“…My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you… 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.”
– Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller
The reality of these words get more powerful with every second I get closer to stepping on the airplane. To leave is to find. It’s incredible to go to the places you have never been to see that God is already there. Weather people see him or not, He is there. He is holding all things together and working all things out in accordance to his will.
And, I, one life, with one heart, will show up and I will see the God that has already been there. And it is my prayer that I would see people look upon that already present God for the first time. I desire to see lives be filled with hope and joy because of a God that promises love, redemption, and peace. I want to see glory shine on His beloved children and remind them they will never again be covered in shame.
So I leave in four days. I am going with a hope that is only found in Christ. I am going because I believe that life is meant to be lived. I am going because I believe somewhere out in this world I will find more Jesus. I believe I will look into the eyes of a stranger, the poor, the sick, the lonely and the brokenhearted, and there I will find more Jesus.
I will go
in humility, with gentleness.
in love, with thankfulness.
to intertwine my fingers with a strangers.
to walk barefoot in the mud and feel the earth God formed.
to get my butt kicked in a game of soccer.
to tell satan to get out of the freakin way because God's Kingdom is coming.
to die to myself everyday because you have never lived if you have never died.
I will go “because of him who is rich in mercy and able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.”
So, with my small faith, I will leave. I will go because Jesus is already there.
And honestly, we ALL just need more of Him.
