On the 28th of February 2001, Buck and Luciene moved to the Amazon Basin of Brazil. We lived in Macapá, right on the equator. Why would a web designer give up his career and take his family from their comfortable life in Columbus, Ohio, USA, to live on the Amazon River? We came with a vision to save the Amazon, to tell people about Jesus, and plant a Vineyard church. We have planted a church, and we are turning it over to the national leaders, heading back to the States in Sept. 2009.

 
During times of trial, during times of walking through the fire, that seems to be when there are feelings of isolation of being all alone. The phone stops working. The car breaks down. The doorbell breaks and we don’t know it. Friends stop by, ring the doorbell that is not working and leave, while we are at home, alone.

God uses those times, of trial, of isolation, to form us, to mold us. I know that this may come as a shocker, but God’s goal is not our comfort and satisfaction. His goal is that we grow and mature, until we become more like Jesus.

Jesus was many times alone. Often he prayed alone, early in the morning, or all night long. During the most trying time in his life, as he prayed and sweat blood in the garden, his friends slept, and he prayed and cried out alone. As he was beaten and scourged, he suffered alone. As he carried his cross through the streets, collapsing under the weight of our sin, he suffered alone. As they nailed him to the cross, he suffered alone.

I don’t understand why it is that God allows us to suffer, except that it must in some way, do in us what years of comfort could not do: make us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.

posted by Eduardo Buck at Friday, July 09, 2004