September 25, 2011
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I still need to learn how to be alone. “Without solitude there can be no real people. The more you discover what a person is, and experience what a human relationship requires in order to remain profound, fruitful, and a source of growth and development, the more you discover that you are alone—and that the measure of your solitude is the measure of your capacity for communion. The measure of your awareness of God’s transcendent call to each person is the measure of your capacity for intimacy with others.” –Henri Nouwen
This has been one of my most successful weeks ever in ministry. Things are really happening. Coming up with great funding ideas. Money coming through. Moving forward on re-opening Paudalho. Cooking every day for the kids in Cajueiro, and having such a good time. Saturday was the a climax, sharing at the pastor’s meeting and then having the kids over to my apartment for a pizza party.
I was able to be here and orchestrate things for these kids they have never had before. Opportunities. New ways of seeing things. And I got to watch it play out on their faces, so expressively. It is something truly beyond riches of any kind.
And yet I am still empty. “Somewhere there must be a need for a total affection, an unconditional love, an ultimate satisfaction. I keep hoping for a moment of full acceptance, a hope that I attach to very little events.” –Henri Nouwen
I am happy and successful in what I am setting out to do, but something still isn’t right within me. The holy longing has been growing the past couple of weeks, and I hear the call, but I do not know how to respond. I guess you just pick up the phone when it rings, but it still seems so hard.
“It is this type of extremism, of absolutism, of total surrender, of unconditional “yes,” of unwavering obedience to God’s will, that frightens me and makes me such a wishy-washy soul, wanting to keep a foot in both worlds.” –Henri Nouwen
Missionaries get the bum end of the deal. Because the times when it looks like things are going the best is when they are the most vulnerable. God, who to me feels so insatiable, calls for more. The point is never a successful ministry. He is never looking for anything more or less than an open heart, seeking Him.
Success falls short. And so I look to fill myself with satisfaction elsewhere. He doesn’t let me win, anywhere. Nothing less than Him will do. “Thus says the Lord: by waiting and calm, you shall be saved. In quiet and trust lies your strength.” Is. 30:15
