We were asked to write a blog about how we felt before leaving on this mission trip. Here is what I’m expecting….
I’m expecting everything and I’m expecting nothing. This line is the only way I know how to answer this question. To be quite frank, I don’t know what to expect. I hear so many things about how God can change you this way or that, or he can do this with your life, but I have no idea what that is going to look like for me.
The one thing I can honestly say is that I don’t expect to come back the same person. I do expect to be changed, but I honestly don’t know what that looks like.
I had a conversation tonight with a friend that I very much enjoy and respect and we were talking about what it means to be called to something. The consensus she and I came to is….What does that even mean?! I am doing the world race because I believe it to be of Christ and it is a unique opportunity that has come my way.
We are all told to take the gospel to the nations and baptize in his name, this isn’t a calling, it’s a commandment. Now I fully believe and am expecting Christ to show up in very big ways in this trip, but I honestly believe Christ will be no more present in Africa or Asia or Thailand than he is in my life today right now.
However, the beautiful thing about a trip like the world race is that we get a chance to let go of control and I believe this is the biggest difference in what I expect. I expect to be entirely at the mercy of a power that is not mine. I truly believe the lord will take me where I need to go; surely not where he needs, b/c he does not need me. He loves me and is proud of me, and I in return to show both my love for him and my obedience to his will by answering his commandment and am telling him I trust him more than I trust myself. I trust the Lord. There is no safety net built into place as we too often do at home where we are familiar with what is going on, and how to manipulate our surroundings.
I expect to return with a new perspective on life, and I expect that when I am finished with the race I will think back to now and realize how far off from any expectations I had was to what actually happened.
Even with as few of expectations as I try to have these are a few that I feel pretty good about:
1. I expect to make life long friends
2. I expect to be broken time and time again
3. I expect to be sick time and time again
4. I expect to be exhausted time and time again
5. I expect to reach the end of my rope time and time again
6. I expect a piece of my heart to be left in each of the countries we visit
7. I expect to be home-sick on holidays
8. I expect to cry and I expect to laugh
9. I expect to miss time with my father and mother
10. I expect to miss hott showers
11. I expect to be completely okay with not having any homework
12. I expect the lord to turn me upside down
13. I expect to meet Christ in the most unexpected of situations.
It is amazing the lord lets me go on the way he does, its amazing he would let me serve him, that he would trust me enough to seek his sons and daughters out and tell them the good news. I am the worst of sinners and yet he has allowed me this privelage. I can never expect to understand this, so my last expectation is I become even more overwhelmed and confused with the way the Lord continues to reveal himself to both me and people I meet along the way.
The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…..Psalm 23
Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths of hell you are there….Psalm 139
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be…..Psalm 139
I cry to you, O lord; I say,”You are my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living.”….Pslam 142
When my spirit grows fain with in me, it is you who know my way…..Psalm 142
