it’s estimated that the average length of a dating relationship is 3 months.
It so happens that 3 months was the duration of my time with my world race team ‘Ginosko’.
If you’re unfamiliar with how the teams function on the world race, let me explain. Our squad, the N squad has just under 60 people in it. We are split of into teams of 5-7 people. Each team of 5-7 has a leader and our whole squad has 2 squad leaders.
The world race likes the idea of raising up leaders, and so, in typical world race fashion where nothing is ever too sure but we fly by the moving currents of God, this month has brought about two new squad leaders for the N squad.
One of those leaders is my former team leader, Austin.
Austin is an amazing guy and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him be continually crafted by God these past 3 months on the world race. But this is not as much about him as it is about how we approach change.
On my team, Ginosko, we were in many ways really getting to a point where we could trust each other, rely on each other and bonded in lasting ways. The ideas of potentially being split apart left me contemplating a few things, the most dominant was the concept of change.
You don’t really enter into a trip like this without the knowledge that things will change and understanding that you will be stretched. This is one aspect I waited for with anticipation as we set out and I passed down the corridors of adventure. But as we got closer to the transition of squad leaders and loosing Austin to our team, we were told that there would be some other changes to teams and members would shift while others stayed the same.
We met as a squad in the afternoon on a Sunday. Tears filled my teammates eyes with the eminent break up.
I felt tension in my throat as I got emotional myself.
But wasn’t I ready for change? Didn’t I revel at learning new things and being stretched?
We worshiped together. A song about God being glorious.
The bible talks about us being transformed into God’s image from glory to glory in 1 Corinthians 3. I realized in that moment that this move, as hard or confusing it may be to rebuild and restart with a new team, God is transforming me. He’s transforming our squad. From glory that was brought in my old team to the glory that will be God’s in my new team. And that prospect has nothing but joy as I move on in this trip. I know that God has my back and He does
things for a reason; to grow me, stretch me and love me. It may be hard to understand the ways He chooses to do these things and I may not like it-but that’s not for me to worry about. It’s what I do with the changes and how I act in it that builds character and gives God glory.
As much as I would have liked to stay with all of my team, it occurred to me that with a split like this, we really are becoming more united as a squad. We have squad leaders from our own, ones that we can relate to in a different way from our former because we’re all on this race for
the first time and discovering it as we walk through it together. And as I now have former teammate sprinkled throughout teams on my squad, I realize I have deeper connections with these teams because of the people I got to know on my former.
The bible talks about leaven a few times through the book. Sometimes it’s depicted as positive or negative, but the facts concerning leaven remain the same, that it’s occupying. Leaven is basically just yeast and as it’s worked into dough, it affects the whole thing and will rise. It not like you put it in and only a portion will be effected by it; but rather the whole lump
As I look at the changes made to our squad, I can see that we are just like this now – moving people around has spread us and we can be like leaven. We can all rise now.
To all my former team mates, I miss you and love you all. God bless us on our continued adventures on this trip
