Recently, I was listening to a class online taught by Sion Alford of Gateway Church. He was talking about our journeys as Christians, about the promises of God vs. the will of God. He said something that shocked me, really. He said “The promise of God is not the will of God.” I was taken aback at first. How could he say something like that?? What could he possibly mean? However, as he expanded on what he had said, I began to understand his meaning and it has changed my view on life (a big statement to make, I know). The promises that God gives us are incentives as we go on our journey. They give us something to look forward to as we go through the struggles of life, the ones God plants in our journeys to make us more like Him. It is much like a parent who promises their child ice cream, but only after they have cleaned the garage. The promise is before that child as they clean the garage, but the will of the parent was for them to clean the garage all along.
My journey has not always been an easy one but I am so grateful for that. I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for the difficulties I have had to go through, whether self-inflicted or otherwise. I look back and see how God was teaching me to depend on Him through it all. It is becoming easier to have a situation that looks bleak come up and automatically turn to Christ for answers (though it is certainly not always the case). So it has been with this trip. The opportunity to serve with Wipe Every Tear came seemingly out of nowhere and now I am going, though it has not come easily.
It all began as I was just finishing a book called “No Longer a Slumdog” by K.P. Yohannon when I began to cry uncontrollably. To think that there are 27 million slaves in the world today and the church is how big? I prayed that night with anger in my heart, not at God, but at the injustice I saw and the seeming hopelessness of the situation. “How can this be?!” I cried to Him. “How can it be that You said You came to set the captives free and yet so many are bound??” I knew the answer even as I asked the question. Having been raised in church, I knew that it was the church that God had left to bring God’s kingdom to this earth, to spread His fame and make Him known. So I asked Him to use me. “I know I’m just one person and I am so small in a number so large, but if You can, please use me,” I pleaded. A couple days later, my friend invited me to look at this ministry called Wipe Every Tear that helps young women caught in the sex trade in the Philippines. I immediately started praying and invited several people I love and respect spiritually to join me in prayer and fasting. After several days, I felt that God was saying “Go.”
Since that “go,” I have seen God’s hand as He has provided (despite some doubts and discouragement at times) and He has been with me the whole way. Without Him, I am certainly nothing. I have seen in the journey of only a few months how God has taught me and continues to teach me so many lessons, primarily trust and dependance on Him.
I can’t believe that in a few short days, I will be boarding a plane to go to the Philippines. It hasn’t sunk in yet, I know. There are still a few days so I know that there are lessons yet to be learned before I step onto that plane. That’s the beauty of being a disciple of Christ: we never stop learning!
I am grateful for my journey.
