The Call to Obedience

Well my friends, we have surpassed the halfway point of my time in Albania. Time has truly flown by as I look back at all that has happened and all we’ve been busy with. This month has been strictly manual labor, which as you can imagine has certainly been hard on us both physically and spiritually – I can’t even imagine what my body would look like without the never ending scratches, bruises, scrapes, and bites that cover me now.

Our ministry contact is called LightForce International. LightForce has locations in Albania, Uganda, and India. The Albania location provides kids camps to children in the area as well as to children from impoverished regions. It also has a farm – here’s where the labor comes in – that is financially self sustaining and also provides funds for the LightForce school in Uganda and hospital in India. So basically our job for the past few weeks has been helping out on the farm scooping poop, scrubbing goat pens, and cleaning pig pens.

I’ll be very honest with you, I was pretty disappointed when I first learned that all we would be doing for the next month was scooping poop. I was beyond excited to go into this country proclaiming Jesus’ Name, singing His praises for all to hear. Yet here I found myself standing in a smelly goat pen, holding a pitchfork and asking God, “Is this really all you have for me here?”

One of my go to verses, really what has been the motto of my life is Romans 8:28, “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who were called according to His purpose.” Something I am fully convinced of in my life and in all of your lives is that God is sovereign, and He is faithful. While there was a part of me that wanted to say to God, “Are you serious? I came all this way, raised all these funds, just to get here and find that what you have for me is literally just a pile of crap?” But there is also the part of me that says, “Ok God, this doesn’t look like much. But I know You’re sovereign, and I know You’re faithful. Reveal what you have for me here.” I think I owe it to my team and the great community we have here for pushing me to pursue the latter.

So I pushed into God. And He pulled me in. I found an intimacy with God that I had never truly experienced before. It’s raw, it’s genuine, it’s tangible, it’s real. I found myself getting up earlier and earlier to spend more time with Him and then finishing off my night worshipping alone out in the dark. I found my self pouring into my teammates, being vulnerable with them, and cultivating those deep intimate relationships – which if you know me, is actually a pretty big deal. But I was still waiting on that big moment. That moment that God’s power is manifested in a way that leaves people speechless. When He comes in and heals the sick, casts out demons, or fills new believers with His Spirit. And that moment still hasn’t come.

The other day I was expressing this disappointment, this confusion as to why God hadn’t done anything huge yet to a teammate. When I had finished, she asked two questions, “Has God done anything huge in you? Has He done anything huge in your relationships with your teammates?”
The answer is obviously a resounding yes. This entire trip has been a big moment. It has been huge for my relationship with God and my relationships with others. I came here to minister to others, but God brought me here to minister to me. Now I realize that He wants to do those big things through me. This whole time I’ve been waiting on Him to do these amazing things out of the blue, but He’s been waiting on me to be ready to do them through me.

So here we go. Month two. Four weeks remaining. Four weeks to live in complete obedience to God. Four weeks to make the huge impact I’ve been waiting for. Four weeks to hear His voice, and act on it without hesitation. I don’t want to miss a single thing He has for me here. As a good friend of mine would say, “Pursue the Pull.” Pray for obedience, pray for boldness, pray for me to act on God’s pull without hesitation. In the month of July we have two kids camps: one this coming week and one the last week we are here. Pray for the kids, pray for open hearts, and most of all pray with expectancy that the Spirit will move through my teammates and I in miraculous ways.

God has something out there for each and every one of us. He wants to do something amazing through all of us. We may not be able to see it now, but it’s out there waiting for us. I encourage you to walk in complete obedience to Him because He will use you for great things!

God bless!

Seth P