Prayer quickly turns to Resentment

After months of waiting I have finally reached Miami!!! I will spend the day in fairly intensive training for the drama, and on Thursday we leave for Guatemala! Not much has happened yet, but we did receive our roles for the play. I was expecting a fairly big part. I thought I was a superb actor, but this infatuation with myself was the very root of my distinguishing.

Yesterday at our very first FUAGNEM (Fired up and going nuts every minute!) we got to watch a video of the drama we will be doing. It shares the story of creation and the gospel, by portraying a world called toy world. It is very simple to pick out the underlying characters in the play: the toymaker is God, the toymaker’s son is Jesus, the Prince and Princess is Adam and Eve, and the magician is the devil. I watched this video and I understood how this drama has saved so many lives. It is amazing and it portrays the good news in such a passionate light. I watched as the story went on and I thought inside my head how good I would be at all of those parts. I could be an amazing God, a passionate Jesus, an evil magician, and I could even attempt to be the handsome prince. As the play went on I even said a prayer to God asking for him to put me in the part that would spread the most grace (thinking that would be the part of Jesus). But when I received my role I was astonished at what I got.

In addition to the main characters listed above there are soldiers, mimes, cats, and various other parts; Parts that I viewed important, but not good enough for my standards. When I received my part my view of the play was turned upside down. I was to be playing the part of a cat. Not even the King or Sidekick Cat, but just a regular cat. I was no leader even in the subdivision I viewed as being to low for me. The Cats part in the play is to be a bad guy at the beginning and then through God’s saving grace, be changed to good in the end. And somehow by God’s amazing grace the part of the cat changed me as well.

When I woke up in the morning I was still high on my train of thought. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I still felt underappreciated. So I decided to trudge downstairs anyways for breakfast. After I finished I went into the team devotions room. No one was their but I just sat down anyways and had my own devo. I read Revelations 21. When I read that heaven was a place with streets of gold I almost smacked myself upside the head for God.

It dawned on me... I AM NOT HERE FOR MYSELF!!! On a mission’s trip set to save thousands of people I was griping in the corner about being a cat. I had prayed the night before for God to use me as he saw fit, and after he did I resented him because it wasn’t what I saw fit. God had a purpose for me but I let the world’s distorted view of the superior person get in the way. God isn’t my sidekick, the guy standing in the back to answer my prayers when I need them answered. But he is the hero and I am not even good enough for me to be his sidekick. At best I am the stupid kid who the villain (Satan) snatches away with the snap of his fingers.

In a world where we are taught to be number one, we must remember that we are not. God is the origin of the universe and we are simply dots floating in space. The choice that God leaves us with is “what will you do with your dot?” I was ashamed to be a cat yesterday when someone got to be the star. Will you choose to be a dot randomly floating in space, or a dot gravitating around the origin of the Universe. If you choose the latter, then remember you are no longer the sun. You are just a planet rotating around it. Sometimes God will ask you to be Jupiter, and sometimes he will ask us to be a space rock. Either way, remember you are rotating around God and it is not the other way around. You should not be working to glorify yourself, but instead working to glorify your creator. God is the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the End. To Walk the Christian walk we must give up our views of superiority and just be the best middle that we can possibly be.