40, 50, or 100 times the seed sown) but we do not want the field to be plowed, the clumps broken up, the rocks removed and manure mixed into our lives.  The development of the soil is as important as the exposure to the Seed and the Water.

Trips like these are so fun - creating memories beyond imagination.  I don't always want to go and I am not always comfortable but my field gets plowed.  I am better today having opted for the novel and not the Cliff Notes in my spiritual life.