Everything is bigger in the South. And as I found out at World Race Training Camp in late July, arachnids are no exception.
Late one evening as I was ascending one of the red hills of Georgia, I was confronted by a spider so large I concluded it must have been frequenting the nearby Chick-Fil-A. Aghast, I clutched a nearby rock—which, though heavy, was not much larger than the breadth of the spider—and I slung it down onto its titanic body: a direct hit!
That was the death of the spider—but not the end of the story.
Scurrying out from under the corpse of the beast and scattering into the evening shadows were about two hundred little baby spiders, prematurely born but full of vigor.
It was a wild and bewildering scene. But it reminded me of a biblical truth: out of a single death, there came a great deal of life.
In John 12:24, the Lord Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus was laying down an unalterable principle: in the economy of God, there can be no life without death. Four days later, Jesus fulfilled His own words. He died in order that all might live. And after His resurrection, as Lesslie Newbigin pointed out, it was precisely when Jesus showed the apostles hands bearing the jagged marks of death that He said, “Even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). Jesus calls His followers to die that others might live. The kingdom will spread in no other way than by way of death.
I have a confession to make. For lots of people, the prospect of leaving home and spending eleven months overseas to share the Gospel is a dream come true. But for me, the choice to leave home felt more like dying a painful death.
Why in the world, you might ask, would embarking on the World Race feel like a death sentence? Well, there are a couple things you should know about me. The first is that I still live at home, and I have never been separated from my parents for longer than a month. My parents are my heroes and my best friends. I guess you could say the umbilical cord has never been completely severed.
The second is that I am deeply in love with people in my hometown and the surrounding area. I cannot possibly express how much I treasure my church family, my friends, and in particular the young men who have been like sons and brothers to me. Among those young men are the high school football players I coached this season, with whom I exchanged tearful goodbyes the night before I left for the Race.
One of my lifelong dreams has been that I would witness revival in Cedar Grove. Then came the seemingly terrible command from the Lord to crucify that dream—at least for now.
When I returned home from Training Camp, it became increasingly evident that although I had agreed to die to my life at home at some indefinite point in the future, I was still holding onto hometown relationships and bygone ministry opportunities with a death grip. Cedar Grove—rather than the World Race—was still my primary focus. Death still awaited me.
But then one afternoon I read Luke 9:61-62. To the one who said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home,” Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:61-62). Instead of setting my eyes on the harvest field, I was looking back over my shoulder. My heart was still sunk in Cedar Grove; but Jesus was in Atlanta with our World Race squad, preparing for Launch. Jesus was in the jungles of Cambodia, readying hearts for the Gospel. Again and again, Christ was whispering in my ear the verse we had sung so many times at Training Camp:
Come away with Me.
Come away with Me….
It’s gonna be wild!
It’s gonna be great!
It’s gonna be full of Me.
And that is when I died. I died when I considered the dreadful prospect that Christ was getting ready to go somewhere I was not willing to go, and if I did not heed the call to die, I would forfeit intimacy with Him. Since Christ meant more to me than everything else put together, I had to follow Him wherever He went. I had to die to that which I held dear, in order that my dear Lord might hold me. “If anyone serves Me,” Jesus said, “he must follow Me; and where I am, there will my servant be also” (John 12:26). So if you were to look at my autopsy, the cause of death would be this: the joy of gaining Jesus in my death, just as Jesus gained me in His. “For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death” (Philippians 3:8, 10). My friends: Is there anything Christ is calling you to die to, in order to gain more of Him?
I have not written to draw attention to my own sacrifice, for it is so very small compared to that of most other believers in the world and many of the other Racers. But I will say that in this little death of mine a curious thing happened: I began to live a fuller life in Christ. I thought God was going to take away my ministry to the football players. Instead, He gave it back and allowed me to coach for three games, so that the week before I left over twenty of the players huddled in my basement and heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And in the intervening days between Training Camp and Launch, a dozen doors opened to me. The peace that surpasses all understanding was mine. And I began looking forward to the World Race, knowing that I and those for whom I surrendered would receive a hundredfold in return (Mark 10:29-30).
So, you might be wondering: Am I excited as I depart on the World Race? Yes—yes I am. I guess you could say I am dying to go.
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