This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

I’ve been gone for almost a month now, and so much has happened in that time.

I’ve eaten my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches next to chickens, cows, goats and sheep; watched donkeys carry our water from a river; heard the voices of African school children praising God in Swahili; been covered in dust; watched our tent get completely turned over by a dust tornado; read Scripture to the downhearted; brushed my teeth next to a herd of grazing cattle; received a new Maasai name and a new Swahili name; walked several miles a day evangelizing from hut to hut; picked out different types of bugs trying to make a home inside my hair; sat in hot church buildings filled with too many people; and prayed for the paralyzed and the mute and the sick. I’ve tasted a lot of unfamiliar foods; smelled new scents (most which I would rather not smell at all); and been surrounded by so many overwhelming needs.

Everything is different - God is different.

I realize that God hasn’t changed, but I have.
I have finally taken God out of this “JM shaped” box I shoved him in.
Finally realized how much power is held in the name of Jesus Christ.
Finally realized that the God of the universe loves me enough to want to have a personal relationship with me, that He desires to hear my voice and that He answers me. (Something I had always known, but never fully comprehended)
I had placed so many restraints on God and molded Him to fit who I thought He should be that I had lost sight of who He is.
He is powerful.
He is gracious.
He is a refuge.
He is enough.
He is love.

Once I let God out of the comfortable box I’d put Him in, I recognized His power.
His power to form rain clouds in a perfectly clear, blue African sky as we gathered and cried out for rain to quench dry land.
His power to provide for those who have nothing.
His power to bring joy to the hopeless.
His power to heal and protect.
His power to cast out fear.
His power to speak to a listening heart.
His power to break every chain.

His power.
Not my power.
Not our power.
But His complete and perfect power.