As the Lord would have it...I am back in Honduras as I write this post. It's funny how He works. Less than a week ago, I found this blog that I thought had been lost to the fog of the internet cloud, and now here I am typing a blog looking at the same palm trees I did years ago.
It's like chatting with an old friend in a familiar coffee shop.
Honduras is a country of greens and blues. Everywhere you look the bright blue skyline is cut with lush green mountains, dotted with palm trees and pasture land. It is like a beautiful patchwork quilt stitched together by the hand of the Creator. Every time I see it I am amazed at it's beauty. Every time.
Honduras is also a country of browns. In the summer, the dust from the road covers every plant with a brown haze that is sometimes so thick you can't even tell the colors of the flowers. During the winter rains, those same dry dusty roads become so thick with mud the color of caramel and the river churns like a failed chocolate experiment out of Willy Wonka.
The thing is...at first introduction you don't see the brown. You are so overwhelmed by the blues and greens that your brain just sort of doesn't record the dust on the plants. And if you do come to Honduras during the rains you might see the mud on the roads through the rose-colored-lens of adventure and the dangers it hides don't even register.
But if you choose to live here...you will be confronted with it all...and you must choose to accept it all.
The missionaries here go to great lengths to mitigate potential problems for their service teams. GREAT lengths. There are safety protocols for every scenario they have faced in their many years of experience and every scenario they can imagine...and missionaries have very active imaginations.
I can't imagine coming to serve in another country and, in my limited experience of the place, think that I know more that those who have come before me. It is a thought so far outside of logic that it seems comical to me.
To learn a new thing there is always a teacher. The teacher might be a person, or a book, or an experience, or even pain...but there is always a teacher.
Yet...even still...isn't it this way with us and the Lord? We think we know better. We think we have the plan. We think...we think...we think...but He knows, and we still fight Him. We still negotiate like Moses. We still run like Jonah. We still hide like Gideon. We still choose sin like David.
In life, I pray that I am an easy student and a quick study. I have prayed for wisdom and good judgment countless times in my life, and God does not fail to provide. Hardships come, but He never leaves. I pray that I would not fight the Teacher. I hope instead I would pray like Daniel. I would stand like the three in the furnace. I would hold fast like Joseph. I would obey like Noah. I would trust like Job.
The places that God brings us in life will always have greens, blues and browns. This is a fact of a fallen world...sin corrupts...and we must accept the good with the bad. When our plans don't line up with reality the discrepancy must be resolved in one way or another. Either your plans become flexible or the reality of the situation will break you. To be clear - I am not talking about the compromising of biblical values.
This is no place on this side of heaven that we will experience all highs and no lows. It is my prayer for all of us that the lows cause us to cling to God instead of curse Him.
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