Fear is a fascinating, powerful, and at many times crippling, enemy that hits so many of us each and every single day. I, personally, have been very fearful the past several days. On Wednesday and Thursday, I watched two videos, about ISIS and technology possibly compatible with the Mark of the Beast.
While watching the ISIS video last night, I could not even make it all the way through without calling a friend and then promptly leaving my apartment. Of all the places I could walk to, there was one place I needed to go, which was my prior home, the campus of Colorado State University.
While walking around the campus last night, I saw the stars, worshiped, prayed. Yet, there was one song I started to hum, then sing the chorus, at first softly, and then louder and louder…
“God is bigger than the boogeyman/ He’s bigger than Godzilla/ or the monsters on TV/ Oh, God is bigger than the boogeyman/ And He’s watching out for you and me!”
Walking around campus last night, singing, praying, I felt alone but deep in my heart, I knew I wasn’t. I could feel God right there, and I could see Him while I looked up at the stars, reminding me that He “reigns above and below the clouds.”
Yet, that was not all that happened. Before I left my apartment and began my walk, I watched the season premiere of Scandal. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it deals with a crisis management firm in Washington, DC, their leader Olivia Pope, Olivia’s “complicated” love life, and the corruption of Washington.
Last season, Olivia had the chance to leave her job, her friends, and the “trials” of Washington for the “easy life” on an island. Yet, when one of her associates ended up dead and she returned for last night’s episode, she said she was only going to stay for his funeral, and then return to “the easy life.”
However, she couldn’t, because deep down, she knew, that as a “gladiator,” she had a job to do, to assist and help others work their way through their problems and eventually find themselves where they could say proudly, that their dilemmas were “handled.”
I mention all of this to say one thing. For the past four years, I have thought of almost nothing but Africa. I have written blogs, Facebook posts. I have volunteered much of my time in the States and overseas to serving and loving the people of Uganda. With all of my heart, I wish I could be healed of my mental illness and that I could live in Africa full-time with all of my Ugandan friends, being able to serve them in countless ways.
However, I believe, that in order for me to succeed in America, to conquer fear whether or not there’s a terrorist attack or the “world ends,” that I need to do one thing. I need to surrender my love for Africa and I need to surrender my longing of wanting to be there or ever be there again. I need to, like Abraham, be willing to lay my passion for Africa on the altar so God can say…
Genesis 22:12-13 NIV
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
Though I long for the “easy life,” I know that is not what God has called me to. I am a “gladiator,” and I am a “warrior,” and it is time for me, for all of us, to as Jesus says in Matthew 16:24-25, to “take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
Thank you all for taking this journey with me. I am privileged to call each and every one of you family and a friend.
Until Next Time,
Jacobo
The Adventures of A Warrior 