.this. keeps me on my knees

Nothing like a sucker punch to the gut first thing in the morning, right? Reading bits and pieces of Jim Elliot's journals ... and this morning's.... man. this sends me to, and keeps me on, my knees.

"We were most interested in what you had to say about transporting an American culture pattern to another land ...this is what I've been talking about for the past two years!! It is what every American has been doing here in Australia (with one or two exceptions). With it all goes a most repelling attitude of superiority, which is not only expressed in the desire to superimpose American ways and methods on a people who have an already established pattern of life, but in a personal patronizing attitude. It is enough to make one weep! It has caused difficulty in every sphere where Americans have tried to work with Australians (especially in Christian work). That's why I have pleaded that Americans should stay home until and unless they are prepared to impose themselves on other peoples with a much different attitude of mind and heart, with a love that melts all barriers and prejudices and rests in the sure knowledge of a life really devoted to God and not to any national spirit." 

(excerpt from The Journals of Jim Elliot, quoted from a letter to Elisabeth from a friend, Jan Brooks, working in Australia. emphasis mine)

...this has so been on my heart these past weeks... I'm clinging to the promise in Romans 5:5 ("...He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love"). Pleading, asking for more, more, more of HIS LOVE to fill to overflowing, displacing all my own weak, human, failing love... and spilling out and over to the ones who are so dear and precious to Him... and also to me.

I've been looking for this quote...

"Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people--the one who is called, and the one who loves that one."

(Oswald Chambers)

"second honeymoon"

I feel like I'm falling in love with Africa all over again. :) This week -- I've been completely enamored with the joy that is "African time." With the worth of people over tasks. With the value of community. With the smell of African earth that greets me when I open my windows each morning. With the dazzling smiles and firm handshakes of my colleagues.

Can't quite explain it. This continent so grips my soul.

it just isn't possible...

"We cannot be intimately exposed to God's heart and remain complacent." (H. Blackaby)

hope

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." (Martin Luther)

embracing sovereignty

"Choose to bury your face, even your tears, in the mystery of His sovereignty. It's a hard choice, but one you will never regret. ... The choice we have is whether we are going to submit to a sovereign God or shake our fist and demand answers not intended for this life. ... I am going to humble myself before God and believe He has a purpose I will someday understand. I reject bitterness and hard-heartedness, and I choose to become submissive and wait. ... When you willingly take from God's hand whatever He allows, believing that eternity will prove His wisdom and goodness, even though you can't see it now, you are embracing sovereignty at the deepest level. And you are preparing your life for a joy so immense that few ever truly experience it."
Josh MacDonald, Gripped by the Greatness of God