What God Is Teaching Me

  Several  of you have written, asking what God has taught me specifically up to this point through this mission. Since I don't remember who has expressed interest, I'm just sending this journal entry, which speaks to this question, to all my prayer partners. It's a real long one (and I mean REAL LONG), so for those of you who are interested, I hope that it'll shed light on all that the Father has been teaching me. And for those who would rather not read this whole thing, don't feel bad. Thank you again, a thousand times over, for all your prayers and encouragement!

-Jonathan

 

5/22/04: Lessons from this Jungle Classroom:  Thus far, God has seemingly found it pleasing to Himself to take this season of jungle life, and while using me, use it to teach me priceless, life-changing and life-enriching lessons. What a wonderful setting to learn in!

  My teacher: The All-knowing Creator of the universe.

 My classroom: The untouched, beautiful, native Amazon and its primative, tribal villages.

 My classmates: Fellow Great Comission missionaries.

 My playground: Jungle trails and river banks.

 My mascotts: Monkeys, Tigers, Aligators, Fish, Parrots, ect...

 My school bus: Not a bus at all, but rather a boat that I actually get to drive.

 My homework: Share the gospel with unreached people groups, make disciples, plant churches, and in doing so, allow God to shape me into the man He created me to be. A tough and glorious assignment indeed. A task unlike any other.

  During my first year in this adventuous school, the journey has already taken me to deep truths, needed change, new-found wisdom, and better understanding. For now, I will give words to a few of these lessons.

Lesson 1: "Humility"?Immediately, we touch on something for which I have long been praying. Within the duration of a wink, God called me out of my Ur?all that was familar, comfortable, and accomadating?and placed me in a setting more uncomfortable than the hot side of the pillow.

  Life in the jungle requires me to greatly lean on the strengths of others, while daily being confronted by weaknesses of my own. I live in a strange environment as different as the people, language, and culture it houses. Almost everyday, nearly every hour, I find myself having to do something I have never before done. Something completely new. Each time, the challenge forces me to search deeply for the strength, ability, and wisdom to accomplish the task.

  After failing a few times, I finally figured out that I can't, I never will, find such gifts in and of myself. I began to rely on God, and whenever I would, He would bestow the strength, ability, and wisdom needed. That's the grace of Jesus Christ.

   I truly learned that I cannot do anything of myself. Apart from all that God does through me, apart from His grace, I have absolutely nothing to offer this mission except interference. God is most certainly answering my prayer for humility in a way comparable with how a father disciplines a child. By-the-way, when faced with a new and difficult circumstance  now, I take my search, for all I need, to God immediately.

Lesson 2: "Dependency"?There are no fast-food restaraunts, 7-11īs, Starbucks, or cell phones in the jungle. The luxary of being able to jump in my car, go grab a burger and a coke, stop by and hang-out at the house of one of my friends, visit my parents at the church, and then go home to take a hot shower before getting in my comfortable bed so I can fall asleep while watching Sports Center, is a luxary that simply is no where to be found. The silk rug has been pulled out from under my feet, and as I lay on the floor, I see that there is only One who can help me up; namely, God the Father.

  In the early stages of a six-week trip, I am already in a constant, never-ending, stage of dependency. Whether it be for food, water, transportation, or a place to sleep for the night, I am, without ceasing, greatly aware of my desperate need for God to provide.

  This cannot be exagerated. It is to the point that without His gracious provision, in all of these, I would be left in great need. In the middle of the jungle, days of travel away from anything and anybody, I must fully rely on God to supply all of my needs. In such dependency on God, I have never felt so needy and unable, God has never been so providing, my faith never so trusting, and my relationship with my Lord has never been so strong.

  I do not know what I will eat tomorrow, where I will sleep in the next village, or how we will find enough clean water to last us the week. What I do know though, what the Lord has taught me, is that God will provide. So I do not worry. I just depend on Him.

Lesson 3: "What it Takes"?For years now, the Father has been planting and watering inside of me a deeply-rooted passion and zeal for God's glory among the nations. Through prayer, His word, Christian books, and fellow believers, God has instilled, to the very core of my affections, an uncompromising desire to see God receive the worship and honor due His name from all peoples, tongues, and tribes. It is but recently though that the Father has shed significant light on what it is going to actually take if we are to reach the entire world for Christ.

  The people groups who have yet to hear the gospel of grace tend to share the same chief barrier: location. Whether they be in the mountains, desert, jungle, or bush, it seems to me that those who are hard to get to, often times, simply don't have anyone going. I know this to at least be true here in the Amazon. Or, at least it was true. So it is due to this fact alone, that to reach the unreached, it's going to take dedication, time, grit, remote and difficult modes of transportation, sheer toughness, a GPS, and alot more missionaries.

  Along with these, much more is going to be required, such as:

1.      Prayer Warriors?The need for family, friends, churches, all Christians to be procatively involved in daily praying for missionaries and those they serve is greater than ever.

2.      Training?Preparation that leaves a missionary physically equiped for long trips, touch terrains, uncomfortable living, and even dangerous travels, will prove to be a good start. Then, training in the areas of language, survival, church planting, personal spiritual growth while on the field, and culturaly apporpriate evangelism and discipleship, will produce and send-out readily effective witnesses.

3.      Support?As well as in praying, churches must continue to be faithful in giving financially in order to make possible, mission teams and their journeys.

4.      Unified Passion?The Great Comission will never be completed until the Bride of Christ joins together with heart, mind, body, and soul to finish the task. Seeing God glorified by all peoples has to become our greatest desire that only increases with every breath.

So basically, during my time in the jungle, God has been showing me that, to reach the unreached, it's going to take quite a bit. At the same time though, our all-powerful Savior is teaching me that such a task is most definitely possible. For I am watching it unfold before my very eyes.