I’ve been personally challenged and changed during my time in Uganda. Three months is plenty of time to hear the heart and requests of many people to go to the next level of presence and ministry within the country.
I’ve always struggled with pride. Basically this really strong sense of self ideals and paradigms that must be torn down in order for me to move forward in something beyond myself.
Year by year, my own best thoughts have been deconstructed to make way for my future. I have often been my own worst enemy in the furtherance of my life.
The thing is, if it was only my life then my own best thoughts would be just fine. I could stay in the status-quo and make a nice little life for myself.
But, my life is not about me. In fact, I am merely a conduit of God’s plans and purposes and heart for others. Therefore, my own best ideas get in the way and in fact retard the heart of God as He would have it through me.
But, thankfully, the Holy Spirit works to reveal my own selfish desires (like playing it safe and staying hidden for instance) and move me out of myself and into something beyond.
As my thoughts have shifted and I’ve had many conversations asking the expertise and advice of those in the country, one pastor responded with, “Thank you for being humble and listening to the voice of God, and his intention to disciple our nation.”
Humility, it is a tricky thing. We are fooled by thinking that living less-than is humility. But it is not. Imagine how many people we are robbing as we live safe lives!
I’m learning to be humble, to put aside my own best ideas, to count them as loss, and to take on God’s heart in a way that moves me beyond myself, beyond concern or thought for me, and into service and thought and risking for the benefit of others.
It’s a journey to be sure, a slow one at times, stumbling over my own feet, but God is beside me, leading me all the way, and even this movement out and away from myself is in His own best timing.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11
Cyndy Lavoie 