Part one left you with me heading to Swazi, so here goes….
Swazi was incredible for me. It was the maybe the worst we’ve had it the entire Race, but it was absolutely wonderful. I arrived with a terrible attitude that was a reflection of my contact’s (no worries, we sorted it all out quickly and ended up loving each other), but the Lord was quick to grab my heart and whisper “Sit and remember.”
And so every morning of Swazi, that’s what I did. I grabbed my coffee, went to my spot on our fake front porch, and I sat. I remembered what it looked like to start my day in a place of resting. It got easy to do it in Swazi. I was excited that rest was coming naturally again. Every day became the best day of my life.
And then we switched continents again…and Ireland brought with it all of the distractions Swazi had removed. Four days into ministry in Coleraine, I found myself right back where I had started in South Africa: exhausted, filled with dread, and over it all. The concept of rest had disappeared in a matter of days. I was sleeping until the last possible seconds in the morning, I was spending my (very little) off time shopping or finding new coffee shops, and I was over it. I was completely restless and no amount of naptime helped me “catch up.”
I was miserable. I loved Ireland and our contacts and having my whole squad around…but my poor soul was just dying for some air to breathe. Like clockwork, the whisper grabbed my heart one afternoon on the train: “Sit and remember.”
And that’s where I realized I had forgotten something. I blamed my lack of rest on my lack of time. But more often than not (at least for me), rest is more of a faith issue than a time constraint. In order to enter into rest, you’ve got to trust that God can take care of the world.
My team has been through the ringer lately – physically, spiritually, relationally, emotionally – we’ve been hit hard. In my head, resting meant letting go of that and trusting that God was God…and because He is God, He can take care of my team infinitely better than I can.
My future is completely up in the air because one, I don’t like making commitments and two, I’ve realized there’s no rules with what I have to do with my life anymore, which is like opening a treasure chest for me.
And that takes an insane amount of faith. To willingly open your hands up and let go of something that you just really want to take care of yourself…it sucks. And you’d think it’d get easier as time goes on, but it doesn’t because it’s always something different. For me, there’s always a different argument as to why I should get to hold on to this one and handle it myself.
But rest is impossible while I’m still clenching my fists shut. Sure I’ve had a jam-packed schedule in Ireland – but it’s no different than the schedule I had in Swaziland. My lack of rest isn’t due to a lack of time, but a lack of faith that has snuck its way into the corner of my heart.
And that’s just it. There’s nothing more, because here I sit in Dublin, saying goodnight to my parents after another late night meeting homeless people and hanging out in the pubs, still trying to figure out what confronting that lack of faith needs to look like.
Because the thing is…Jesus is standing in front of me, calling me forward. Telling me how beautiful the view is up ahead. And I’m standing and looking around trying to explain to him why it’s really beautiful where I’m at…and that we should just hang out here for a little bit longer. And since Jesus is a really nice guy, He’ll stay there with me while still calling me forward into brand new places of rest and faith (and combining the two).
The end?
Since that’s as close as I can get to a pretty little ending, here’s one of my favorite views from the Race…you know, one of those views that just screams Jesus’ name. That’s a good ending to a blog still in process, right?
