Hello Friends! I have officially been in Costa Rica for 6 days now. It has been 6 days filled with so so much… 33 people living together on the ministry base… Countless hours of worship, alone time, and journaling… Opportunities to meet and start serving with our ministry partner here (Ocean’s Edge)… Nonstop, challenging conversations within community… Lots of sunsets on the beach.
Ministry so far has been mainly construction and painting around the ministry base. We have also started to clean up some local parks. Due to COVID, we have been extra cautious before we enter the community. So, tomorrow (Tuesday the 19th) we are starting to partner with our actual ministries. We will be doing all kinds of things: Painting murals around town, homeless ministry, surfing ministry, teaching Sunday school, helping train people at a business school, and more.
Those are the basic details, but here is what has stood out from our first week. The Lord has so much in store for this year than I thought. Truthfully, I have a lot of experience in ministry. I think I walked in with a pretty good idea of what I thought this year was going to look like, but the Lord has completely flipped that on its head.
With as much humility as I can say this, I have been seen as a man who walks in a ton of knowledge and maturity with the Lord. But the Father has me really wrestling through questions that I haven’t wrestled with in years. I can’t tell you the last time I felt like I had an extended season of really wrestling with God. This year is not going to be about crazy theological revelations. This year is going to be about getting things from my head to my heart.
Here is what has happened so far… Everything from my last blog has been deepened even further. The cost of that uncertainty has only deepened. The Lord brought me to Genesis 22 the other day. It is the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac. I have shared this before, but it went even deeper this week. It also hit a lot more personal this week.
There is a biblical construct that the first place a word is used in scripture serves as the foundation for defining that word. Everything else builds off that first use. Well, Genesis 22 contains the first use of the word worship as well as the first use of the word love. I don’t think it is a coincidence that these 2 words get defined for the first time together.
The word love that is used is ‘ahab’. It is used to describe the way that Abraham loves Isaac. The first place that love is used in scripture is tied to the love of a father for his son. But, it goes SO much deeper. Isaac wasn’t just Abraham’s only son. Isaac represented the only possibility and hope for the Lord to fulfill His promise to Abraham. Isaac was seemingly Abraham’s only chance to step into the promise that he would be a father of many nations. And what does the Lord do? He asks Abraham to kill Isaac. To kill the only hope Abraham had for God to prove Himself trustworthy. He asks Abraham to ignore every single instinct he had to protect his son.
AND God asks Abraham to do it at a place named Moriah. That words literally means “Seen by God”. The Father didn’t ask Abraham to kill Isaac at a place named “Forgotten by God’, “Abandoned by God”, or “Punished by God”. It is this idea of the Lord saying, “Even if you think Isaac is the only way, I still see you. I will still be faithful to My promise… even if that makes no sense to you… it is who I am. Mysterious and faithful”
Then the first place worship is used comes 2 verses later. Abraham takes what must have been the most brutal 68 mile journey of all time. 68 miles and 3 days thinking about how the heck he could possibly kill his son. They finally reach the mountain, and Abraham turns to his servants. He tells them to stay put because he is about to go WORSHIP on the mountain with Isaac. The word for worship is shachah. It doesn’t mean to happily sing songs. The word means to bow down, or fall flat, in reverence. Worship is tied to DEEP sacrifice. It is laying down what our minds and hearts struggle to believe to declare what is true. He is GOOD.
The story goes on and Isaac is spared. The entirety of the situation I wrote about in the last blog feels like I am Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac… except I don’t know if Isaac gets spared in my case or not. Let me tell you, that is HARD. It is scary. It is heartbreaking. But I know that it is good.
That place of Moriah ended up being marked by this for the rest of history. 1000 years later, David builds another altar here to save the Israelites from a plague. Solomon’s temple ends up being built here. And most scholars believe this region is where Jesus himself was crucified. It came full circle. Where Isaac was spared, Jesus wasn’t.
But this place was marked forever by the faithful yes of a determined worshipper. A father who was willing to lay down his everything just because God asked him to.
And so that is what I have been challenged with. Not some deep theological truth. A simple question from the Lord: “Are you convinced that I am GOOD? Are you so convinced that you are willing to trust me with laying down your Isaac?”
I wish I could tell you that my heart instantly says yes to that. But the truth is that I am still wrestling. The truth is that I am still working on getting that from my head to my heart.
Cool testimony time: We had our own church service yesterday. A sweet friend made the decision to give me a break. She felt like church shouldn’t continue to rely on the same people to lead with worship and truth. So, she stepped up and led. Let me tell you it was so so cool. She ended up sharing on dang near exactly what I had planned to share on. And she did it in such a beautiful, authentic, and vulnerable way. Through that, the Lord revealed some purpose in this current season. He revealed some false identities that I thought were completely healed that actually aren’t fully healed yet (that will be a future blog). Afterwards, we hiked up a mountain and this friend shared how much what I am currently walking through is helping her. The Lord is using my struggle and heartache to bring healing to a friend. And that is so incredibly beautiful.
So in short, the first week has been HARD. There have been many tears. There has been lots and lots of wrestling. But I see so so so much beauty on the horizon. I have absolutely no idea how long this wrestling is going to continue, but I am becoming more and more okay with that. I am finding more and more contentment in the process of getting truth from my head to my heart.
My overarching prayer continues to be this: “Lord so convince me of Your goodness, that trusting is easy”
Love y’all!
