Welcome everyone to my first official blog post for the World Race! Truth is, this is my first blog post ever. So far I am a sentence and a half in and I am not entirely sure how I feel. Definitely experiencing some added pressure, knowing that others may read this is a daunting feeling, but I suppose that’s normal. Either way, it will be fun for sure to see how these pan out and develop throughout the coming weeks and months. Let’s hope I only get better at writing these from here on out!
To kick off my blog I wanted to start with something original. Something different. Something to express my personality and my voice. To give you guys a chance to see me for who I am, and exactly what I am thinking and feeling. Well…This is where my second confession of the blog comes in. I’m actually writing this fairly late at night and honestly was struggling to develop an original and fresh starting topic…so, I have settled for a fairly common topic: Why the World Race?
Truthfully, I like this topic. It makes perfect sense to start here and I hope will give you a better, more clear understanding of why I have decided to go on the World Race. But, before I actually dive in to that, I want to say one thing here at the start. My hope and desire with this blog is to truly give you a view into how I think, what I feel and how I process. I want to give you all an honest glimpse into how God is moving, working and into what he is speaking to me on. My hope and heart is that this blog can be a window into those areas of my life and to bring you along with me on this new adventure. I say all of this simply to give you a rough sketch or framework of expectation for what is to come. My heart with this blog is to be honest, vulnerable, intentional, encouraging and simply informative. I am excited for this journey and am excited to have you with me! With that, lets get started!
So, why the World Race? This is a pretty loaded question for me. I could probably write for quite awhile on the journey God has brought me on, the lessons he has taught me and the moments of deep wrestling that brought me to this place (False identity, what do you love, nailing it down: A few of the topics I will most certainly tackle in later posts). For now, I would like to focus on this most recent year and in particular, the last 6 months. I’ll do my best to keep it short.
This last year I have wrestled mightily through this idea that, “Our God is not a God of half measures.” I remember clearly when I first read those words and the weight of truth that rested in that phrase. I was floored. I spent a good while praying, processing and wrestling through what this looked like in my life; and it all came to a head in mid July, as I was volunteering as a cabin leader for our high school summer camp. What is to follow is a text message I sent to a friend following my time at that camp. I think it sums up my heart pretty well.
Coming into this camp I was processing this idea of, “Our God is not a God of half measures.” I was reading through some of CS Lewis and he uses really cool imagery, talking about how God doesn’t just want a branch, he wants the whole tree. And if we are presently eggs, we must either hatch or spoil, we cannot simply remain as we are. Yet in all of this, we so often hold parts back from God. We often hope to harvest wheat in a field of grass, hoping that we can simply cut the grass and still grow the wheat. The reality is we still produce grass, the change must be deeper. This has been truly a year of processing for me on this but I’m essentially at the point where I’m tired of giving God short of what he’s asking for. And I’m talking in everything: time, future, dreams, relationships, etc. God calls for all of me and that’s where I want to be. In that place saying, no half measures, God, you have all of me.
Going into that camp, I was pretty squarely on the fence about the World Race. I had been grabbed by the mission of the World Race but struggled to understand how it aligned with where I was at in life. That night at camp, as a leader oddly enough, I felt the Lord speak and I decided to take a step of obedience. I was uncertain of how it would all play out, but I knew God was faithful; and if it was in his plan for me to go then he would lead me as I went. That much I was certain of.
So, to the question again, why the World Race? Well, my God is not a God of half measures, he has asked for all of me. I have given him the tree and he’s led me here, and I am excited to see where he leads next!
