Nevertheless...

In the course of my life there have been plenty of trials that have exercised and stretched my faith. But none of them were like those we experienced in the past four years on the missions field.

James 1:2-4

 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

There are truths in these verses that God has really been putting to the test in my life.

God brings trials into our lives because God is good!  Do you believe that?  Do you believe that God loves you enough to hand craft trials made just for you because He loves you?

 He wants your faith in Him to grow. He loves you enough to bring circumstances that will chisel away at the selfish desires, 

grind to shreds the lies that have been deceiving you, and mold and shape you into the Glory reflecting person He created you to be!

  He brings trials so that (1.) your confidence in His promises will be rock solid. (2.) So that you will get to the point where no matter what really hard thing happens which you don’t understand, you look up through tear stained eyes and whisper with blessed assurance, “God, I trust you.”  

I heard a sermon at some point during our time in Togo called “Living in the Land of Nevertheless”  I don’t remember who gave the sermon but I will never forget hearing it and the relief that it brought.  I had been fighting the trials.  I did not want to submit to the hand that was bringing the painful blows to my world. But the idea of living in the land of nevertheless was ground breaking for me.  It refers to that awesome moment in the garden of Gethsemene when Jesus was on his face before the Father. 

Matt. 26:39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” Jesus was expressing to God the truth of what He felt and wanted.  He had a will and just like any sane person His will was to not experience the pain that was before Him!  He knew the agony that was before Him.  He knew just what was coming and He did not want to go there! It was as if He was looking down a path that had an escape route. God was saying go this way and Jesus was looking at the escape route. It was a point of decision. And history was made when Jesus whispered, “Nevertheless”. “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.”  He surrendered. He surrendered His will and in doing so He surrendered safety, comforts, happiness, laughter, relationships, care-free living...He surrendered His blood. And from that moment He was living in the land of nevertheless.  He was saying in essence, “God here is what my flesh wants, but I am choosing to go your way, so lets go. And that moment of submission led to the greatest victory in history!  

So, as I pressed on in our first term on the mission field, I decided to live in the land of nevertheless. Fully aware of what my flesh wanted,  I made the decision to continue down the path of pain. The path where God was.  For me that path was to continue life and ministry in Togo.

  God has allowed trials during our time in Togo.  And they came at me on so many different levels.  They came at me physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically.  And, they hit me on so many different fronts. It was like an all out ambush!  We walked onto the front lines of a spiritual battle when we stepped off that airplane in Lomé, Togo. We walked into the Satan’s line of fire, and we got hit.

There are two areas that stand out to me as being the most difficult and I hope the most faith stretching. The first hit me 3 days after we arrived in Togo.  I began to have a headache.  I have experienced headaches since I was a teenager, but these were different. They lasted anywhere from 3 to 10 days and the intensity of the pain was debilitating. I spent days in bed each month in the dark, with as little noise as possible with excruciating pain and no way to find relief.  We tried all kind of medicines and all dosages and nothing touched it! I remember laying in bed in the middle of one of my headaches and just praying that God would take the pain away, but then whispering in my heart to the Lord, “You are God, and I’m not” They were words of submission. I was living in the land of “Nevertheless”.  It has only been in the past year that we have discovered that the headaches are migraines, and we have begun to find medications to help relieve the pain.

The second trial that has  been particularly difficult has been the isolation of my life in Togo. When I left my life in the US for life in Togo I left behind family, friends, home, culture, language, car, and independence. All these were a support system that I knew how to operate in. I gave them all up and replaced them for a home on a compound in Togo. With the responsibility to homeschool our 2 kids, the lack of a car or a place to go even if I did have a car,  and Eric working at the hospital countless hours around the clock each week, I felt as though I were drowning in my own feelings of isolation.    My faith was being stretched as I began to learn to turn to Jesus and let Him meet my needs. Let Him be my all in all. Let Him be enough.  

But this is where the stretching came. Because on the one hand I was experiencing the “hard”.  The “God I don’t think I can take this any longer” stuff of life was pulling me so hard, it hurt.  But on the other hand was peace. Peace that came from the One who had also walked a road of pain and isolation before me.  I was exactly where God wanted me to be.  I was in the land of “Nevertheless”

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Living in the Land of Nevertheless means making decisions to follow Jesus example to submit to the leading of the Father, accept the pain that may come, but experiencing the peace that surpasses human understanding. It means experiencing God as He stretches our faith and leads us in victorious living!

Where is your “Nevertheless” path leading you? How does God want to stretch your faith? Will you choose the path that leads to less pain, and happiness and comfort? Or, will you submit, and make the decision to follow the faith-stretching path of Nevertheless and watch for the handiwork of God and experience His peace like never before. 

I may have to wait for heaven to be able to see all that God accomplished in and through us over those four years.  But I have faith, absolute, rock solid faith that what He was and is doing is good.