Retained
Energy
Soon
To-be-needed
Lynn and I enjoyed a wonderful 7 days on the Mozambique coast. This is the first time in a very long time we have taken that many days off at one time and just rested. Well at least I did, Lynn worked on her English health manual a fair amount of the time, but she did so without distraction, so that was refreshing for her.
Amazingly four weeks have already passed since then and each one of them needed some of that “retained energy.”
The first of these weeks we spent in South Africa purchasing a trailer, lots of building material for the training center and Mercy Air house, and picking up a few thousand books for our leadership training program. After all the effort of sourcing and purchasing these supplies, the biggest challenge was the importation of it all into Mozambique and then the transport of it to the mission here in central Moz. That took another week of frustration and effort and certainly drained a little more of that “retained energy.”
We arrived back on Saturday evening only just in time to start welcoming all the pastors and leaders arriving from different parts of the country for an intensive training time. Early Sunday morning the bell rang (our door bell that is) but it may as well have been the bell signaling the next round! The bulldozer was already on site ripping and clearing the airstrip site and they needed my input. It is a good thing that the day of rest is something we (many of us anyway) understand as a state of being rather than the cessation from work cause otherwise I am in trouble and so is every other pastor, nurse, farmer (etc.) out there.
This past week flew passed with very early mornings to monitor progress on the airstrip, welcome a huge grader on site, and then teaching almost all day every day. Oh and did I mention that we arrived back just in time to find our litchi trees laden with fruit ready to sell and distribute to the orphans and others. Needless to say, when fruit is ripe, it is ripe and it is not going to wait for you to have seminars or build airstrips. So the new trailer was put to work immediately loaded with fruit to sell to travelers passing by the mission. What a blessing to have the income which provides a number of jobs for our mission staff and is a contact point for relationships and influence which is what our life’s work is all about.
If you are one of the unlucky souls who never learned to take a holiday, learn to, because the energy I have had after a good rest has been absolutely amazing. I do know that many are praying for us and I am one of those who believe this makes the difference. But rest is critical for our physical parts and it seems that although we do need hard work to keep us healthy, we also need times of rest.
And regarding rest, one of the things in life that I am continually learning is to “rest in Him.” For those not familiar with religious language, “resting in God” is hard to explain any other way. Three simple words, but they are pretty loaded. They include the idea of 1. Accepting and trusting that God has paid for our sin and from His perspective has done everything possible to restore us into a relationship with Him. 2. Learning to totally trust that the God who loves us is working out a perfect, awesome and beautiful plan with our lives regardless of the trials and tragedies we face.
As I walked the airstrip under construction and talked over the strategy with the equipment managers and worried how we are going to get the levels right and fill the BIG holes, I have purposefully had to rest in Him. I am constantly driven by the huge benefit, added value and expanded capability to connect people and empower people the airstrip will give us. And in my weak moments remember that “faith is defined not by the absence of all doubt, but by the presence of action!” (not sure who said it but it stuck with me).
We received news of the passing of two dear friends this past week. They will be sorely missed and we weep with their families. But they now rest in the presence of the One they trusted and we will see them again one day.
Hey… get some rest…It will do you lots of good and give you the soon-to-be-needed energy for the challenges ahead.
