You shall have no other gods before me...

The main religion of India is Hinduism, followed by Islam, Sikhism, and Jainism. All of these religions are different in how they were founded and what they believe, but one thing they all have in common is idol worship. In preparation for our trip, our team was told to not be surprised at the vast number of temples to various gods that we will encounter in New Delhi. Idolatry is rampant in this country as these people's hearts are being held captive by false gods. The temptation for us as we go into this context is to look at these people in judgement, wondering how they could put their hopes and dreams and life's goals into a pile of gold. However, if we were to truly examine our own lives, we would find that we do the same thing as these Indians, only our idols are not golden or tangible.

About a month and a half ago, the Lord gave me this strong desire to start reading Ezekiel. Now, I know it had to be the Lord giving me that desire because I've tried reading Ezekiel before and let's just say I was not very successful. But this time, the Lord has opened my eyes to the true meaning of this book. See, Israel, God's chosen people, they struggled in staying committed to God. They worshiped all kinds of things and engaged in all kinds of sinful practices. So, God sent Ezekiel to prophesy to them so that their eyes would be opened to their sinfulness, AND to the unconditional faithfulness of God. (That part's extremely important)

In his book Counterfeit Gods (I highly recommend this), Timothy Keller defines an idol as "anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give." In essence, an idol is anything that we stake our hopes, dreams, ambitions on or spend our lives working towards. I know for me these include marriage, a family, and success in my career to name a few. And none of these are bad things in and of themselves. But, when I start spending my life working towards a successful career, or spend every day dreaming of my wedding, that's when these good things turn bad. They are now capturing my full focus, they are drawing me towards a sense of self-sufficiency and control, and are slowly edging God out of the picture.

I've struggled with how to rid myself of these idols. I know that there are a few of them with which I have struggled for years, and it's frustrating that they still persist. But, the Lord in His grace has shown me recently that there's nothing WE can do in our own strength to tear down these idols. Only He, in His perfect unconditional love, can do that. He draws us near to Him, fills us with His love, reveals His beauty and power in such a way that He is the only thing we are able to focus on. And when we finally allow Him to love us this way, idolatry is no longer even close to being a temptation because we are filled with the only love that can satisfy. And He doesn't just put a little bit of His love in us, He fills us up so full that we don't have room in our hearts for worshiping anything else. HE becomes our life's goal, our ambitions and dreams are staked in seeing His face one day, and our hearts are enraptured by the one true God of the universe. Pray for love like this. Pray for God to capture our hearts again so that the idols we have built for ourselves are no longer able to stand.

Please be praying for me, that the Lord will continue to open my eyes to His truths about this and that He will fill me and tear down my idols before we leave June 3 (which is now on the weather.com 10-day forecast. Oh boy.) Pray for our team, that we will leave fully loving God so that He can work in us over there. Pray that God will speak to these people clearly so that they understand that He is the one true God, and that they will encounter God's love in such a way that all their idols will be cast down in the presence of the Almighty.

Resonance

So...I'm going to India this summer! In 15 days to be exact. I can NOT believe the trip is this close. Seems like just yesterday that I was starting my first year of PT school, looking forward to this blessed 10 weeks off that was still an entire year away, and praying for guidance on where to go on a mission trip during that break. Time sure does fly.

I am so thankful that the Lord has brought me as well as the rest of our team of 14 to this trip. Some of you may be wondering, why India? Trust me, I asked God the same thing, multiple times. Had you asked me this time last year where I would go, I probably would've told you somewhere like Peru or Kenya, somewhere that has beautiful landscapes and aren't so excessively populated. But, God in His sovereignty has brought me to this trip and I cannot begin to explain the change in my heart towards this country and her people.

It is so humbling to see God's power in leading me to this trip. I had been praying for about a year about where to go, and just figured I would know something as soon as I got the list of short-term trips. But when I started scanning the list, I didn't feel led to any one trip. I was a little discouraged, but thankfully got some wise advice from one of the women in my small group at the time. She told me to start praying through the trip options using my Operation World book so that I would have more information on the locations. I did that for a couple of days and still, nothing. I began questioning if going through my church was even what the Lord wanted, but then I got to India. As soon as I opened the pages to India, there was that feeling I had been expecting. Now, this is not to say that God isn't speaking if you don't get a certain feeling. But this time, it was undeniable. It was like putting 2 tuning forks side by side--India just resonated with me. And that's when I knew the Lord was taking me to this place halfway around the world that I had never even thought twice about.

This process of God leading me to this trip has taught me so much. I have truly come to see that His timing is always perfect. He could've told me where He wanted me to go when I first prayed about it, or even before that, because He is all powerful and all knowing. But He waited. He kept me from knowing because that made me seek Him out even more. This made me look back at all the times He's answered me with "wait" and see how, in my frustration, I completely missed the point. I want answers immediately, but the "wait" could very well be intended to make me (and you, all of us) draw closer to the heart of the one true God. I've also seen God's grace in even allowing us, His children, to go on trips like this to share His Gospel with the lost. God doesn't need us. 1 Corinthians 1:25-31 tells us that. We are foolish, weak, low, and despised, yet God desires to include us in His plan. So we go. We go where He leads us and we allow Him to use us to accomplish His purposes. And we know that He is faithful to complete them.

Please be praying for our team, as well as me individually. We will be gone June 3-12. Pray that the One true God will make His name known and His glory great among these people who worship thousands of gods daily. Pray their eyes will be opened to the Truth and that they will experience God's love through us. And pray that we will be humble servants, taking the Gospel boldly to these people through the power of the Holy Spirit within us. I'll be writing a few more times before we go, as well as while we're there (hopefully), so follow along if you want to hear what all God is doing through us in India!