Last Thursday marked the beginning of the holiday season and for me, the beginning of one thought that keeps popping up in my mind. That thought is pretty simply, I won’t be here next year.
I won’t be working hard to prepare the perfect turkey. I won’t be sitting down with family to watch the Green Bay game with a piece of pumpkin pie. I won’t be drinking egg nog or peppermint lattes or going to the mall to fight the crowds for that perfect gift. No Nutcracker, no lights on the house and no snow. A thought like this can change you.
All these things have marked my holidays for many years and to read my list, it may seem that a bleak year is ahead, and that I am dreading it. This is partially true, I will miss many things about the holidays, but my thought of not being here is surrounded by an air of excitement and adventure. The excitement of the unknown and the adventure that lies within. Yes, I will miss my family and yes I will miss my friends. But these very people are part of the reason I am going because they have always encouraged me to follow close to my Savior, and he is leading me away from home. Away from comfort, away from routine, away from tradition.
Being lead away can be frightening, but I know whom I serve and I know he has big plans for my life. I am expecting that this trip will break me, so that Christ will be what holds me together. I am expecting deep sins such as pride, fear and gossip to be routed out, painful but necessary. I am expecting a new level of faith to arise as I see Him provide, financial provision only being the start. I expect that the greatest culture shock of the year will be when I leave the Race and fly home.
On this eleven country mission trip/adventure, I want to be willing to change. I want to see and be a part of the greater things that Jesus talked about. I want the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk and even the dead to dance. I want to be nothing so He can be everything.
The journey ahead is a long and sometimes daunting one, filled with so many unknowns. But no matter how hard a journey this World Race will be, if I am being used as an instrument of His love to the least of these, it will be worth it.
