OVERWHELMED!

On the day before I was leaving the states earlier this year to return to New Zealand, my dear friend Erika insisted that I buy a copy of a movie titled: FACING THE GIANTS! I had already seen Fireproof and loved it, and the same folks that made that movie had previously produced Facing the Giants.

Since returning with it to New Zealand in March, I’ve seen it several times, because the students are all keen to see it, and they tell others and so forth. At the end of the movie, the main character has just experienced major blessings as a result of living for God’s glory, and one more word of good news pushes him over the top emotionally… it’s like he’s so filled with gratitude and joy he can barely breath, and he manages to say through tears, “I’m overwhelmed!”

I know exactly how he feels. Overwhelmed! That is the word that most describes what has been happening in the past two months. Sometimes being overwhelmed is a good thing, and sometimes it’s not the best thing. Yet, I praise God because in Him I live and move and have my being, so even the tough situations are not hopeless… there is a plan.

Recently I attended the J2 camp at Foxton Beach. During my morning quiet time before Nonoka and I had our devotional sharing, I asked God to help me put into a word or words why I felt like I was choking on everything as if my heart had grown so big I was having trouble breathing. That’s when the word overwhelmed came into my mind and here’s what I have reflected on since:

• I am overwhelmed with passion for what God has me doing in life. I can see so much potential for ministry and so many opportunities to choose from but don’t know which way to go.
• I am overwhelmed with joy seeing so many youth and university international students coming to Christ or growing deeper in their walk with Him, and in their love for one another.
• I am overwhelmed with the way God has answered prayers for Grace City Church and He is really raising up a family of people who love each other and are ministering together.
• I am overwhelmed with praise for God as I spend time in the newly completed WaiOra (Living Water) Centre at Massey University (Christian centre). It was the first committee I recorded minutes for when I moved to NZ in last 2003 and to see this million dollar facility be completed six years later is a testimony to God’s faithfulness. The students at Massey are already benefiting from it.
• I am overwhelmed by things to do and losing track of the days and weeks and months as a result.
• I am overwhelmed with a desire to have more of my friends, family and supporters be a part of this amazing ministry, to come and visit me and experience the blessing I get to participate in every day.
• I am overwhelmed at all of the labourers God is raising up to work in His harvest field amongst international students in New Zealand.
• I am overwhelmed with compassion for all my friends and family-in-Christ in the Philippines, Samoa, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan and Tonga as so much calamity has come to them over these past few weeks.

OVERWHELMED –verb (used with object)
1. to overcome completely in mind or feeling: overwhelmed by happiness.
2. to overpower or overcome, esp. with superior forces; destroy; crush: Roman troops were overwhelmed by barbarians.
3. to cover or bury beneath a mass of something, as floodwaters, debris, or an avalanche; submerge: the tsunami from the earthquake overwhelmed the islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.
4. to load, heap, treat, or address with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything: a child overwhelmed with presents; to overwhelm someone with questions.
5. to overthrow.