Tuesday 27 December 2011
On my way again... reflections from the plane.Having boarded the plane from Amsterdam to Detroit, I find I have a moment to write will the plane slowly fills up. Being right after Christmas it’s no surprise that the plane is packed. Sat here I realised I have been a bit spoilt travel wise the past years. This plane has no individual tv screens and I find that quite sad really. Being a full day flight and knowing I’ll be absolutely exhausted when I arrive in Kansas City, I was looking forward to watching quite a few films and just chilling on the flight. But, although I do expect it to be a relaxing flight, there will be no film-marathon for me... I already read half my book on the flight from Stavanger to Amsterdam, and now I regret not having brought more books with me. 10 hours is a long time to fill....
Anyways, enough “sighing” for now. I’ll have to pack away my laptop...and who knows, I might get back to writing once we’re in the air. After all there’s not much else to do.
In-flight reflections...
This time from my final flight- Detroit to Kansas City with WiFi onboard the plane. I only had 30 minutes of free internet (which is used up, so this will be posted when I’m on the ground again), but it was fun! Makes you realize how far technology has come when it’s possible to facebook someone to text the person going to the airport that the flight is a tad delayed.
Sat here I am in a bit of a daze... long day-flights do that. It’s really only 8:30pm, yet if you add 7 hours to that it makes it pretty late. But it’s all worth it. It’s worth this long journey to get to see missed friends again. It’s worth this journey to get to go to the Onething conference and get some good teaching. And it’s most of all worth it to get to go to the prayer room and dial down and just connect with Jesus. Connect without the busyness of life. Connect in a place where He is the focus and where it’s so easy to settle into that rest that He brings.
I was thinking about this past year and realise that although it’s not been high intensity all the time, it’s been a long year and I feel a bit weary. Lots of travelling, lots of changes, and added the uncertainty of what lies ahead can get quite wearisome. Yet at much as I would have loved to be settled in Amsterdam and fully involved in work and life there, I am also grateful for this year. Not that I would have chosen it to be this way, but looking back I can see how much I’ve learned and lived with God. There’s a place of trusting Him and His goodness, and that He is who He says He is, that you can only know when you have nothing else and no-one else to trust in. It’s so much easier to trust in His leadership when you know where He’s leading. A bit more challenging when you have no clue... and people around are asking you the very question you are asking yourself: what next?
And there is a place of realizing the price of being in missions that I’ve learnt this year. Being at a crossroads and finding myself at a place where getting a “normal” job and settling into a “normal” life was actually a very real option, opened my eyes even more to what I’m choosing when I choose to be in missions and live by faith. Spending time at home with family, nieces and nephews, having the day-to-day with them; made me realise that I’m missing out on so much when I’m away. They grow so quickly and their lives are so full of people who love them, it’s hard to be away coz I know that children forget, and I know that my input into their lives is limited by distance.
And the price of not having a proper home and a place to settle... I know I will try to settle a bit in Amsterdam, but I don’t know if I’ll ever really settle down in one place. Like it says in Hebrews: “I am looking for a homeland...”
Yet, even with these and so many other “sacrifices”, I feel so rich and so privileged. What greater way to use this one life I have here on earth than to use it for the One who gave His life so that I might live? What a joy to be able to have it as my job to love Him and bring His love to people. To spend my life that His Kingdom be established and justice and healing and restoration and freedom come to those who are oppressed and trapped?
As I enter this new year, another season of missions, I enter it wholeheartedly. I’m not going into it looking at what I have to “give up”, but I look at the riches I gain, and the greatest treasure of all to know Him more and get to do what I see Him doing.
And if you ask me what the “meaning of life” is, I would say that is it; it’s to be on a journey of knowing Him more and as I know Him more I come to love Him more fully just as He fully loved me first.