Stop asking...just be with me.

Going to Africa wrecks me everytime.  I told Chip, "Man, I've gotta stop going there."  Half serious.  Half kidding. 

Here's the deal about Africa.  If you've experienced brokenness in your life, Africa has a way of pouring the most sweet, healing balm over that wound.  To the point where it's as if, you were never broken.  

It's as if time stops.  You're in a new land.  New people.  And you're living in a way that you've never lived before.  So organic.  So pure.  So true.  So fulfilling.  FULLfilling.  But sometimes it can edge God out of that place in your heart, that place that is rightfully His. 

And as it's stated in Psalm 16:4 "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god..."

This is what happens when I get home.  Africa becomes such an important part of my heart, it often preempts the place in my heart that belongs to God.  My sorrows get muliplied...

I get home and all I want to do is go back.  To that land of FULLness.  I get irritable.  Easily angered.  Frustrated.  Angry.  And the cry of the orphan becomes too much for me to bear and I just seem to either 1) walk around with a dark cloud of frustration over my head or 2) I cry at the drop of a hat.

I decided to devote 2 to 3 hours / day at the prayer house for one week.  I wanted to sit before God and pour out my frustrations over Africa and the 147 million orphans in this world.  I wanted him to hear me.  And I wanted him to talk to me.

After the third day...I started hearing. 

"Life is a vapor.  Fading fast.  It will be like a dream.  All that will be remembered is love."

"Stop asking."

"Just be with me."

"I know the plans I have for you." 

"I know the plans that I have for them."

"You have to trust me."

"Just be with me."

Ok Lord.  Ok. 

And the peace that passes all understanding, that surpasses the frustration of 147 million orphans...it began to rule my heart.  I said "Ok, Lord.  I trust you.  I trust that you indeed have a plan for these precious ones."  And until you say go here, or come here and do this or that...I will be still.  Still.  I will just be with you.  And I will let your peace rule my heart.  LET.  And I will let you have the place in my heart that truly does belong to you.

"I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth, my flesh also shall rest in hope."  Psalm 16:7-9