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I set to work, wrote 20 postcards (and sure enough, got a cramp),
wrote in my journal, started and finished Wuthering Heights,
and I even planned two lessons. The day that I had thought was
going to be a complete waste turned out to be the most productive
of my visit. While I enjoyed my bike ride out to the Mogao Grottoes,
my camel ride around the Singing Sand Dunes, and exploring all
the Buddhist art in the area, no day relieved my mind of its worries
as much as that day.
Upon returning to Lanzhou, I was immediately caught up in preparations
for classes, sorting out grocery shopping, dealing with a broken
water boiler, cleaning, and other everyday tasks. I was grateful
I had taken the day in Dunhuang to write to folks back home and
recharge by myself. Slowly though, I realized over the course
of the next week that the same attitude that had almost kept me
in bed all day in Dunhuang was affecting my life in Lanzhou as
well. I had been marveling at how I always seemed to get more
accomplished in high school and even college than I could get
done here. Why did it seem like my productivity had decreased?
Once again, God gave me a nudge when I needed it. I had spent
so much time thinking about what I had to do, that I rarely put
in as much effort to actually do it. Yes, an old lesson, and I’ve
heard enough platitudes about it to probably write a book, as
I am sure many other people have. However, hearing something over
and over again won’t make a difference if you aren’t
listening, and up until that point, I hadn’t been listening.
I went to Dunhuang for an “escape” from my life in
Lanzhou, but I couldn’t escape my attitude, and I definitely
couldn’t outrun God. There was no giving up until I had
learned the lesson. My focus had been turned inward, toward myself,
rather than outward to God and others. My best friend from home
is brilliant about keeping me on a more even keel. I have been
saved from self-pity by her get-moving-and-change-it-or-sit-down-and-be-quiet
attitude more times than I can remember, and I am incredibly grateful
to her. However, Christy isn’t here in China, and I have
become entangled in the day-to-day worries, and my own self more
often here. This has led me away from getting on with the work
that God has given me to do. I have become like Peter, sinking
in the sea because I have taken my eyes off my Savior, and can
now only cry “Lord, save me!” (Matthew 14:28-30).
Save me from myself.
C.S. Lewis writes in The Four Loves, “If I may
trust my own experience, it is…the practical and prudential
cares of this world, and even the smallest and the most prosaic
of those cares, that are the great distraction. The gnat-like
cloud of petty anxieties and decisions about the conduct of the
next hour have interfered with my prayers more often than any
passions or appetite whatever.” I could not agree more with
his assessment. I have become aware of how much my focus has become
warped, focused only on myself and my day-to-day worries, rather
than on the people here in China, whom God has sent me to learn
from, as well as to teach. Not to mention how my focus has wandered
from God Himself! It took a trip to Dunhuang and several nudges
until I caught on, but having learned the lesson (for now), I
can make changes. I can become more proactive, focus more on my
prayers, on my students, colleagues, and all the others who God
has seen fit to place in my life. My prayer now is that my vision
may continue to be turned from myself, with all of my petty worries
and anxieties. May it be turned back to my Savior and to the work
He would have me do here in China.
Rachel
The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 246 |
