Longing for Tomorrow When He Has Given You Today

"In twenty-six days I will be coming home," I keep finding that I tell myself, "coming home to Chihuahua."

I have been given a beautiful opportunity to usher some really incredible college students into my home-away-from-home during spring break and watch as they fall in love, too.  I will watch as they fall in love with a taste of culture shock and the excitement of foreign life.  I will watch as they fall in love with kids who will tug on their arms and fall into their laps.  I will watch as they fall in love with the richness of life that is found in letting go of materials and hanging onto the true values of life.  I will watch as they fall in love with a whole new side of God - which is different for every person. To some He reveals that He is faithful and provides, to some He awakens a new heart that understands a new depth of serving.  To some He shows that love is a universal language that knows no bound.  He speaks to every heart individually.  The unique stories that unfold as you watch people fall in love with God all over again in this setting is beautiful.  I am beyond humbled to have the opportunity to sit at Jesus' feet and watch as hearts transform and walls are broken down. 

But my heart aches.  The last time I stood in this place, I was ready to go.  I was ready to let go and follow God's call. I felt ready to set my life down and follow Him, whether it be with my precious family in Mexico or another place in the world.  I was waiting for God to see my missionary's heart and to whisk me off to devote my life to being laid down.  I wanted to give everything for the love of Christ to be revealed somewhere new.  I thought I was ready.  The last time I stood across the border, an aching weighed in my heart that I had not yet known how to translate into words.  After seeing desperate need in the lives of the people I loved so deeply in Mexico, I knew that I wasn't ready. God began to break down walls of fear and incline my heart with a passion for bringing healing to the people I so loved, and so I began a road towards nursing.  A road that is seemingly long from where I stand. It is a road that I know He has faithfully led me to, but sometimes I just like to have a tantrum and remind Him that I want it all now. And then He gently reminds me that His ways are higher, and we keep pressing forward.
 
My impatient heart has been anxious.  But please don't misunderstand.  I am grateful for what is ahead and grateful that God is working.  I am overjoyed to know that His Love will be spread to the nations by His will and His timing. There is rest in knowing that the Creator of Time always uses it wisely. Though my flesh is weak in the thought of stepping back onto Mexican soil and knowing that it will be years still until this place I feel at home is no longer hours away but is my own backyard, I know His plan is greater still.  Anticipating the heartbreak of walking away again is a little bit scary, but if I step back from my overly simple and small-pictured point-of-view for a moment.. I can't wait to do it.  I know that His comfort isn't found in that place, though sometimes I'd like to believe that.  My recent struggle is trying to find rest for a weary heart.

The selfish and small-minded part of me keeps trying to convince God that the only way I can serve is if I'm down in the dirt, sitting in slums, loving the physically poor.  For so long I have allowed for my mind to think that God's heart only resides with the orphans and the widows, because His Word is quite adamant about it.  But His heart is with His children who live Fatherless, and for the wife who doesn't know that she is a beautiful bride to a faithful Husband.  His heart is with the broken.  There is a time and place to meet the physical needs of others, yes, but God is being a steadfast teacher recently to show me that His will is right where I stand.  Though I desire to be elsewhere, God is teaching me that before I am able to serve others the way that I long to - I have to learn to serve Him.  That is through patience and consistency.  At this moment in time, that is sitting in classrooms and studying textbooks and trusting that He knows the desires of my heart when all I really would prefer to do is to be sitting in a village and telling people about Him who have never even heard His name.  Far away from textbooks and classrooms and technology.  He is teaching me new lessons about being thankful, too, because I am realizing what an amazing blessing it is to have those resources available to me. Don't worry, He is breaking down that pride, too. Oh, He is good to know exactly what we need.

From time to time I long for Mexico because it is comfortable.  It is welcoming.  I desperately want to be completely immersed again in 75 kids who inspire me to love deeper. As I stepped into the Tarahumara community for the first time and watched as my precious little friends were grabbing for my hands and asking my name and wanting to follow me everywhere and eat up all of my love, I found a much bigger picture of who my God is.  I discovered the more that I spent time with my arms wrapped up in cuddles and hugs and games, the more I fell in love with my Father.  I reached for His hand and wanted to know His plan because suddenly my perspective of this world got so much bigger.  My love for Him grew that much more because He started to let me see, for the first time, the God of immeasurably more than I could imagine. Just as they trustingly were jealous for my love and affection, I knew that He was after my heart and that I could trust Him, too.  I long to be not only back in that physical place with the sweet friends that He has made for me there, but I know a lot of my longing translates into a desire to be back in that place of wonderment again. Back at His feet. I want to be at the place where I realized that God had big plans and that I really could do all things through Him who gives me strength.  In that moment where my heart was racing and I fell in love with Him in a whole new way.  It was a new love that felt like it would forever be as fast-paced, exciting, and fiery as it was in that instant.

It was comfortable before having to start focus on school in order to be the nurse I know He called me to be.  It was comfortable before God made it clear that all good things take time.  It was comfortable before He began to fulfill His promise in Philippians 1:6 which states that He will brings all things that He starts to completion, which includes continuing to shape me into the person I am meant to be in the ways He knows are best.

But I consistently remember that home is where He is and it will never be a physical place that I find rest.  He is too kind, too gentle, and too compassionate to allow for that to happen.  Home is where He is.  Home is where His heart is.  And His heart is for His children - which do not reflect only one shade of skin color, one dialect, or one border.  The God of immeasurably more doesn't wait on degrees or certificates to reach His children, but He moves within them to bring glory to His Kingdom.  He has been teaching me about the value of this moment, and it is a slow and sure lesson.  The thought of "tomorrow" is so poisoning, isn't it? Why long for tomorrow? Because honestly, if you think about it, tomorrow isn't ever going to arrive.  The perspective of hope for tomorrow will never find satisfaction.  Because the longing for tomorrow, whether if be a longing for Mexico, for a family, for financial status, or whatever you see your personal "tomorrow" being... only distracts your heart and your devotion in the here and now.

Because in the here and now, in this very moment, God is working within you.  In the here and now, you are living out a tomorrow that you once longed for.  There are people who are waiting to encounter the love of the very God who has not only plan for you tomorrow - but today.  And someone is waiting on you to wake up and be here, today.  His heart is here just as much as it is there, whether "there" is defined for you as a time or destination.  His children are here, His heart is here.  Just as much as the little ones can pull for you to pour love on them in a foreign country, His children are hungry and longing for His love here, too.

Yesterday is always a comforter of what you hope tomorrow will bring...
But rise, for He is here.  And He has given you the strength to walk in victory, anointing, and love. Today. God cherishes the journey so much more than He does the destination.  When we remember that He is fixed on love, our goals for our physical life become that much smaller.  Love is something that can be achieved today, here in this moment, and there is no mile nor degree nor opportunity that can keep you from it.  Dive in a love fully today.  Love Him and love His children, whole-heartedly.

Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. - Psalm 116:7