The Rock

Before travelling to Ecuador, someone asked me if I would ever marry someone from a culture different to my own. My answer was that marriage is hard enough and communication in a marriage is difficult enough without adding in language and cultural barriers!

Three and a half years later, married to the love of my life who just happens to be from Ecuador, I realise I was totally wrong.

Marriage can be difficult, communication can be difficult, but what makes it easy is not being from the same country, having the same mother-tongue or coming from a similar background.

I can say that I am 100% happily married.

Do we have our issues? Yes.

Do we have misunderstandings? Yes.

Do we disagree sometimes? Yes.

Is our life difficult sometimes? Yes.

But the joy that Josias and I experience in our marriage isn't based on those things (Praise the Lord!).

Josias and I overcome any differences we may have because we have the most important thing in common: our primary goal in life is to please God, and to do that we live it according to what He tells us in His Word.

Not only does this mean that half the time it doesn't make any difference whatsoever that we're from two places that are worlds and miles apart, it means our life together is SOLID. Like the wise man that Jesus talks about in Matthew 7, we are building our life on a rock by obeying His words so that, when storms arise, we remain standing firmly in Christ.

Do our cultures have different opinions on marriage? Yes.

Do our cultures have different opinions on how to raise children? Yes.

So on and so forth.

But we don't base how we do life on what our cultures have taught us, we base it on what God has taught us through His Word and it is He who unites us despite our differences.

Our compatibility as people is no where near as important as our compatibility as believers, as followers of Christ. So maybe sometimes one of has to ask, "what does that word mean?" or challenges the perspective that the other has about a certain issue, but that's the beautiful thing about marrying someone who is different than you; as you spend time with each other, as you become more and more one, you discover that you are an expanded version of the person you were before, a richer version. You teach one another things, you show each other a different way of looking at things, you encourage one another to be the best version of yourself for God. And when the differences are felt, God teaches us about grace, compassion and understanding, He uses the issues we have as a way of sanctifying us and making us more like Jesus.

I love being part of a cross cultural family and being of cross-cultural descent: my paternal grandparents are Scots and Chinese-Malay, my Aunt and Uncle are Scot/Chinese and American, my sister-in-law and her husband are Ecuadorian and German and my brother-in-law and his wife are Ecuadorian and American. There is no way more beautiful to see how Christ unites us as believers than seeing people from vastly different backgrounds bound together in the love they have for him and for one another.

I can love Josias and be the best wife possible for him by loving God more, which as we're told in John and 1 John, means obeying Him. Seek first the Kingdom and His righteouness and all these things will be added unto you; put God first in your life and watch how everything else falls into place and rejoice in the peace that you find.

P.S This post was inspired by the video below!

Yoked to Christ

Being at home all the time means it's very easy to be irresponsible with the time that I have; not using it wisely but wasting time checking social media, watching tv programmes online etc. I feel the Lord spoke to me through this verse last night and I felt super challenged. Are the things I'm looking at or watching of any real value? Do they build me up or do they distract me from the important things? That's why this week I'm committing to zero "worthless" activities, literally all of which involve some kind of technology. I'm also very aware that I have a little one taking in everything that I do, and I don't want to teach her- albeit indirectly- that technology is of more worth than simply being present, loving the people you're with and keeping your hands busy; eyes fixed on Jesus, focussed on eternal Kingdom buisness. P.S making a list of to-do's and goals at the start of the day is really helpful!

A post shared by Amy Loachamin (@ecuawifelife) on Apr 24, 2017 at 5:50pm PDT

So, last Sunday evening I felt the Lord speak and challenge me with this verse and decided to take action. This last week I committed to putting everything I did through the "worthless" filter; checking social media umpteen times a day, watching tv series' online and buzzfeed videos did not make the cut. I implemented my cleaning routine (that I'd made up before Eliana was born), read (and finished) a book that my mum left with me when she came to visit us last year, watched and listened to sermons and focused on being more present.

I started off the week listening to a message from a womens' conference given by Brandi Harrison- I give a womens' teaching once a month at our church and was starting to prepare for my mothers' day message so I thought it would be a good idea.

The message spoke directly to my heart and fed my soul. It covered a variety of things pertaining to being a godly woman but what really spoke to me was when Matthew 11:29-30 was spoken about at the beginning:
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Brandi spoke about how when training a new animal to plow, often a stronger and more experienced animal was yoked with it to help it learn. This is the image that Jesus is giving us- He wants us to walk alongside Him so that He can guide us, teach us and help us. (I fully reccommend listening to the whole message!). I found myself asking,
"Am I walking alongside Jesus? Am I really seeking Him and walking in daily fellowship with Him, allowing Him to guide me, comfort me and bear my burdens?" The answer was no. Routinely praying and reading my Bible in the morning and evening and doing whatever in between wasn't enough. His Word tells me I am to walk in the Spirit, to pray without ceasing, to rejoice in the Lord always. That's a 24/7 thing! God has been speaking to me for months about allowing Him to flow through me and simply be His instrument by drawing close to Him but it took this simple and well-known picture, tied with the challenge from the night before, to truly understand what that meant.

It means looking at my life and all the "worthless" things I invest my time and interest in. How can I hope to have my eyes fixed upon Jesus if I'm filling my mind with worldly things?
"It's only a tv show... it's only facebook... it's only a few YouTube videos to pass the time...it's only a song..."
Having this last week of intentionally examining how I spend my time and especially the things I'm looking at, I've experienced how much easier it is to really walk with Jesus. It's like that old allegory of the black dog and the white dog- which one will win in a fight? The one that I feed most. If I want to be a light in this world for Christ, a light in my home (we all know it can be much more difficult) for Christ, if I want rivers of living water to flow through me and touch those around me then I must be willing to give up the worthless things of this life, however much temporary pleasure they might bring me, and be 100% focused on Christ.

"Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith." Hebrews 12:1-2

"... we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18

"Do you not know that friendship with the world is emnity with God? Therefore whoever wished to be a friend of thw world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you supposed it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"?" James 4:4-5

Also, I found that getting on with the work that my hands found to do (and that needed to be done!), being more present especially with Eliana, and spending down time by doing something other than watching something, was simply just way more satisfying and fulfilling.

"...aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands..."
1 Thessalonians 4:11

So, I would encourage those of you who are reading this and perhaps feeling that quiet-but-persistant nudge of the Holy Spirit, don't ignore it. God made us to live in relationship with Him! We will find eternal life in nothing else.

"And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3

You're not from here, are you?

It's a question that I get asked quite a lot here in Ecuador, by perfect strangers as you can imagine. People in the bus, taxi drivers, shopkeepers...

"No," I reply with a patient smile, "I'm from Scotland... the United Kingdom... Great Britain... Europe?"

The answer, or number of answers depends entirely on who I'm talking to and their geography general knowledge; there was one taxi driver who thought Scotland was a part of Russia.

There are rare occasions when engaged in conversations with aforementioned strangers that I am mistaken for somebody from Quito, and I take this as a compliment to my Spanish, knowing well that my "blonde" (by Ecuadorian standards) hair and eyes (for which I was once congratulated by a lady on the bus) should have given me away.

Every time I arrive back in Ecuador after having spent some time at "home", in Scotland, there is always a period of re-adjustment and of "letting go". I talk about "switching modes". Living in a different country to the one you grew up in, being married to someone from a different culture and who has a different mother-tongue to you, means that terms like "home" become a bit mixy. It means your "factory settings," as it were, become a bit more customised than they once were. When you no longer dream in just one language, when you don't even remember which language you had a conversation in, when you're imagining a conversation in your head and realise that isn't the language that person speaks... things become kind of mixy.

Many people in my situation, spread between two different places (or more), find themselves in the same situation. We are puzzle pieces, once belonging to a certain picture, who have adapted themselves to fit into a new one and now find that they no longer truly fit in either. We are the "armadillos", as Rudyard Kipling might put it, no longer hedgehogs or tortoises, but something different. (See The Beginning of the Armadillos, The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling to understand!).

As I think of these things, and how my beautiful little daughter will probably feel the same, not belonging anywhere completely, I hold on to this truth:

"LORD, you have been our dwelling place in all generations." Psalm 90:1

No matter where I find myself on this earth, for He may yet take me to new places, I know that in Him I am home. In Him I find my peace, my resting place, my strong tower, my refuge and my rock. He is mine to cling to and I am His child.

None of us are really "from here" anyway. Like Abraham, we look forward in faith to a city whose foundations are designed and built by God Himself, remembering that we are part of a Kingdom that cannot and will not be shaken. For now, we are all in an in-between place, in between two realities, being transformed into the likeness of Christ and yet still in this body of sin, waiting for the coming of our redeemer when, in the twinkle of an eye, we will be changed. We are in this world, but not of it, and we feel the tension as both sides pull at us and vie for our full attention. "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25)

And so we do give thanks, in all things, to the One in whom we do truly belong, and find our resting place, and for whom we wait with joy.

In Spirit and in Truth

I imagine that most of you who are reading this right now are familiar with the above phrase. It is used by Jesus in chapter 4 of John's gospel when he says:

"But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."  23-24

One part of living in Ecuador and serving in Ecuador is obviously the Spanish language. I still remember my first Sundays in Ecuador, when my Spanish was still relatively limited, and finding it ever so hard to sit and listen and try to translate the hour-long sermons in my head. I'm sure I can still hear how the cogs in my brain whirred, like I was decoding some secret message. Needless to say I couldn't keep it up for the whole hour so I did tune-out a few times to let my brain rest! The other part of not yet being fluent in Spanish, with respect to church, was not always understanding exactly what I was singing during the worship. However, between the fact I didn't understand everything and that most of the songs were new to me, it forced me to really examine the words.

A lot of Christians, including myself, can be very guilty of simply singing songs instead of actually worshipping God. We become so familiar with the melodies and the words that we don't actually think about what we're singing -- whether what we're singing is actually the Truth.

I think this element of Truth in worship plays out in two parts: primarily, whether we actually mean what we're singing and secondly whether it is in accordance with the Truth shown in God's Word.

The first part is what I think a lot of us, especially those of us who grew up in the church, are guilty of. Going to church and singing become so normal to us, that sometimes that is all it is - custom and tradition. It is no longer coming in humility before God, in fellowship with our family and Christ, to worship our God and Father who sent His beloved Son to redeem us from the clutches of sin and death, but a traditional weekly sing-song that we participate in. The devotional that I use, and have used for the last four years, is My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (I highly recommend it to anyone, but especially to those with a calling to ministry) and today's portion was simply titled "Worship" and opened with these words.

"Worship is giving God the best that He has given you." 

So many of us approach God with such a state of apathy. Real and True worship is when we humble ourselves before God, in perfect submission to Him and His will for us, and bring our best before Him, willing to give it all back, knowing that actually the best thing God has ever given us was Himself. We see this act of submission so many times in the Psalms as these people often struggle with real and deep issues, but always return to praising God and declaring who He is, submitting to His lordship and sovereignty. 

I'm currently reading a book by Elisabeth Elliot in which is mentioned the hymn "Beneath the Cross of Jesus", a hauntingly beautiful hymn which I think perfectly demonstrates the attitude we should have in worship:

1. Beneath the cross of Jesus 

I fain would take my stand, 

the shadow of a mighty rock 

within a weary land; 

a home within the wilderness, 

a rest upon the way, 

from the burning of the noontide heat, 

and the burden of the day. 

2. Upon that cross of Jesus 

mine eye at times can see 

the very dying form of One 

who suffered there for me; 

and from my stricken heart with tears 

two wonders I confess: 

the wonders of redeeming love 

and my unworthiness. 

3. I take, O cross, thy shadow 

for my abiding place; 

I ask no other sunshine than 

the sunshine of his face; 

content to let the world go by, 

to know no gain nor loss, 

my sinful self my only shame, 

my glory all the cross. 

Lets examine the words a little. The first verse first mentions taking our stand beneath the cross of Jesus, and the comfort we can find there. Are we really willing to identify ourselves with the cross, a place of suffering and shame that is offensive to so many, and in return find the rest that it offers us?

The second verse speaks about what happened on that cross and demonstrates the humility of repentance. Are we really willing to look upon Jesus on the cross and accept that it was our sin that required such agonising punishment? Are we willing to accept and confess our unworthiness of such love?

The third verse -- do we really ask no "sunshine" in this life other than the presence of Jesus in it?

"Christians don't sing lies - they just go to church and sing them." A. W Tozer

The second part, one could argue is just as, if not more, important. In fact, I'm tempted to say it's definitely more important. Is our worship, are the words in our "worship songs" biblical? Why does it matter as long as our desire is to worship God? Firstly, because if we scroll back up to read John 4:23-24 again, it's what God requires if we are to truly worship Him. I find it interesting upon reading that verse that it says "and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." That implies, if we really want to be worshipping the God of the Bible, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the only one and True God YAHWEH, we must do so in spirit and truth - the Truth revealed to us in His Word. Could it be that if we're not worshipping in spirit and truth that we are worshipping something or someone else? I'll leave that for you to decide. In any case, if we really do love God, don't we want to be obeying Him and keeping His commandments anyway? Also, if we look at the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis, or the story of Aaron's two sons, Nahab and Abihu in Leviticus, it's clear that we can't just offer any old thing to God.

I remember the last night of my time in Cuba in 2012, having a conversation with the youth pastor and his wife about a certain worship song and whether it was biblical in what it said or not. The song in question was "Come, now is the time to worship" and the particular line we were discussing was "Come, just as you are to worship". Yan, the youth pastor, was questioning whether this encouraged a lack of repentance or a loose attitude with regard to sin. I think I suggested it was referring to the fact that we don't have to try and perfect ourselves before coming before God, it's Him that does the perfecting, He already knows our problems and imperfections (which we are repenting for!). However, it was a very good question and demonstrates the kind of thinking with which we should approach prospective worship songs. Another example of this type of discussion that I've had with people before is from the song "In Christ Alone", a church favourite in recent years. In the second verse it says "Till on that cross as Jesus died the wrath of God was satisfied." The discussion was around the fact that God's wrath has not yet been fully satisfied, as He will pour out His wrath upon humanity at the end of the 7 year tribulation period described in Revelation. However, we as Christians, those who have accepted Christ's payment for our sins, have been saved from the wrath of God. These are two good examples of the kind of "critical thinking" we should apply to spiritual things in general, not just in worship songs, but I think we're more prone to let lyrics slip past us more than we are sermons. These are also two fairly "trivial" examples, however as much of the church is slipping into emergent tendencies and doctrines, with less respect for the authority of God's Word, there are much more worrying patterns in worship songs that are beginning to emerge, not least a tendency to self-focused lyrics, but more worryingly a focus on a desire of the experiential (not simply the desire to worship) and with it, a lyric that is directed, not to the Father or to Jesus (we see examples of both in Revelation 4 & 5), but to the Holy Spirit. I'm sure most of you can think of at least one example of this. Not only is this completely unbiblical - I challenge anyone to find a scripture which encourages or justifies this - but it actually puts us at spiritual vulnerability to other spirits who may be listening. The same goes for prayer directed to the Holy Spirit - in the Bible we only ever find examples of prayer directed to the Father. We are told that the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus (John 16:14) and He helps us to pray (Romans 8:26) - He never demands any attention towards Himself, always pointing us instead to Jesus or to the Father. These practices, combined with a desire for the experiential rather than just a desire for God Himself, puts us in a very risky position spiritually. 

Right now, if you begin to search "Holy Spirit" in YouTube, the first and only results that will immediately flash up in the automatic fill in, are all references to a worship song written by Katie and Brian Torwalt. Here's the chorus:

Holy Spirit, You are welcome here

Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere

Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for

To be overcome by your presence, Lord

Your presence, Lord

I've highlighted some words in particular to help you grasp just what exactly this song, and we in turn as we sing it, is saying. Instead of the redemptive work of Christ or God's love for us, the chorus - and indeed the rest of the song- is totally focused on the Holy Spirit and the presence of God - not God, just His presence. My heart doesn't long for the glory of God, it simply longs for Him. This song does not glorify God in the least, instead it is full of selfish desire for spiritual experiences.

Please, people who love God, worship leaders, do not sing worship songs based on a pretty melody or nice sounding lyrics. Worship God with songs that glorify Him and demonstrate an attitude that glorfies and submits to Him. And once you've done that, ask yourself if you're really being honest by singing those lyrics. Is that really what you believe in your heart of hearts? Are you really bringing God your best and humiliating yourself before Him when you come before Him in worship?

Some people may point out that I haven't talked at all about the need to worship in the spirit. As I think about it now, I think the first part is actually talking about that - if we truly mean what we sing as we worship God, coming before Him with an attitude of humility, wonder and thankfulness, and showing that as the Spirit leads, then we are worshipping in the spirit. I do however want to point out something very important before I finish. In John 14:17, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth. It is impossible to worship in spirit without first worshipping in Truth. It also follows that it is impossible to truly worship in Truth without worshipping in spirit.

God has shown us, and continues to show us, such incredible grace and mercy and love. He is the Almighty Creator, Perfect and Just, who is worthy to be worshipped in the splendour of holiness (Psalm 96:9). May He grant us wisdom and guide us with His Holy Spirit as we seek to live lives of continual praise and worship.

"I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and by glad. Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!" 

Psalm 34:1-3

The Most Important Yes

So a couple of days ago, it was our first  "engagement" anniversary - it was a whole year ago that Josias got down on one knee, on the equator, and asked me to marry him.
I shared the memory on my facebook page and commented that it was the "second most important yes of my life". However, after posting it I began to think and I realised that, even though Sunday the 16th of November 2014 was the day I officially said yes to spending the rest of my life with this man, it wasn't when my heart said yes.

My heart said yes 5 months before that.

5 months exactly before I had the ring on my finger, the 16th of June, Josias and I were sitting in Parque Carolina in Quito (the largest man-made park in South America apparently) and Josias told me that "he liked me a lot" and we began talking about the possibility of a future together. For some time before that, I had prayed and committed myself to not go out with anyone who wasn't my future husband, and so for me, saying yes now was saying yes to a whole lot more than just casual dating. As much as I was very much attracted to him (an attraction I began trying to ignore since we met, on my 21st birthday in May), and knew that he was the type of godly man that I wanted to marry, I was scared.

I had only been in Ecuador 4 months, I was here as a missionary with a lot of people to answer to and be held accountable to, I had consciously prepared myself for being single and not worrying about men for the 2 years I was going to be serving and had previously decided that communication in marriage was difficult enough without adding in cultural and linguistic barriers, so my preference was to marry somebody from my own country. That's what my brain was yelling at me anyway.

However, amidst all the doubt and fear (of which there were a lot), as I looked at this man who I'd only really known for less than two weeks, in my heart there was a quiet but persistant peace, and as the day went on, that quiet peace began to drown out all the panicky doubts running about in my conscious. I began to feel that, despite being on different continents and living in totally different worlds until 4 months ago, I knew this young man already; my heart recognised him from my many prayers and heartfelt longings from years before.

So the next day, on a bus to Latacunga to go and meet up with a missions team from the States, when Josias asked me for the second time if I would be his girlfriend, despite the continued presence of incertainty and fear, knowing that I would in reality be saying yes to much more than that, that persistant peace somehow fought its way quietly through to the surface and I said the second most important yes of my life.

When I look back at it now, knowing how stupidly in love I am with Josias and feeling absolutely certain that he is the best man for me, alongside whom to live this adventure of serving God together, I also see how easily I could have missed it all. If I'd let my common sense and doubts overtake that quiet peace and direction from the Lord, I would have missed out on the second biggest blessing of my life.

As I've been thinking about this "second most important yes", it has also reminded me of the most important yes of my life, a yes to God; a yes to repentance and humility in accepting that without Him I am a hopeless sinner in need of grace; a yes to Jesus and the life He has to offer me; a yes to a life lived only for Him (I'm still working on that some days!). As I've been thinking, I've realised that my two most important yeses actually have a lot more in common that I might have first believed.

In the same way I had to take a leap of faith in saying yes to Josias, saying yes to God also requires that same leap. In the same way I was bombarded with doubt and fear about what may happen if I potentially said yes, there are also doubts and fears that can try to grip our hearts as we contemplate a life with God. However, in the same way that there existed that small and almost silent peace in my heart that told me saying yes was the right decision, so also God softens our hearts to hear Him and His Holy Spirit quietly tells us that it is all true: that we really are hopeless sinners who one day will face eternal judgement for our bad decisions and that there really is a loving God who sent His Son to die in our place and who rose from the dead, forever defeating sin and death. And in the same way my heart recognised Josias as the man I had prayed for and longed to be with, so too our hearts recognise the loving Creator God who made and designed us to live in divine fellowship with Him.

However, just like I would have missed out on this wonderful marriage with Josias if I had given into those doubts, so we too miss out on the greatest relationship we could ever have if we allow our human thoughts and doubts to overcome that small, still voice of the Holy Spirit and cause us to reject what our hearts know to be the Truth.

But if we do take that leap of faith, and we say the Eternal Yes to God's proposal, we land on a small and narrow path on which we find love, intimacy, acceptance, forgiveness and the One whom our soul loves, and as we get to know Him more and more, as we see His faithfulness at work in our lives every day, the stronger that faith becomes and the doubts slowly fade away into nothingness.One day, when we the church, His bride, are seated at the marriage feast of the lamb, we will be living no longer by faith but by sight.

Now that I'm married to Josias, I can't believe I ever doubted that he wasn't the one for me. Sure, the Ecua-Wife Life isn't always simple or easy, and I had to make a lot of difficult and some extreme decisions to get here but I would never, ever give up my marriage with Josias. One day, when Christ comes back or I'm taken to be with Him in glory, that's exactly what it will be like, only infintely more, and I'll be infintely thankful to God who helped me to say the most important yes.

Can't Complain!

If only this statement were true. We often use this phrase as a response when somebody asks us how we are, how our life is, and what we usually mean is that- generally speaking- our lives are just how we would want them to be: no problems. Good health, good job, happy family... so we can't complain.

Except we do. We always manage to find something to complain about.

In the last month, God has been convicting me and speaking to me about my complaining, or rather the reason behind my complaining- my lack of contentment in Him. That isn't to say that a relationship with God does not bring contentment, it does, and it's a contentment that the world cannot offer us. And that is exactly the problem.

When I take my eyes off the Author and Perfector of my faith, in whom I find my hope and my contentment, and instead focus on my life and my circumstances, I'm going to be disappointed, and I'm going to be disappointed for two reasons:

1) This world will never, and was never designed to bring me contentment. In its current imperfect state, inhabited by imperfect people, this world will always let us down; there will always be something we can find to complain about.

2) My heart will never, and was never designed to find contenment by living in this world. Even if it were perfect and my life were perfect, because of the imperfection and sinful nature of my own heart, I would still come up with something to complain about.

The thing is, our life and its circumstances will always offer us plenty of things we could complain about, and unfortunately our hearts just lap up the opportunity to have a good old whinge (that's your Scottish word for the day, it's kind of in between complaining and whining). I don't know so much about men, but us women (generally! and without the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in our lives) just love to have a good whinge together and complain about what's going on in our lives, it's like our "factory setting" to find things to complain about!

However, the whingey life is not a happy one, and it's not the life God wants for His children. We were created to have divine fellowship with the Creator and that realtionship is the only thing that will bring us real contentment in this life; experiencing the supernatural peace that comes from totally trusting in and depending on Him, instead of the constant disappointment and discouragement that comes from putting our hope in the things of this world:

Eternal Perspective OR Earthly Perspective (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Friendship with God OR Friendship with the World (James 4:4)

Life OR Death (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

It all comes down to the same thing: when we choose God, to delight ourselves in Him and live for Him with complete abandon, obeying His commandments and serving Him unconditionally, we are choosing LIFE- and I'm not talking about simply going to heaven after we die physically, I'm talking about the abundant life that Jesus came to give us (John 10:10).

However, if our hearts "turn away" (Deuteronomy 30:17) from God and we find ourselves distracted by the things of this world, even the most simple and mundane things, investing our time in energy in them instead of in our realtionship with God (i.e creating idols for ourselves - and YES that is just how easy it is) then we will find ourselves discontent, disappointed and discouraged: we perish (v18).

Complaining, in and of itself, is not the problem. It is more a symptom of the discontentment that comes when our hearts become distracted from loving God and simply living for Christ, and instead of keeping our eyes fixed on Him we begin to focus on our lives and our problems, the things we would change if we could and wandering hopelessly in the Land of "If Only..."

Living in Ecuador, I could come up with lots of "reasonable" complaints: I'm very far away from my family, friends and church in Scotland, I'm having to not only learn how to be a wife and take care of a house but I'm having to do it in another culture and another language too, I don't like getting honked and whistled at by strangers just because I'm white, blonde (by ecaudorian standards) and have green eyes, I don't like having my phone and purse stolen on a crowded bus,  I don't like being squished up against strangers in a bus that so full that literally no more people can fit in, or being in a supermarket or international chain and be told that they've run out of change... you get the idea. However, if I focus on these things and spend all my emotion and energy on wishing that things were different, I'm going to be miserable- being honest, I sometimes have been these last few months. But not matter where I live, that is not the attitude to have.

Wherever I am, my citizenship is in Heaven (Philippians 3:20) and God is my dwelling place (Psalm 90:1), and it is in knowing and being confident in that, that I find my contentment; taking the difficult or undesirable circumstances of my life and giving them to the Lord, depending on Him and trusting that He will use them for His purposes and His glory, and learning to "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Simply put: choosing God.

Whenever something frustrating happens, whenever I feel sad, I have the choice to dwell on that and complain and feel sorry for myself OR to choose God, to give it to Him and remind myself that nothing can rob me of the eternal blessings that are mine in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:3) and be content in Him.

So, what if the next time somebody asks us how we are and we reply "Can't complain!", what if we were so satisfied in Christ that it was really true?

As of yesterday, God has been challenging and convicting me about my contentment (or lack of) in Him. There are so many things in this life that seek to distract us from the God who fulfills us and steal the contentment that comes from Him- we need to work to keep our focus on Him, and not our lives in this world. "The Lord is my shepherd, I SHALL NOT WANT." His very existence in my life satisfies me and he takes care of whatever real material need in my life. No matter how "reasonable" our desire or want of something may be, we are called to find our contentment in our Lord and "give thanks in all circumstances" - He will provide, our job is to trust Him in the meantime and be thankful for everything He has already given us. "My soul will be satisfied..." #thankyouLord #alamptomyfeet #convictionofsin

A photo posted by @amyf101 on Oct 27, 2015 at 9:07am PDT

The Next Chapter

One of the beautiful lessons that God has taught me, and that I'm continuing to learn and appreciate, is that He is the Master Author. He handles our lives and writes our stories with such grace and care, interweaving our stories with those of others, all for His glory.

In my own story, I now find myself at the start of a new chapter in my adventure with God. The first chapter was my childhood and high school years, a time of grace when, even when I was coasting and lukewarm in my relationship with God, He kept me tethered to Him and in His sovereignty brought me into the next chapter; a chapter of growth and of calling after moving to Edinburgh for university where God would radically change the course of my life, (at least from my perspective anyway, He always knew what the plan was!) and put me through a lot of faith-building experiences. Then came the next chapter, a chapter of stepping-out of character shaping, and the sweet beginning of surprise love with my beloved.

And now I'm here, married and in Ecuador once again, with a whole lot of seemingly blank pages before me. It's new, un-chartered territory, and I'm sure there are lots of new adventures ahead for Josias and I as our stories join together.

It's for this reason that I've changed the presentation of this blog. I'm still a misionera, and will be wherever I am or whatever chapter of life I'm in. But this is my new normal for now, a young wife living in Ecuador with her student husband, taking one day at a time, walking by faith, combining our two cultures to form our home and family, and leaning on the Everlasting Arms.

Here, I hope to share some of the the things that God teaches me along the way, the little every day insights that come from divine fellowship with Him, and also what it's like living the Ecua-Wife Life!