The Least of These
It has now been around five months since I have moved here. I have seen the seasons change, groups come and go, but above all, I have had the privilege to watch God work. To say my transition was not as expected would be putting it nicely. I told one board member that it was not that I hit the ground running; it is that I just hit the ground. I was completely humiliated by the fact that I knew close to nothing about living here. But God is good, and He works especially when we cannot see it. My team picked me up, dusted me off, and has helped point me in the right direction.
You see before I moved here I was a fresh college graduate who was involved in my university. I participated in intermural sports, was in club, was in LYNAY, took karate on the side, taught middle school girls every Wednesday nights, and did community service. Whatever I did, I gave it my all, and it typically worked out beautifully. If I needed something, I would go out and get it, or figure out a way to obtain my goal. I knew how to live not only a good life, but also a good Christian life in the States.
But I am no longer in the States, and none of what I did there matters. I had to relearn things that I have been doing my entire life. How to speak Spanish, how to drive a stick in mountains with no roads, how to live here in Honduras; everything I once knew got shifted. It was then in the middle of all I knew crashing down that God started building this new thought into my head.
When one thinks of heroes of our faith we turn to Moses, David, even Paul, but if one takes a deeper look at their lives it is easy to see that they were not the greatest of individuals. In fact, they had their moments of simply screwing up. Moses had killed a man, David had a man killed so he could get with his wife, and Paul was on a crusade to kill Christians. Our heroes of faith were not perfect in fact they had some pretty complicated lives. But how great is our God that He can take such screw-ups and still use them for His glory. Our God loves the screw-ups, the rejects, the losers, the whores, the absolute least of this world for His glory.
So in that moment of me feeling like everything I had and was, was crumbling down, God in fact was trying to show me that it does not even matter to begin with because no matter what, His glory will shine through. In the midst of me being completely humiliated, He was showing me that He would be my pride. The days where I was so frustrated by feeling like I could not contribute to anything much less Mission Lazarus, God was saying I am not looking for greatness, just you.
So I will gladly become the least of these, I will fumble through Spanish, practice driving a stick, and continue to try to do a good work here, because no matter what, God’s glory will shine. What a God. A God that continues to use my lame attempts to serve, and somehow, unexplainably, still uses them for His glory. Remember this my friends, remember what I had forgotten, that God is not asking us to be perfect, but instead asking that you just to be you. Give what little you have, and watch what wondrous things God will do through it.
wsl,
Mallory K. Kornegay
