When I started the Race 6 months ago, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I’d be going on a missions trip doing all sorts of different types of ministry in 11 countries around the world. I knew Id be living in close community with at least 5 other people nearly 24/7. I also even knew that this was just as much a discipleship trip for my own growth as it was a missions trip for the people I would be going to. But I really had no idea what kind of stuff I would personally be walking through on this journey.
I’ve shared with you about the ministries that I am doing and have told you about some of the stories from the field. I have even let you know about some of the personal reflections I have had on those things. But now I would like to take a moment just to let you know a little more about the personal journey of spiritual growth I have been walking through in just these past 6 months.
When I started the Race, I felt pretty well put together and ready to jump into full ministry.
Then… the Race began.
Month 1
Nothing too profound happened.
Month 2
God started to speak to me. He told me that one main thing he’d be doing in my life this year it to uproot insecurities and to speak into my identity as a man and as a son of God. Some insecurities started to creep up, and I started to talk through them, but all-in-all it was just recognizing that those insecurities and problems were still there.
Month 3
This was a hard month. It started out fine, and then all of the sudden I just got hit hard. Insecurity after insecurity started popping up everywhere. Some days I didn’t even want to go to ministry because of these insecurities and lies from the devil. I even knew they were lies from the enemy, but I was so much in shambles that I wanted to believe those lies; I didn’t want to bring them to God and hear the truth that God has to speak into me.
Then debrief came. The first night of debrief we had communion, and that was the very night nearly 2,000 years ago Jesus had his last supper with his disciples. There I was, face to face with my Savior and Lord, and I was broken. I cried and had to repent that night for rejecting himrejecting his love for me displayed through his sacrifice. I had in so many ways rejected the truth that God has to speak into me for a lie, and that night I chose to put those lies behind me and to walk in the truth that he had for me. Through several good conversations and many times in prayer, I started to figure out the roots to those insecurities (its not just nipping a behavior in the bud but letting God pull out the insecurity from the root).
Also, that month, because I had closed myself off so much from others because of my insecurities, and since I am such an external processor and deep thinker, I feel like I could talk as much as I needed to through everything that I was going through. That was extremely difficult at the time, but looking back I see how it was really for my good because that drove me to finally start going to God with everything that I want to talk about (instead of going to people first, which is my normal default).
Month 4
Manistry Month. After having a month of dealing with insecurities, I realized that I can so often seek my affirmation and validation from women, so Manistry Month couldn’t come at a more timely place in the Race for me. I got to be around a bunch of Christian men for a whole month, and sought out what it means Biblically to be a true man and a true woman of God. Although I am 23 years old, graduated from college and travelling the world as a missionary, I still never truly felt like a man; I still somewhat felt like a youth in a more mature body. But as God started to speak to me about what a true man is, I began to know how to walk in that, and now I feel confident in my manhood.
Also, while we were in Thailand for Manistry Month working at a home for at-risk children for prostitution and sex trafficking, God started to reveal to me the Fathers Heart of Love. Through developing a love for these kids that I have never experienced before, the heart of a future father someday over these children loving them as if they were my own, God also started to reveal to me his own Fathers heart of love for me as his son.
Especially on the last day of ministry with these kids that I had fallen in love with, all I wanted to do was to hold them and hug them since I was leaving the next day and would probably never see them again in this life. But these are little kids full of energy and excitement, and all they want to do is play. So I had to learn how to love them by loving them the way they needed to be loved (playing with them), and not the way I wanted to love them (just holding them). Then God showed me how he is the same way with us. So often we try to do so much (even religious activity) to show our love to God and try to continue to earn his (although theologically we know we don’t have to do anything to earn Gods love, in practice we still so often try to earn it). God loves us anyway, so he loves us by letting us be busy-bodies and try to do so much for him. But so often all our Heavenly Father wants from us is just for us to settle down and rest in his Presence.
Month 5
God spoke to me again:
Until this point,
I have been teaching you what it means to be my son and to walk in that identity alone.
Now, I will start to reveal to you the inheritance that is yours as my son.
Some you will receive now, but there is infinitely more to come.
You have wanted gifts of power,
But the first gift I give you is this:
The gift of love,
The gift of joy,
The gift of intimacy with me.
I am calling you, drawing you into me.
The love, joy, and intimacy you have seen in others I am now making in you.
This is not an anointing you will have
in any particular time in any particular place around any certain people.
Rather, you will carry this with you wherever you go.
So so far, the Race has been a matter of learning how to walk in that identity as a man with those insecurities shedding off one by one, but recognizing that my true identity is in being a son of God. Now it is walking in that identity as a son, with what that means and looks like to take up that inheritance that God has for me in my ministry now and in what is to come. But ultimately, that sonship and inheritance is all about having intimacy with my Abba Father.
I have started to put behind me the things of the past, which have so easily kept me down, and have started to embrace that which God has for me for now and for the future. I am believing that which God has spoken into my life, and I am starting to act as though they are true, ushering in the good things that God has for me.
Month 6
…still in progress… J
