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Grace and peace to you during this Holy Season…
Hello blogging world! I am attempting for the first time to contribute something to this online conversation and journey update of the Weston clan. So, here we go…
As I look at the calendar today, I can’t believe that January will quickly come to an end in a little over a week. This fact brings about several different emotions in me. Of course, we all think that January is a time for new beginnings, new starts, and new disciplines. For our family, “new beginnings” was an understatement to how we looked at January 2010! As those of you reading probably already know, January 2010 was to come and launch our family to Spain via Costa Rica for language school for a few months. Our proposed launch date came and went and yet here we sit in Memphis, TN. (Now if there were a place where one must wait for a while…Memphis would be at the very top of my list!!) So, one emotion to January coming to a close is a sadness and frustration at the situation. I am a planner and love setting deadlines, as those of you close to me know. Missing a deadline is usually just not an option for me! The Lord has used this time of frustration for me to continue teaching me a lesson that I have been too hardheaded to learn: Patience!
Patience, not just with my children, not just with my husband, not just with myself, but patience with the big picture of life. Patience that the Lord has such a grand plan for the world, and I am such a small piece of the puzzle. Patience to be okay that we may never know why the Lord has chosen to keep us in the States longer than we had planned. He determines our steps, not us. Proverbs 16.9 reminds us of this point. “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” Wow! Isn’t it great to know that we don’t have to worry about which way to go, because the Lord has determined our steps for us?
So, I can sit back in Memphis and relish in the other emotions that being in January brings about. Gratitude to have such a wonderful family that supports us in every aspect of life and is allowing us to interrupt their lives and homes for a few months. Humility that there are so many people and families willing to sacrifice so much for our family to follow the Lord’s calling on our lives. And most importantly, complete and utter amazement that the Lord would choose me, a broken vessel, to continue His work around the world.
So…there you have it. These are interesting days for our family. Thanks for your support. Thanks for your belief in us. Thanks for your companionship in the journey…
I saw this video on my buddy, Michael Kelley’s blog and loved it. We, too, read the Jesus Storybook every night to our boys, and this video (not mention the great accent) is a simple but profound reminder of the beauty of God with us…
For those of you who have been so faithful to pray, I wanted to post a pic of those who are our companions in this journey. Not all of them will be joining us in Spain, but all are essential parts of this movement called Pathways. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us all…
The past several weeks have been challenging ones for us pretty much across the entire arena of life. As you can see from the content of this blog, our family is involved in a relatively significant life transition…a transition which is encompassing to every facet of our lives. On top of that, we have the normal pressures of life…two delightful, but very energetic boys, a relatively consuming full-time job, the emotional rollercoaster of the current real estate market, and the list goes on and on. I’m sure you feel the same sometimes: overwhelmed, frenetic, generally just ticked off. There have been many times in the past months when I’ve really asked that the Lord just cut me a little slack…those times when everything is going wrong, and I feel like I just need one thing to go right. After all, most of the stress in our life right now is directly derived from the fact that we’re seeking to follow His guidance in our lives. It stands to reason that as that is the case, He will do His part to meet us in the middle and to make the process as painless and as efficient as possible, right? That’s a big negative.
The reality is that when following the Lord, the path that He chooses to take us on is rarely the one of least resistance. In fact, I think you could make a strong Scriptural case that contrary to our American Church culture, the way of the Lord is rarely the one that we would deem to be “efficient” or “cost-effective”. Indeed, the Lord more times than not chooses to take His children the un-efficient and oftentimes uncertain “long way.”
Exodus 13 gives us one of the clearest Biblical examples of this truth. We join the Exodus story in chapter 13 as the Israelites are celebrating a moment of long-awaited victory over the Egyptian captors. As chapter 12 closed, we see that the Lord has enacted His final plague on the people of Egypt, striking down all of their firstborn sons, while sparing the sons of the children of the Israel. Pharaoh, overwhelmed by the power of God, releases the Israelite people to Moses’ care, and 600,000 men and their families set out as the newly freed people of God, enroute to their Promised Land…the one flowing with milk and honey. After 430 years of serving the Egyptian throne, and after serving as witnesses to God’s terrifying, but awe-inspiring intervention of history on their behalf, the children of God set out to fulfill their destiny as His people.Verse 17 of this passage, however is the telling verse. Moses writes,
“When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, ‘Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.’ But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea.”
In other words, after years of oppression and the long-awaited promise of relief and the fulfillment of their destiny, the children of Israel did not get to the Promised Land via the cost-efficient, quickest route. Nor was it the route of least resistance. As any map of the Exodus will show you, the quickest easiest route was for the Israelites to basically hug the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea all the way up to Canaan. However, the actual route of the Exodus was far, far from efficient and easy. It was indeed the extremely “long way.” Fascinating, isn’t it? While most of us would agree that the Lord certainly has the right to take us the “long way” as it were, when we stop and think about it, many of us struggle to understand why the heck He would take the Israelites on such a round-about route to Canaan. It makes no sense to our efficiency-sensitive mindsets. Scripture, however, tells us that the Lord knew that the people would change their minds and return to Egypt if they were forced into battle with the Philistines who ruled the territory of the “short way.”
For those of you who, like myself, are currently being taken the “long way,” take heart. The Lord is indeed guiding your path and moving you forward, even in the moments where you feel lost , hot, and tired. Perhaps He is taking you to a majestic out-of-the way mountain, where He can reveal His glory in awe-inspiring, life-changing ways. Perhaps He is protecting you from temptations that you are not yet equipped to resist. Perhaps He is putting you in a position to more clearly see Him working both in your life and in the lives of the people around you.
For the people of Israel, surely there were those amongst them that questioned the need to traverse deserts and seas and rivers and eat manna and quail for many, many more days than was necessary. Surely there were days when the miraculous got mundane and they were simply ready to “get there,” that is, to live out their calling. Surely there were days that they forgot that their calling as children of God had nothing to do with the place where they resided, and instead had everything to do with their character in the journey.
Likewise, we do well…I do well, to remember that the trials and challenges of the “long way” are here to build endurance and character in me, which gives birth to true hope (Romans 5.4). I would do well to remember that the salvation and redemption afforded to me by Christ is never mundane and is never secondary to whatever task or destiny I perceive the Lord has called me to. Finally, I would do well to remember that it is not for ministry or even for mission that I was made, but rather, I was made to reflect His glory in all aspects of the journey. If He chooses to take me the “long way” to further refine and polish that reflection, then my response should be to praise the name of Jesus, to the glory of God the Father…
For all of you who, like myself, have made a pastime of lurking on various blogs, here is the post for you. Below is a link to Kent Shaffer’s Top 100 Church Blogs. You’ll find insight and perspective from all veins of Christian thought… from the Reformed to the Emergent. Check out a couple of the blogs and add a few to your reader…alongside this one of course.
So many of you have been great to call and text this week to inquire as to the results of the weekend. As such, it seemed appropriate to provide an update here on our little corner of cyberspace.
Unfortunately, I have no good news to offer. While we did have a few folks stop by, there were no serious potential contacts made, nor were any offers made. So…we wait. We wait in faith that the Lord provides and that He is guiding this process along in His timing. We are grateful for friends and for strangers who would stand alongside of us in prayer and ask that you would continue to do so as we continue in this God-ordained adventure.
