Sculptures and Deserts

I have been here at YWAM Mazatlan for over a month now and I cannot express the joy that I have of being here.  I have really learned to love this place and the base and the city.  I am already feeling thoughts of how much I’ll miss this place when I don’t live here anymore.  Part of these feelings come from the amount of peace God has given me about being here and what my role is here. 

My DTS so far has been one of brokenness and tears, repentance and forgiveness.  And for the first few week so DTS I wondered why my growth didn’t seem to be coming in these huge ways.  God seemed to be showing everyone else these huge chunks in their life that they needed to take a sledgehammer to and for me I felt like I wanted that because I wanted God to do something big. 

However I have come to realize that my chunks are already gone.  It’s like an artist sculpting a huge stone sculpture.  At the beginning, he takes out the bigger tools and takes off chunks at a time here and there.  These chunks are fairly big and isn’t very tedious work.  However once those chunks are gone its time for the details.  The artist is taking of less stone with each movement and it takes more time.  It is a more tedious work.  It takes patience and concentration.  This is where I feel I am.  God has already broken off the big chunks.  Maybe there’s more but for me I see it I just gotta make sure I don’t put big chunks back on.  While I’m here I feel this is a time for God to do the tedious details of forming me and molding me.

Another thing God has shown me is the importance of the desert.  A lot of times we see the desert as a time when we don’t feel God and we are stretched thin.  I’m not talking about this kind of desert.  I’m talking about the kind of desert the forms us and prepares us for ministry.  For example Jesus was baptized then immediately went into the desert.  Right after the desert, he began his ministry.  Paul after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus spent 3 years in the desert chillin and making tents before he began his ministry.  John the Baptist spent most his life in the desert before starting his ministry, at ministry that only lasted about 18 months.  Moses spent 40 years in the desert before he was ready to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  All these people spent significant time in the desert before beginning their actual ministry.  It was a time of getting close to God in intimacy and going through trials and temptations so when the time came they would be ready to do the task God has for them. 

God has shown me that this DTS is kind of like my desert time.  The calm before the storm.  A time of preparation that needs to happen so things that will seem more important will happen later.  When we look at Jesus we see his time of healing people from sickness as a bigger event than his 40 days in the desert.  For example we would see Paul and say him raising the young man from the dead in Acts 20 as a bigger event then Paul’s 3 years in the desert.  Yet without the 3 years in the desert Paul probably wouldn’t have been able to raise that man from the dead.

Tedious sculpture work and deserts are both things that require patience, time, and endurance, but they are very important for God to mold us into people who are intimate with him, obedient to him, and are able to be used by him.  These times are not a waste but vital and important to our faith.  Intimacy is the source of ministry.  Intimacy does not come in one night.  So let’s stop thinking of waiting on God as a waste of time and start seeing it for what it truly is so that we can be found worthy of the calling He has on our lives.

Love you everyone!  God bless from Mazatlan,

Brother Chris

P.S. KALLEY AND ANDREW ARE MARRIED CONGRATUALIONS!!! YAH!!!