Like this:

I wish that the “mission trip high” would never go away. Sometimes coming home sucks.

I’m not depressed, don’t worry. Just adjusting to being home for two weeks now after a great week in Oaxaca. It’s tough to go on a trip and say that you’re going to make changes when you get home because deep down you know your grand plans, while good and noble, probably won’t happen. It’s tough… you’re basically in this spiritual utopia and then you go home. You go back to your normal life and after a few days, it’s almost like you never left the country.

You come back from a trip and it’s like all you see is what you own and have. At least that’s how I felt… tons of materialistic stuff staring me in the face. You feel guilty. I washed my car about a week ago. I kept thinking about how I was just using all this water to wash my CAR when others don’t even have water period, or have just enough to get by. I felt guilty. I felt bad. It’s a weird situation. I have all this “stuff” and am blessed, yet the ones who I worked for and with two short weeks ago had a fraction of what I have and yet were arguably more happy.

But on the other side of the coin, what I have was given to me. I don’t know why, but it was. I think to myself that I shouldn’t feel guilty for having what God has blessed me with. I know that the guilt is the enemy trying to make me get down on myself. He wants me to remember the Oaxaca trip as something that revealed faults in my own life rather than remembering a tremendous week where we helped needy families and helped people enter into the Kingdom of God by accepting Christ. Not to mention growing spiritually in my own life at the same time.

Our pastor has been speaking on Hell and Satan the last two weeks in church. He talked last Sunday about how the closer you are to Christ, the more Satan wants to get you away from Him (when you’re far away from God, Satan already has you and therefore doesn’t need to pursue you). My week in Oaxaca certainly drew me closer to the Lord and I have felt this tug-of-war battle lately between God’s truths and Satan’s lies. The worst thing that can happen is getting down on yourself because then you become less motivated to walk closely with the Lord.

I want to walk in victory, with confidence and peace. Should I spend money on prudent things and not waste what God has blessed me with? Absolutely. But there is no reason to feel guilty about what I have been blessed with by the Lord.

The main thing I said about the Oaxaca trip is that I wanted to be inspired to serve the Lord whenever/wherever I could once I got home. That still is true and ongoing. Salem OR is my mission field now. I pray for God’s strength to keep pursuing ways to serve Him and also for the strength to keep walking close to Christ. Satan’s lies sometimes come in loud and clear, but with God’s help I can call each and every one of them exactly what they are — lies. God’s words are true and I want to cling to them.

A bit of a negative post, I know. Well, I’m human. Again, I’m not depressed. Just wrestling with some seesaw emotions after a spiritual high from two weeks ago. The blog sub-title is “a peek inside my brain.” For July 24, 2010… that was your peek. Until next time, adios.

-Lee

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