Expectations and the Joy Set Before Me

I have just over two weeks left until I depart for the Boardwalk Chapel in Wildwood, New Jersey. God has answered prayers for ministry opportunities to open up and he seems to have placed his blessing on my serving at this ministry.
I will be doing beach evangelism for 3 months this summer at this chapel ministry which has been serving in this place for 69 years.
I have no idea what God has in store for me there, but I have a few expectations.

I expect God to take me out of my comfort zone.
It was bad enough evangelizing in Uganda 3 years ago where almost everyone was eager to hear what I had to say. In New Jersey I expect it to be a rather different story. I'm not inherently an attraction (as I was in Uganda: a white American in an African village) and I think people are generally less friendly to the gospel up there. I expect to be cussed out at least once, ignored, laughed at, and perhaps listened to.

I expect to learn more about who God is to unbelievers.
It is very different to share your faith with someone unfamiliar with the Bible or any sort of Christian doctrine. I expect to learn more about Jesus by trying to explain him to an unfamiliar world. I expect Jesus to become more precious to me as I seek to explain how much he's done for me and is willing to do for others.

I expect to come away more confident in sharing my faith with others, though I may grow more timid at first.
Growth requires stretching. Something that is hard and uncomfortable at first becomes more comfortable the more you do it. The same is true about evangelism.

I expect to become more aware of my own shortcomings and inadequacies, and as a result feel more dependent on God.
It's hard to feel dependent on God when you're comfortable. When you seem to have everything under control it's hard to feel as though it's actually out of your hands. By pushing ourselves outside of circumstances within our control it's easier to feel the reality that we're utterly dependent on God.

I hope to discover more of the joy of evangelism.
I'm not naturally gifted with meeting people and connecting with them, but I have a deep passion to walk with others and make disciples for my Beloved. Being filled with joy in Christ is a primary requirement for sharing him with others, but it can be hard to find that joy when I'm so focused on the words I'm trying to use to share him with others.
I have a deep passion to see broken sinners healed, blind eyes opened, dead made alive, and more people enjoying the love of God with me, but my own struggles with shyness have proved a great barrier. I'm praying for God to break down this barrier a lot while I'm there. Not so that I can become confident in my own abilities for eloquence, but so that I can be more open and free to God's direction and leading. When God puts a burden on my heart to tell someone about Jesus I don't want any part of me to get in the way of me saying, "Yes." I want to obey him more freely and become a better servant.

However, far outstripping my desire for great change to occur in me during this summer in New Jersey is my desire that souls will be saved. That images of God will be reunited with their creator. That more people will love God than did before. That Jesus will have more tongues willing to confess his kingship and more hearts delighting in his extravagant love. That lives will be changed forever. That God will bring healing to hurting sinners.
My greatest joy will be to see my God work his wonders in the people he brings into my life while in New Jersey. To see the salvation of my God come among the people in New Jersey will bring tears of joy to my eyes and inspire my heart to worship, praise, and adore him more. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen!

Devoted to God

"I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. Is say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and secure your undivided attention to the Lord." 1 Cor. 7:32-34

Jesus talking to his disciples about marriage and singleness, "For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it." Matthew 19:11-12

I've long tried to take these passages seriously in my Christian walk. I've asked God to make me completely open to his will; that I would be perfectly happy serving my God in singleness.

It took a while for me to get there, to actually get to a point when I could envision a perfectly happy future without marriage. I had many dreams of my ideal marriage, but God has finally forced my hand open in this regard. Marriage is simply another gift that he can give or withhold, just like any other gift which he distributes unevenly. 

For a time I sought to be "open to the possibility of singleness" while still pursuing marriage. However, for me those can't go together, and I'm convinced that God wants for single for a while yet. 

I want to be spent for God's kingdom. I want to dive into the depth of giving myself over completely to God and his service. 

Many of the pioneer missionaries either began as single missionaries or soon became so. Many devoted ministers of the gospel who were married left their wives for great periods of time. 

Marriage is full of blessings, but it is a balance of cultivation an exclusive relationship with one person and (likely) raising a houseful of kids. Balancing this beside full-time ministry is challenging, even if the wife can be helpful. 

We're not meant to live life alone, but that doesn't necessarily mean marriage.

I'm not interested in the whole introspective discussion on "the gift of singleness" I just know that I want to be completely devoted to God and see that as most likely involving singleness.

I believe I'm in Jesus' last category of "eunuchs;" the ones who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

He's not talking about merely castrating oneself that that one is not tempted to sexual immorality. He's saying that some stay unmarried in order to advance the kingdom of God. 

This is something I have taken very seriously and believe he may be calling me to such a ministry.

I know that I'll be married one day, to my Lord and Savior, the love of my life, Jesus Christ.

In light of that I'm quite unconcerned with securing marriage before then.

I'm only interested in how to serve him most with the best part of my life. Come quickly Lord Jesus!

The beast becomes beautiful…

The story is often told of a beast and a beauty, and many have rightly noted the lesson to be learned from Belle's perspective, "that a thing must be loved before it can be beautiful;" however, there is another, often overlooked lesson: "that in order to truly love we must stop trying to become 'one who loves.'"

There once was a prince who thought himself charming and possessing great love and compassion. He thought himself friendly, loving and generous. Yet, through the curse (or blessing) of an enchantress he was forced to come to terms with what he had always been inside. What had been obvious to so many was now painfully obvious to himself as well.

After hating the revelation at first he eventually learned to appreciate it's truth and became motivated to change. The revelation was never meant as a mere inditement of his character, but as a catalyst for change. Revulsion at himself spurred him on to valiant efforts to become beautiful.

However, as days turned into months, and months into years, the zeal faded away and the change had still not been accomplished. There was little to show for the efforts made and zeal for change morphed into despair of ever changing at all. He was ugly and that was all there was to it.

He gradually become content in his beastly appearance, but convinced it was not a true reflection of his character. Efforts at changing his appearance had been made, but were finally abandoned and ignored. He would learn to live life with a beastly appearance.

It was not until a hapless traveler stumbled in his doors that he began to see that he was beast inside as well as outside. People are harder to love than enchanted objects. It turns out they want more than "genuine" silence, or rude demands. They want words as well as actions. They don't want self-interest, they want interest in themselves.

While the beast remained focused on the change in himself he wished to affect he found his efforts fruitless. He could never love Belle until he focused on her instead of himself finding love. As days passed he gave up more and more of his own desires until he finally had given everything to others. His last breath found him declaring the irrelevance of his own desires to become a beautiful person again.
Yet it was that final renouncing of his own desires that made him beautiful inside, and so the transformation from beast to prince which seemed almost instantaneous was actually a long time in the making. The real change had happened gradually so that it was almost imperceptible even to himself until in a moment it became obvious to all that he was no longer a beast, but a prince.

It was not until the beast came to terms with who he really was and his inability to change that real change became a possibility. He only learned to love only by forgetting himself and his own desire to become handsome again.


I am a beast. Not in the good sense, just the awkward sense. When beast tries to "invite" Belle to dinner on her first night at the castle, that sense.
I've always been shy. Yet, I love people. However, I believed gestures, actions, and meaningful silence to be the most sincere.
I'm afraid of talking because it will sound fake and insincere; so my words are brief and to the point. I assume what people are thinking and what they will understand by my silence. I assume they will understand it means things like respect and sincerity.
Instead I've found that people actually assume that it means disinterest and a lack of care (imagine that). Tender silence is easily taken as rude disinterest or a lack of initiation—which proves a lack of real affection (who knew?).

As one who has long aspired to the difficult call of full-time ministry this has been something more or less on my mind throughout the years. To minister to people they have to trust you and you have to connect with all sorts of people. I've struggled off and on to figure out how to cope with such a weakness and have mostly contented myself with developing the other gifts necessary for such a calling; until recently being told that until such a gift developed I should abandon plans for the ministry.

After trying so hard lately to become someone I have never really been I had become really discouraged. I began to despair of ever becoming a prince on the inside, much less the outside.
However, I have found lately that in my weakness my God is made strong. Yahweh who gave Moses the confidence and eloquence to talk to Pharaoh and preach to all Israel is making me into something I never thought I would be.

I feel as though I'm watching my life from a distance viewpoint right now. I'm seeing myself doing things that amaze me afterwards because I would never have done them before. People want you to talk to them to let them know they are appreciated and loved (strange I know), and I, who have always found small talk annoying and awkward find myself making it with complete strangers(!). I, who can never think of anything to say of relevance to current conversations between casual friends suddenly find connections coming out my ears.
Surely God can do whatever He wants. I'm looking with great to see what God will do with His servant Isaiah Paul English. Meanwhile, I myself am focused on simply loving people and showing them they are loved by God.

Awaiting orders

I never expected my first post to be one about waiting, but one of my friends also called to the mission field recently shared some wisdom on the waiting aspect of ministry. So it got me thinking and realizing the importance of waiting.

Many of my plans have been changed or at least put on hold throughout my life so far and I've had to learn how to give everything over to God.

I've got a  burning desire to minister to others and enter the mission field, but lately I've found myself spinning my wheels without a clear direction.

My own gift for out-going-personal interactions was questioned seriously to the point of a lack of financial support for going to seminary. As a result my seminary plans have been put on hold.

Instead of going right from college into seminary I find myself landscaping to pay off college debt while I wait and the months of my short life tick away.

I want to get out of this consumer and entitlement culture in America and find the poor and destitute and unlovable, and show them that there is a God who loves them infinitely. I don't know how many years I have left on this earth so I don't want to wait any longer than I have to.

I'm cool with the slow-moving, waiting, culture present in most South American and African countries, but I'm anxious to get there. What is this? I want to hurry up and go so I can wait.

Well, at least there I could tell people I'm on the mission field and I would be less judged for waiting or inactivity. I hate the uncertainty and I'm afraid people will place the blame on me for my waiting. I'll be called lazy or thought of as one lacking initiative (which might be true).

My problem lies who I'm assuming makes the plans I'm following. If I continue to assume that I'm responsible for my plans then I will be frustrated with my waiting. However, if I remember that God is in charge, He's the one I'm working for, things become easier.

Do I really believe all things and all times are under the direction of God? That even the delay and the waiting are part of His plan? Could I live like His ways are higher and wiser than mine?

God knows exactly how long I will live and how much time I need to complete my task in kingdom advancement. If I die at a relatively young age it will not have been a surprise for God.

I've asked Him for a full life at the possible expense of a long life in the spirit of Jim Elliot, so when my life seems to be lacking fullness I get frustrated. Some of it may be my fault—and I'm sure I'm not being as proactive in finding ministry opportunities as I could be—but what I've been missing lately is the fact that God is also in control of my waiting. He's closed some important doors (like money, for seminary) and I'm in His hands.

The heart of the missionary is as important to God as the heart of the people he's ministering to. God needs humble servants to do His greatest work and having to wait is another lesson in humility. A lesson I'm so very slow at learning…I'm afraid there is much work to be done before I could ever be fit for great things. But I'm confident that the one who began a good work in me will see it through to the end!
I wait because I'm not the master. I'm not the one in charge. I'm a-waiting further orders.