Twenty Two -- Done with the ship.

My commitment with the M/V Pacific Link is finished. It's not exactly an exciting thing in and of itself, but it's necessary, and I am excited to keep moving forward with God. I made many friends along the way, learned a lot of random knowledge, and found out more about what makes my heart beat.

Something that came up a few times is adaptability. I enjoy doing many different jobs rather than being stuck in just one thing. I love to learn whatever I can learn, and I made a point to do that in the areas I worked in. Well, kind of. Many times I complained and pouted when I wasn't feeling up to par but still had to work, so that may have robbed me of some things I could have learnt. No regrets, right? All that aside, a ship was a great place for adaptability. I miss the challenges. I told my mom that I'd rather be challenged and hate it than be relaxed and bored. The first day I was back here in Brisbane, I was bored. I am high maintenance, even for myself.


One thing I feel a hint of is the challenge from God to be full on for Him. I went through the same thing in my DTS, just in a different context. He challenged me then to be one hundred percent in my search for Him, and now He's challenging me to be one hundred percent in my service to Him and others, as well as in my search. It's a big challenge, and one I'd like to start taking seriously.


One day I was asked to do a quick testimony/thought for morning devotions in our clinic group the next morning. It's a semi funny story actually. Around eight that night, I was taking a shower and remembered that I had nothing for tomorrow morning. So I quickly, and jokingly, asked God to give me an idea right there in the shower. But then my nose started hurting and I got really distracted with trying to make it better, then the 'one minute of water left' beeper went off and I had soap all over me -- but my nose was so distracting.
I had it - God had given me an idea, and I would call it "Distracted by Pain" . I made the analogy that pain is like sin. The water signifies what God has put before us to use, and the soap is whoever we are affecting or meant to affect. Most of the time we're so caught up with our sins that we forget our time is transient, and at the end of either a two week missions trip or the end of our life, we regret that we didn't make better use of the time. I could have kept worrying about my nose and not had any water left. But I ended up ignoring my nose, and washed the soap off in time. I then related the distraction directly to self control. Without it, we can't fully grasp on to what God has for us, because we'll ultimately be controlled by sinful desire. I found Proverbs 25:28, which says this. "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls." So true. One compromise, then two, then three, and soon the walls are completely gone and the city is free to be attacked and ravaged by the enemy. Self control keeps us in God's Word, it keeps us from compromise, and by God's Grace gets us up out of the pit when it doesn't keep us from compromise. Self control works together with the Holy Spirit and the Blood of Christ to form a tight bond of intimacy, relationship, and forgiveness. Frankly, I need more self control in my life. I'm constantly rebuilding the walls because the enemy is constantly prowling around like a roaring lion, attacking and devouring. It's time to stop compromising.