A while back I wrote a post titled “loneliness, fear = isolation?”. Within a few days of that email and all the talking to God that went along with it, I received a very specific answer.

For those of you who never read that earlier post, forgot it, and/or are not willing to go back and read or reread it: the gist was that the isolation of the Ugandan village we are going to was pretty difficult for me to contemplate long term. I say was. It still is difficult to contemplate but I choose not to. That, however, is not the answer to my fears!

I have been reading a book by Elisabeth Elliot called “Keep a Quiet Heart”. It’s a collection of articles that she wrote for her newsletter. Although I initially almost returned it, when I got back from Uganda I picked it up while doing my devotions. God used her writing numerous times during those first few weeks post trip to confirm what He was asking of me.

From that text, just a few days after I realized that my greatest fear was the isolation and how I would react to that, a few verses came to me.

“I offer you the choice of life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life and then you and your descendants will live; love the Lord your God, obey him, and hold fast to him: that is life for you.” Deuteronomy 30:19,20

Let me just be clear in saying that I do not think that God will kill me or curse me if I do not go to Uganda!! But rather that this IS what God has for me, for us, and that in choosing to obey it despite some apparent downsides (isolation, for example) we will be choosing life the very best of life for us. He does not ask us to do what will be wrong for us. I do not have to question (as I was) whether I should obey or not based on how strong or able I am.

and also:

” The Lord your God will cross over at your head . . . he will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not be discouraged or afraid.” Deuteronomy 31:3,8

And Elisabeth Elliot wrote: ” In order to get to a place called Laity Lodge in Texas, you have to drive into a riverbed. The road takes you down a steep, rocky hill into a canyon and straight into the water. there is a sign at the water’s edge which says, “Yes. You drive in the river.”

One who has made up his mind to go to the uttermost with God will come to a place as unexpected and perhaps looking as impossible to travel as that riverbed looks. He may glance around for an alternative route, but if he wants what God promises His faithful ones, he must go straight into the danger. There is no other way.

The written word is our direction. Trust it. Obey it. Drive in the river and get to Laity Lodge.”

Need I say more?? I am already on the way to “Laity Lodge” or rather Nyahuka Village, Bundibugyo, Uganda. And I couldn’t be more excited to be going. I know that in agreeing to the difficulties of the next thing God is giving us, we are also choosing all the joys. In accepting the costs we are also expecting great rewards (what they may look like we do not know!) It’s all about trust, about dependence, about faith that HE is - and that He is enough.