Four weeks ago my wife gave birth to our fourth child. This time around was different. This time we decided to deliver here in Haiti. By God’s grace, everything went extremely well and mom and baby are doing great.
One of the downsides to having baby abroad, however, is the paperwork. Having a baby abroad means needing to register a live birth abroad and apply for a passport at the US Embassy. Can you say, “paperwork”?
In Haiti, this isn’t easy and means a lot of waiting. Waiting for an appointment, waiting at the domestic airport, waiting for taxis, waiting in lines, waiting to fill out paperwork, waiting for interviews, waiting, waiting, waiting. And, of course, waiting brings the worst out in me. I have absolutely no patience. It’s one of my major short-comings. I. Hate. Waiting.
What brings the worst out in you?
The desert brought the worst out in the Israelites. God had answered their prayer and freed them from their slavery in Egypt (which was brutal). For total freedom, however, they had to go through the desert. Their time in the desert was full of complaining, bitterness, resentment, and anger. It was essential that Israel’s deliverance required crossing the desert. I think that God wanted Israel to go through whatever it took to get the worst to come out of them becauset to be truly delivered, they needed to know the evil inside of them.
For years the Israelites were victims, and being a victim fools us into thinking that there’s nothing wrong with us. Nothing could have been further from the truth with Israel. They needed to go through the desert to come to grips with this. They needed to come to grips with the fact that the same evil that drove the Egyptians to enslave Israel resided in the heart of Israel too. Egypt wasn’t the problem, people are the problem. Sin is the problem.
We don’t fully realize this deeply seeded sin unless we are put in scenarios that bring the worst out in us so we can deal with it. To get the worst out, we have to go through hard stuff. We have to go through the desert.
Jesus wants to deal with the junk in our lives. To do such, we have to be fully aware of our problems, our weakness, our evil. The best way to make us come to grips with our true depravity we have to go through the desert. It is the place of cleansing, the place of sanctification.
What brings out the worst in you?
