As of now

Coming here was probably the greatest jump in my life. Greater than moving to the Philippines. Greater than moving to Kenya. I was taking a chance on my path, my career, my social life, even my happiness.

Yet when I landed here, God was silent. He didn't speak to me like He used to. I didn't have the fulfilling fruits of my labor that affirmed His own work in my life.

Quite often now, I feel alone, incapable, untested, and desperately questioning. I wonder where God's Spirit went, when I was so certain He was with me before.

So where did God go? Will He show up again? Or am I to go in search of Him?

Ryan

Beirut, Lebanon

Sacred space

There was this line I once read that resonated with me in underlying ways: the Christian story is one that begins in a garden and ends in a city. God’s desire for humanity and our environment has been for mankind to work with our world to make it better. Not that God created our world inadequately but that we were meant be part of God’s work of creation and progress. God is love, and love creates and expands and grows; it doesn’t stay stagnant. So for us as humans, objects of God’s love, we in turn love each other and creation and develop love. 

Ryan

Beirut, Lebanon

Yes No and Wait

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that the only three answers that God provides to our prayers are, “yes, no, or wait.” 

When the Adventist Tutsis prayed to God and wrote to their conference president to save them, the conference president replied no. I cannot believe that God’s response was equivocally the same. Who is God to say no to cries for deliverance?

If His answer is not no, then it must be something else.

Ryan

Nairobi, Kenya