Weeks and months later, stories of my medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic spill over into day-to-day conversations with all different people in my life. God worked in my life through that trip to reveal things in my heart and in myself that I didn’t know I struggled with or would ever be such an obstacle in my ability to be fully present in serving on mission. Though never comfortable, God challenged me as I stood face-to-face with those areas in my heart and He refined in me humility and confidence thereafter. In learning of myself, that journey began in the weeks leading up to the trip. It was during those weeks that the team members were to begin communications with each other, delegating roles, planning, and going through a personal devotional book that we would continue to follow during the trip. An underlying insecurity spoke there: who am I to do such a thing? Everyone else can do it better.
But guess what? God showed me it wasn’t about me. Nor was it about everyone else. The first revelation I had of what my heart was weighed down by was a couple days before leaving for the DR when I was filling out my devotional book for the trip. It asked you to check off what you were excited about, what you were fearful about, and things of that kind. As I took my pen to the boxes, I realized for the first time what I had been believing in my heart all along. All of my fearful boxes were about me. What I wasn’t competent in, meeting expectations of my team members, etc. And as I tried to check off what I was most looking forward to seeing God doing – the things that He was going to do apart from my strengths and abilities – I realized it had been a while since I actually thought about such things because I had been so occupied by fears and insecurities of how I might fail on this trip. God convicted me in that moment to look at who He is, what He is capable of, why He created the mission. It was about being an empty, unqualified vessel that just believed greatly in the King and allowed Him to perfect His strength through my weaknesses.
So while the enemy still tormented me on the trip time and time again with insecurities and comparison to try to make me shrink back, I continued to ask God for greater belief and boldness to love people deeply. Regardless of my abilities, He is able. I continue to have to fight the insecurities that set my eyes on myself by allowing myself to stand in awe of the greatness of a God who isn’t limited by my inadequacies but asks for my willingness and boldness to trust that He will do it, not me. All I need to do is get out of the way. Insecurity will make you say “no” to a lot of things, even to sharing the gospel. However, Jesus has the final say. I got to love people deeply, learned much in humility, and saw hearts turn to Jesus because I finally gave my “yes,” to the Spirit’s power and not my own. That’s all He asks of us.
