O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power and glory…

— Psalm 63:1–2 (ESV)

The past week has been a whirlwind. So much has transpired and I find that my mind is reeling. I have come face to face with my own frailty and have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through an empty vessel. I have been utterly spent and have found myself perfectly positioned to be used for the purposes of the Almighty, entirely dependent and sustained by His grace. I need Him. So desperately. I have encountered this need with a new intensity this week and have discovered the glory of a Holy God in a capacity that I never dreamed possible.

For the past 10 days I have been in Alhaurín de la Torre with a missions team from my local church; we have spent the past week staffing an English immersion camp for children. This experience has been wonderful, stretching, heartbreaking, and exhausting. I find that when I look at these children my heart aches. I see their hurts and their fears; I perceive in their eyes and their antics a fierce desire for love and acceptance. I see their desperate need for a Savior and can hear the cry of their hearts, echoing my own: “…my soul thirsts…as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Young as they are, they have already felt keenly the brokenness of mankind; they have discovered their own fallenness and have been wounded by the sin of others.

As I watch them learn and discover, as their hearts soften and they begin to allow our friendship and love, I am overcome with the Father’s heart for each and every one. What a privilege it is to minister to those He loves!

Meanwhile, during the time that we have spent here in Alhaurín, much has transpired at home in the United States. We have heard story after story of violence and tragedy. Our hearts grow heavy with the weight of every act of cruelty and injustice, every breaking wave of sorrow and grief. America is truly a dry and weary land. Spain is a dry and weary land. Mankind is weary… weary of injustice, weary of hatred, weary of cruelty, hopelessness, and depravity… weary of sin.

This weight can grow so overwhelming—my heart breaks for the desperation of humanity. But in the midst of it all there is hope! There is hope in the Lord. There is hope in Jesus Christ, our rescuer, our redeemer, Jesus Christ, who came and walked our broken road, who conquered death and sin. Jesus Christ, our substitute, the perfect and spotless Lamb of God. My hope is in Him. He ministers to my soul as I pour it out for these children. He uses me, frail as I am, as an instrument to refresh their thirsty hearts. He is an oasis in a dry and weary land.

Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise You with joyful lips, when I remember You upon my bed, and meditate on You in the watches of the night; for You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.

— Psalm 63:3–8 (ESV)

I call to mind His goodness and His mercy, His perfect, boundless love, and I find my soul refreshed. I find my rest in the shadow of His wings. To Him my soul will cling, and I will rejoice in His victory, in the fount of living water that He has planted in my soul. I will praise Him with joyful lips and serve Him all the days of my life. In Him alone do we find our hope – Lord, come and refresh our land!

This morning I sat out on the balcony of our hotel room in Alhaurín de la Torre with my Bible and a note given to me by a friend directly before our departure. Written in the note was the following passage from Titus 2.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works. 

— Titus 2:11–14 (ESV)

The past few months have been stretching; I have been challenged and stirred, awoken and refined, pruned, watered, pruned again… The Lord is doing a continuous work in me, making straight the crooked places and building a new layer upon the edifice of my heart. He is cultivating my internal landscape and plucking away the weeds of self-absorption and self-reliance, making me utterly dependent and fixated on Him.

In preparation for this trip, I was prepared for this process to continue. I knew it would stretch me and expose insecurities and fears that regularly hinder His blessing and peace from flowing in and through my life. After only two days, I can readily confirm this as true. While filled with adventure and enjoyment, these past days have certainly brought to the forefront selfish tendencies and inhibitions that will require pruning and the application of poignant truth.

God, in His infinite grace and wisdom, is calling me higher, requiring me with fresh urgency to lay aside my own wants, desires, and fears, to lay aside my own exhaustion and discomfort, and to seek first His kingdom in blessing and encouraging those around me.

Extremely introverted and reflective, the constant presence of a group has been difficult. I anticipated this and fully expect that it will remain a challenge over the next few weeks. I have a tendency to become drained and overwhelmed in the consistent company of others and require time alone in which to allow my mind to run freely. For the past three days I have been surrounded with people day and night and have certainly found myself craving the refuge of solitude, but in the midst of the challenges accompanying this I have encountered an all-sufficient grace and an ever present help.

The following verse was laid on my heart the day before our departure and has so resonated that I continue to draw comfort and peace from it:

Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come…

— Psalm 71:5a (ESV)

He is my rock—a solid place on which I can plant my feet and dwell in safety. When stretched beyond my own capabilities and strengths, I find Him ever present, all-sufficient, merciful, gracious, and kind. When stripped of the hiding places of my own construction (solitude and introspection), I find myself held up, sustained, and continually running to the refuge of His design.

As He shapes and purifies me for His purposes and good works, I find that He is a continuous rock of refuge to which I may continually come to be strengthened and filled. I am so thankful today for His faithfulness and grace.