24 Hours

Have I mentioned how trying being here has been?! I feel like I'll make some "progress" about how I'm feeling and then flip out again. We didn't have school today because of a Muslim holiday. Therefore, I dedicated 24 hours to Jesus. I just really needed to work out where my heart is with all of this. I felt my heart was closed off and hard towards God, towards the people around me, towards this whole situation. And clearly that makes me want to give up.

I learned a ton of things over the past 24 hours, even changed part of the way I viewed God.

"Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal." Job 5:17, 18.

"...you will weep no more...Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more...when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wound he inflicted." Isaiah 30:19-26.

Isn't it strange that God inflicts wounds? He injures. I think ultimately that has been my struggle here. I know without a doubt that God sent me to India. He was very clear about that and clear about the amount of time to be here. Deep in me I know for me to leave early would be disobeying Him. But I was dealing with resenting Him in a way. Being upset that He would send me somewhere that is intentionally difficult for me. I never asked to come here! He told me to. So in a sense, He "inflicted this wound" by putting me in a tough situation.

But it can't end there. It should never end there in our minds. God puts us through difficult situations in order to discipline us. That means there is love behind it, purpose behind it, and therefore, ultimately hope behind it. If those things are not meant by His actions, then He is abusing us. And clearly that is not His purpose.

My issue was getting my eyes off of His love, forgetting that He does in fact heal and bind up the wounds. It blows my mind to look at the life of Paul. When God first called him, He said He must show Paul, "how much he must suffer for my name." (Acts 9:16). What kind of a calling is that?! And he sure did suffer. Stoning, imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks...But God ultimately had an amazing purpose for Paul's life, a purpose that has greatly affected believers in Jesus even today.

So God does allow suffering, in fact He sometimes causes it in the form of discipline. But it NEVER ends there. There is always something bigger, something promising, something good and loving. Even if that "something" is never seen on this earth. There is an eternal blessing, an eternal reward.

So I've come to a place of fixing my eyes on Jesus again, knowing that He has and will continue to put me through hard situations for the rest of my life. But I can't look at the situations. I have to look at Him. And when I look at Him, I remember that He is a God of love. That He will deliver. He will heal. He will bind up the wound. And He is good.