This morning, I got some great reading done, and had some sweet time with the Lord.
I realized that left my computer at home, directly after getting settled in my nook at the Wilmoore, so I snagged Justin's copy of Donald Miller's book Through Painted Deserts. I just read the author's note, but it reached me and did something powerful deep in my soul. He writes about the journey of life. I'd like to share an excerpt.
"…And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."
This struck me. I have been excited about the race, but have been feeling a strange kind of guilt for missing life back home. I wanted to see the Lord's purpose and plan. I swung back by the house and grabbed my computer, and found myself at Jonathan Helser's blog, and God answered my prayer. He filled me with a new sense of purpose. And not just purpose because of the Journey. Purpose IN the Journey.
"In the Autumn of 2010 I was sitting at table in Dublin, Ireland, with some great fathers of the faith. All these men could talk about was the kingdom of heaven coming to earth. I felt like one of the hobbits in the presence of Gandalf and Aragorn. A phrase kept swirling around the table that 'We were created to bring the fruitfulness of the garden into the barrenness of the earth.' When we left the table a whisper of more was pulling on my heart and the hope of the age to come was calling me. Later that evening we gathered with 300 fiery eyed missionaries, the same size as Gideon's army. We wasted the entire evening worshiping God. During the night we kept singing this spontaneous song over and over, 'We won't be satisfied, till the earth looks just like heaven.' I was ruined by that night of worship in Dublin and haven't been the same since."
THAT is the World Race. A year, a journey, a season of growth; a time of learning who we are; a commissioning and releasing into our destiny, our created purpose: to bring the fruitfulness of the garden into the barrenness of the earth.
And it's just the beginning. It's a journey into intimacy. A journey into the hunger and thirst for righteousness. And for me, it has already stirred up the realization that "I won't be satisfied, till the earth looks just like heaven."
The Journey of the Kingdom.
