Guarding.

We won’t ever be enough.  We won’t ever have it all together.  There will always be new and more daunting problems that need a solution.   You most likely have found this out already if you have a job, a family, or even more so if you are following Jesus.  By the worlds standards we like to become “experts” or “professionals.”  You don’t try really hard at a sport or occupation to just be mediocre.  You work hard to be good, great, maybe even the best.  My point in all this is the longer we follow God the more we understand why Jesus said we are not of this world just like He is not of this world. 

I see my own inadequacy the most when we do medical on the streets of Kampala or in villages in the northern region of Uganda.  We walk up with our enormously heavy medic bag stuffed with all sorts of FDA approved goodies.  We set up a few benches, I put on my pink stethoscope that apparently sends the message- “I know everything,” and the flood gates of medical open wide.  For every man, woman, or child that is suffering from ringworm, diarrhea, vomiting, or malaria there are about a thousand more in that area. 

We are inadequate.  We run out of supplies, we didn’t pack the right stuff, and sometimes I just have no idea what to do. 

I look at our boys and clearly see the CHANGE, I hear their laughter, we see their hearts are being drawn to the Father’s own heart- and that’s sweet, sweet music to our souls.  Then there are the days when we are in the city and we meet new children suffering, we are in a slum and see that pain in mother’s eyes that are indescribable, or we send away a sick child from medical and refer them to a better equipped hospital because we just don’t have what they need.  Hell is real, and I see it in the poorest and most desperate places of this broken world.

As Christians we see these things and we long to invade that hell and turn things right.  That is good.  That is Jesus in us.  But we are not Jesus and we cannot turn everything right. 

We are not experts.  I seem to be learning this more the deeper we dive into the darkness with the poor and the suffering.  I laugh as I am typing this because it just hit my big head that the least of these don’t need an expert, they need a disciple equipped with the Holy Spirit, willing to obey the commands of the Father. 

“For this gospel I was appointed a herald, apostle, and teacher, and that is why I suffer these things.  But I am not ashamed, because I know the One I have believed in and am convinced that He is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.” -2 Timothy 1:11-12

He will guard the things that have been entrusted to us.  Just a little further down in 2 Timothy Paul writes-

“Guard, through the Holy Spirit who lives in us, that good thing entrusted to you.” V. 14

 This is the point of it all isn’t it?  Not to fix problems or become the best at finding solutions to everything.  It’s not about turning the focus on us, and our inabilities.  It’s about committing it ALL to Christ.  Realizing that you really are, in fact tiny and insufficient.  The problems are big, and we are not.  God has made a promise to Mallory and I.  He is saying he will guard us.  He is also asking us to guard and be watchmen.  The only way we can do that is to be fully reliant on the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us.

Our ideas, plans, and supplies will never be enough.  Jesus is enough, His Spirit is enough, His guiding and protection is enough.  When our hearts become heavy with the real sadness that lives here we have to remind ourselves of these truths. 

He is enough.

He is everything.

He is in everything.

He is the Great problem solver.

He will shine His pure light on everything and wash it clean. 

“The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer.” Revelation 12:7-8