REASONS

So recently, my friend asked if I'd like to follow some of his church members (including him) to Chiang Mai as part of a mission trip. The catch was that it's during the Christmas period, so my dad doesn't want the family to be separated. So we considered the whole family going, but my parents had the concern that it might not be the right place or time for Mikaela.

So we've been going back and forth. A lot. 

My friend invited us to his church today because the pastor from Chiang Mai was going to be preaching. Sooo we went, hoping that this would help us tidy up our decision to go or not to go!

During worship, God really explained to me that I had to be going for the right reasons. He gave me the image of myself, faceless, standing completely frozen in the middle of Chiang Mai. He said "if you would go, even if all you're gonna do is stand there, paralyzed, blind, mute and deaf... then you've got the right attitude" (or, as I recently coined, "heartitude"). 

He also spoke to me about Christianity being a ministry of loss. Unlike earthly things, Christianity isn't about the reward or ourselves. It's about finding out what we can lose to benefit others and to get close to God.

He mentioned that I shouldn't be going on this mission trip because:

a) I don't want us to be separated from my family during Christmas

b) my friends are going

Finally, He asked me to flip through the Bible before service started. I did a quick prayer and opened the Bible, and lo and behold, it was the story of the rich young man.

This story is in Matthew chapter 19, and it tells of a rich man who asked Jesus how he could enter the kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said he had to follow the ten commandments, and the man said he followed them all. Then Jesus said he had to give away all his earthly possessions, and the young man went away very sad. This is the part where you hear the popular phrase "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven".

But the thing that hit me most was Matthew 19:29, which says "and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life." Which went back to the entire thing about going as a family because we didn't want to be separated. A family is a unit created by God. Only God can destroy it. A plane ride can't.

I guess it for me it was about realising that it was either we all went with the desire to serve, or none of us went. Or I went alone. It's about serving, it's a matter of the heart, not a matter of the mind.

I'll keep you guys posted on whether or not we go, and if we do, I'll share about my experience there too!

God bless!

(I'd love to include a Youtube video here but I can't right now. Sooo... search up "Lover of My Heart" by Sounds of Paradise. It's a very pretty song that will link to my next post!)