Considering Mexico 2011- Updates and Final Thoughts

Soon this will make sense

Sometimes stuff just happens.  You forget things.  For instance, one of the joys of re-hydrating at a late dinner each night is that you wake up 3 times in the middle of the night.  I felt like a guy with prostate problems.  I forgot to share that special joy with the world.

I forgot to share some other things- my final thoughts.  But before I get there, there was an update.

I went to get my oil changed today.  I should have gotten it done last week, but life goes on.  The guys at Midas pulled me out to the garage to show me that the new tires I bought in Yuma were the wrong size.  The front tires were 215s, but these were 185s.  Glad to discover this.  The dealer had a franchise nearby, so that was my next step.  The invoice had the correct size tires listed, so I paid for the right ones.  But the guy who installed them pulled the wrong tires.  So tomorrow I go back tomorrow and have the right ones put on.  Yeah, they didn’t have the right size.  So, that was a little fun.  Not as much fun as getting up to pee 3 times a night, but fun none the less.

I had a few take aways for our slide show presentation at the church.

Significant ministry to others often requires leaving your comfort zone.  We often want to do significant ministry, but we are unwilling to leave our comfort zone.  We can’t have it both ways.  If you look at Scripture you see this pattern all the time.  The prophets were not in comfortable places while they engaged in their public ministry.  Same with the apostles.  We should not expect it to be different.  Jesus was sent into this fallen world, and so He sends us into that same fallen world.  A fallen world is full of emotional, spiritual and economic discomfort.  We will be pressed, stretched and possibly even broken in the course of significant ministry.  It is time that many of us begin to trust God and follow Jesus outside our comfort zones.

In this case, the difficulties arise from accepting the challenge of significant ministry.  To serve in Mexico we had to be willing to cross the border, stay in a less than plush hotel, do hard work we didn’t usually do, work with people who spoke a different language, etc.  We could not serve them if we weren’t willing to leave that zone we usually live in.

Significant change in you often requires leaving your comfort zone.  God often led people into the desert when He was going to change them significantly.  So often we want easy chair Christianity.  “Change me, Jesus” we say.  But then we put limitations on how that is to take place.  No, we don’t want Him to deal with our idolatry of wealth through job loss or financial set backs.  We don’t want our relationship idols to be addressed through loneliness or isolation.  We just plain don’t like to suffer, but it is through hardship that God changes us (James 1 for instance).

In this case we don’t really choose.  God, in His providence, picks the ways and times in which we leave our comfort zone.  We are not asked to choose suffering, but to suffer well when it comes.  But it still hurts and is still discouraging.  As James 1 teaches, we need the gospel promises to remain steadfast so we might become mature.

The trip to Mexico, I think, resulted in some significant ministry.  God also did some significant changes in us.  All this took place outside of the comfort zone where we had to rely on Him because it was beyond us.