This is hard for me to share and I am struggling to do so, but I feel the prompting of the Lord to go ahead.

Since returning from NA, I have had a great deal of difficulty seeing what the Lord did while we were there. Much of this is because of the extreme spiritual battles I found myself fighting throughout many parts of the journey there.

My friend and mentor has taught me much already since joining this ministry. One of his teachings is that "when you go into darkness, the darkness comes out in you." The country God called us to was very dark and oppressive. We were under attack most of the time we were there. I was fearful of how I would respond. I had heard stories (actually horrific ones) of how some people responded when they entered the darkness.

I feared the battle would be evident on fronts that never materialized. In reality, they came in areas that I thought the Lord and I had defeated and left behind. I became highly stressed, and lashed out in ways unacceptable. I grew increasingly frustrated over my inability to establish and control a flow of daily events that would allow us to get into a rhythm.

The truth is that it there was little I could do about this. Much of what occurred was not within my power to control. What was within my power was daily surrender, and a sturdy focus on Christ. I did not do nearly as well here as I would like to report. I caused additional confusion to those who had placed their confidence and trust in me.

I can say that they did not relent in providing me their support. They offered routine encouragement and displayed the kind of Christ-like attitude that they had been trained by their parents, youth ministers, and Awe Star to convey. I am very proud of them. I found myself asking the question "who is the teacher, and who is (are) the pupil(s)?" I learned much from their attitude and disposition under stress.

I'd love to report that this changed my poor self control. However, the truth is that upon return to the states, the combined efforts of fatigue, jet lag, weariness and this same issue, continued to find me surrendering to that which brought pain to those closest to me. It has taken me a couple of weeks to unpack all that the Lord has accomplished, as my lens has been clouded with the smudges of my own filth. I fear I do not even know all that I need to apologize for and I trust the Holy Spirit will bring conviction.

I kept my eyes on my circumstances instead of on Christ!

I was sharing with my friend Eddie about all of this. I went on to tell him that there were literally times when I felt like telling God, "You have my son, You owe me!"

Without missing a beat, he uttered with blurry eyes, and a broken voice, "I wonder how many times God looks at Eddie and Brent and says "You have my Son, you owe me."

He is so right! I was stopped fast as the Lord spoke through this.

brent