“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself.” ~ Matthew 22: 37-39
The culture of The World Race is one of “high preference”. To prefer someone over yourself has been explained to us as truly loving someone by considering their needs first. I want to grow into this value over the next year. I believe it is one of the most challenging things to do. I can easily become inward focused, especially now when many things are new, awkward, less than comfortable, and just not normal at times! However a switch happened for me a couple of days ago, our last day at our host church in Georgia, when I realized that practicing “high preference” is going to be necessary for my spirit on the Race. Something happens to your heart when you serve others and consider them above yourself. It’s easy to go into a ministry where you are supposed to serve – and serve well…but what about serving the people that you are in community with in the day-to-day? This is when serving and preferring others becomes difficult. But what are we doing if we only prefer those we intentionally go to serve – those who “need us” – and not the brothers and sisters and family that God has entrusted us with each day? This is the context where it can be the most difficult to serve, but also the most important…we do need each other! I am a hypocrite if I can’t have a servant’s heart with my teammates first – before I go serve others around the world. So, for me, the importance of this first week of The World Race – what we call “launch” – has been the reminder of where my focus and heart needs to be relative to my team each day. There will be days out on the field when choosing to prefer others over myself will not be easy, but I’m very aware of how important it will be for my heart AND how important it is to God’s heart!
So…who is your family…your “team”…and how can you show them preference today?
