"Your highs are going to be higher and your lows are going to be lower.”
I said this to an aspiring Friends Network missionary at a coffee shop before we left for Manila.
“Mission settings tend to have a way of intensifying just about everything,” I told her. “When something goes well, you’re gonna feel on top of the world. And when things get tough, you’re gonna feel like a total failure. But you know, that’s actually great! I love it! Because on those higher highs you’re going to be praising God at the top of your lungs, and in those lower lows you’re going to be clinging to Him with a death grip, wrestling through the night, refusing to let him go until he blesses you. Through the whole chaotic journey of discipleship, He gets to be the focus, and you’ll be called into a deeper relationship with Him in a way that you perhaps never would have back home.”
Oh man, I felt so confident about that when I said it.
But there’s saying it, and then there’s living it.
We’ve been in the Philippines for a week now. For much of it, I’ve felt utterly helpless, dependent on others for everything, and just about as infantile as my literal infant. Week one is all about surviving and getting by. Navigating life in the most densely populated city in the world while living with 13-hour-difference-jetlag is like waking up at 1:00 am every night for a week straight to ride a rollercoaster. It’s thrilling and all, but it’s a lot to handle in a state of exhaustion.
As you might imagine, it’s easier said than done praising in the highs and clinging through the lows of this helpless, infantile, and exhausting week. But when I get to witness the scene of Asher staring up at his mom with a loving smile, I know that there’s beauty in dependence when the one you’re looking up to is faithful, trustworthy, and looking to bless you in your time of need.
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
During week one, we praised Him when we figured out how to use an ATM and how to retrieve drinkable water from the basement of our apartment complex as if it was miraculous water from a rock in the desert. Christina was led to trust that even feeding Asher under some stairs in the corner of a dim and crowded grocery store surrounded by dog food, rat traps, and adult diapers was holy and precious service. The list of week one highs and lows goes on and on. It’s not glamorous being in a state of dependence, but when the One you’re depending on is the Lord, it’s okay.
You know, it’s actually great.
The relationship He’s deepening through this process is one we’ll get to extend to our new friends in our communities. And therefore, we “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!”
Micah Otto
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