you can find more photos on my flickr account.
A few months ago, I bought a bracelet from a store called MudLove that has the simple word “abide” written on it. At the time, I didn’t realize that this bracelet would speak so much truth into my life.
As you can probably sense from our blogs, this trip has not been what we expected. For me, many things have exceeded my expectations and some things have just been different than what I expected.
Ministry is one of those things that has just been different. Until my expectations weren’t met, I didn’t even know that I had any expectations. But apparently, I was expecting a lot of relational ministry, with hearts and lives changing for the better.
Instead, I spent the first week and a half having little contact with the locals, doing a lot of manual labor. This week has gotten a little closer to what I had envisioned. I’ve been going to a orphanage that takes in kids with cerebral palsy and have been able to feed them, take them on rides in their wheel chairs and just try to make them laugh (most beautiful sound in the world, just in case you were wondering). However, I guess I wasn’t really expecting ministry to look like this either.
I’m so glad my expectations aren’t being met. If they were, I would not be learning what God has for me right now, which is to simply “abide” in Him.
This morning I was staring at my bracelet, wondering what the word “abide” even meant. So I flipped to the back of my Bible to find some verse references, which led me to this:
“Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” – John 15:4.
Still not fully understanding the meaning of “abide”, I did what any college grad would do: I googled it. Good old Webster helped me out by defining “abide” as a verb that means to 1. To wait for, 2. To endure without yielding, to bear patiently, 3. To accept without objection.
Wait for. Endure without yielding. Bear patiently. Accept without objection.
That’s what Jesus asks of us. To wait and endure patiently without objecting. To take the circumstances that He has put us in and live through them, trusting that He has a purpose for them.
In this moment, Jesus has put me here in Antigua. He has given me these ministries. This team. And all He is asking me to do is to lay aside my expectations and simply live this life I have been given, trusting that He is working in and through me, even if I don’t understand it or see it.
He is asking me to simply abide.
