Day 1

Today I woke up at 3:30 am, boarded a plane for Boston at 5:30 am, flew to Baltimore and finally Boston, met the team of pastors/church planters I will be working with all summer, fell asleep on the pews while the pastors were finishing a staff meeting, was bombarded by Satan for about 2 hours, stopped the church from flooding, saw a HUGE city rat in the basement, went with Curtis and got glue pads to kill said rat, got Dunkin' Donuts coffee, got hooked on DD coffee, saw a homeless man at the front steps of the church yelling and cussing at an invisible person, and made about 50 pb&j sandwiches for the homeless outreach tomorrow.

I was praying the whole way here, except for my flight from Dallas to Baltimore, which I slept through. When I got off the plane in Boston and walked to baggage claim I couldn't help from smiling like an idiot and thanking God for getting me to the city I want to live in someday. I spoke to my best friend Jillie on the phone and she encouraged me.

But, when I got to the church, and after meeting the pastors was asked to hang out in the sanctuary for a moment while they finished their staff meeting, I was immediately bombarded by lies from the evil one. It was almost like clock-work and I didn't even see it coming because of the excitement and gratitude I was feeling just moments earlier. He accused me, deceived me, and some of it worked for a while. I guess I didn't understand how effectively he could accuse and discourage me. Regarding Boston and my calling he has been in my ear constantly, but today lying on the pews he pulled out the big guns. I've never felt more shaken and discouraged than in that hour.

"Do you really want to give your life to this city?"

"This is more than you bargained for. You don't want to be a pastor and raise a family here."

On and on he went for a really long time. I was accused of not having enough faith to carry out such a task. I believed I didn't have enough faith to be a pastor in Boston. I was beginning to believe that it was for better men. I was losing faith by the minute. And then my mind recalled what I had read from Hudson Taylor's biography just this morning. In it he quotes 2 Timothy 2:13 saying, "if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful". The context of that verse says,

"If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful" (ESV)

That's a good word. God is faithful even when I lose faith. The truth of this berthed new faith within me, and gave me the strength to get up off of the pews. My good friend Spencer told me just yesterday that there would likely be days that I didn't want to get up in the morning. I didn't think it would be 15 minutes into sitting in the church.

So here I am, sitting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Just as with Hudson Taylor's "China, whose need and darkness had often called him from afar" I find myself in the city that has often called me from afar. So here I am. I am certainly in over my head, but I desire to be one of those "upon whom the Lord could count -poor and weak perhaps, unknown and unimportant, but ready, by grace, to go to all lengths in carrying out His purposes."


God's mission continues tomorrow. Pray with/for me?