John 12

Tweet I find myself aching today. I've been seeking an opportunity to go overseas this summer and work alongside a missionary doctor or PA who is completely immersed in the culture he lives in. If you don't know, I feel the Lord has called me to full-time medical mission work, so that's why I'm seeking out this particular opportunity. And I've been trying to find the chance to do this off and on for almost two and a half years now. I really believe that this summer will be the time, but every door I've knocked on (or even tried to forcefully open...) has remained closed. Today I got another one of those disheartening, we don't have anything for you, but here's somewhere else you can look emails.
So as I start emailing a couple more organizations and reading about the plethora of issues and needs out there (and opportunities that should be), my heart aches. This is my passion - to reach those people who are hurting and broken and need a Savior they've never even heard of. I know the need is there - and abundant! "... the fields are white for harvest." Yet I can't even find a way to get myself there. Then the Lord speaks to me - "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
My prayer today is that I would find the death of me. My passion shouldn't just drive me to work longer, press harder, and look further, but to get on my face and die daily. My passion shouldn't send me running to my strength, my ambition, and my desire, but to the will and power of the almighty God. Don't get me wrong, I should work hard to seek out God's will for my life, but if that's all I do, I will fail. Every time. The only way I will ever succeed in fulfilling the passions God himself has put inside of me is if I fall into the ground and die that he might do his will. I have to realize that my life is not something for me to use. It's something to be shattered and broken so that it will be ready for the Kingdom's use. To that end, the place I should be most often is probably not writing another email, filling out another application, or making another phone call. Those things are good and needed, but the things I absolutely need every day are to be in the Word seeking to know the character of God and on my face in total surrender of who I am, asking him to do his will in my life.
Psalm 138:8 -

"The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands."