Hmm…I’ve been working at AIM for almost 4 months exactly now!
I’m writing to you from Albania, where M-Squad will rock up and begin a time of training and then debrief.
(Ha ha ha, I’m back in Georgia now, I’ll update you on all that debrief and training was VERY SOON)
They battled through some difficult circumstances during their first month on the field, but I’ve been consistently blown away by their endurance and attitudes through out.
I’m excited to get to see and squish them soon.
And I just came from visiting with I-Squad, the group that I was on the field with from January to June. They’re complete gems, each and every one of them. I found myself so encouraged by my time with them.
I am delighted by the direction God is taking His bride.
Preparing a warrior for His return.
Preparing a virgin for the wedding feast.
Preparing a Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation. He is doing a very, very good thing.
It was all the little moments that I enjoyed the best.
Seeing my friends shuffle around sleepily for coffee in the mornings.
Joking with Lindsey about our nightly prayer shifts, it seemed like we were alternating who was up late praying for quite a while.
“My TL is missing!!”
A nonchalant, “Shut up Aaron” in response as Jenn crossed the threshold into the room just barely skimming by the start time mark.
It was the passionate preaching and teaching by Matt that’s backed up by an evangelist’s heart. The subtle fiery eyes of Steph as she explained why she had to dig her heels in about the burn.
The fervent prayers of our people over unbelieving parents as one of our own shared the Gospel over zoom. The why of why we’re choosing discomfort and wilderness and to go again and to want to go again and to want to go elsewhere when we return home. The why of why we’re so madly in love that we’ve offered our hands to be whisked away to the ends of the earth into any circumstance for the name of Jesus.
The tears. The distinct voices worshipping. The little head pats and I’m proud of you’s.
Then, into an above ground pool I went for the plunge of a lifetime. Other people claimed that they were going numb from the cold, but I experienced no such thing except for an occasional warm breeze. God brought healing, peace, freedom, breakthrough. He met His people out of the water and in the water.
He’s so Good, I can hardly stand it.
I worked with a ministry in Australia, January 2020. The moment I stepped onto their land, in a particular area, I began to weep.
They cultivated it with their own hands. They cut down trees. They leveled it. They built everything that we were looking at driven by a love for recovering addicts that they hadn’t even met yet. Day by day, bit by bit, job by job, they built. I was stricken by the deep sense of “Faithful with little, faithful with much,” for the first time in all of it’s unglamorous beauty.
It’s just the daily, mundane, clean the windows, take out the trash, stop and say hi that paves the path for the earth shakers. Will I be counted among the ones who was faithful with what the Lord entrusted to me?
How often I do still stumble over a small annoyance or let a fear of man do a chinese fire drill into my driver’s seat instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to say whatever He’d like to say, whenever He’d like to say it, to whomever He’d like to say it?
Will I be among those anguishing in my prayer closet, praying for more to know Him?
Will I draw up in authority and stand for what He stands for?
Will my life look like the accounts I read in Acts where people drew together around His presence daily, stirred up in hunger for the word and compassion for the dying world around them?
Just minute by minute and bit by bit, I’d like to be faithful.
With the small annoyances that try to unseat me from sitting immediately next to the prince of peace and place me on the throne of entitlement and pride.
With the little whisper that’s saying to stop and pray a bold prayer, or ask an intrusive question, or make someone upset. Jesus Christ is in hot pursuit of every single person around me, and He lets me run alongside Him to bring His beloved nearer or back to Him altogether. I want to be faithful in the little things.
Really, my whole life is a series of tiny little decisions that fan out in every which way, rippling, brushing each other, setting off a domino effect in one direction or another.
I want the decisions that I make to lead to life and not death.
I’m stunned by the way that I see that embodied in the lives of those around me, and I’d like to pursue it the way that I see them doing it.
As my birthday just passed about a month ago, I say:
Lord, you told me that this was a time to ask, so I’m seeking you in prayer. Help me to be faithful with the little things, in the little ways. Prepare me for more of you. I want to look more like you. I love you. Thank you for caring for me.
Amen.
