I love Christmastime for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite things is wrapping presents. In my family I’m the present wrapper. I like to choose the perfect paper for each person’s interests, neatly wrap the present with exactly three pieces of Scotch tape, and select an accompanying ribbon to tie a beautiful bow on top. One year I even bought plain, solid colored paper, wrapped all the presents, and then took gold and silver paint and painted pictures and patterns onto the paper so that I could design each present’s appearance. I know…it sounds just the tiniest bit obsessive. Suffice it to say, I thoroughly enjoy when things are nicely wrapped up in a neat, aesthetically-pleasing package with no loose ends.
The World Race is the exact opposite of that.
During our first meeting as a new team after the changes at debrief in Quito, our new leader, Jeremiah, asked each of us what the World Race is to us. Why did we come? Why did we leave our homes for eleven months? What are we hoping to gain, do, achieve, give, or take away from this? In light of recent events, my answer seems oddly fitting, and I think the time has come to share with you what the World Race is to me…
I had a lot of reasons for coming on the World Race. Most of them have to do with the fact that it’s pretty much the coolest ministry idea I’ve ever heard of. If I could design a ministry that would be ideal for me and my life calling, it would look very similar. So I applied. But it wasn’t until I was on the Race, in the Dominican Republic, that I realized exactly what I was participating in.
During our time in the DR, we frequently had corporate worship with the four teams living in the San Juan house. Bekah would play her guitar, and the song she always came back to was How He Loves. We sang it almost every time we had worship, and it has become a favorite of our squad. One night as we were singing, part of the lyrics jumped out in my mind, and I realized: This is the World Race.
Heaven meets earth like a sloppy, wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way
He loves us, oh how he loves us…
A sloppy, wet kiss.
It hit me…the World Race is that sloppy, wet kiss. There are many goals behind the Race, but more than anything it’s about heaven meeting earth. It’s about bringing heaven to earth and showing people that they can live inside the love of God, protected in the palm of his hand–not only after they die and go to heaven, but right now as well. It’s about teaching people that miracles still happen, and that we still serve the same powerful God of the Bible. Through prayer, following the Holy Spirit, and living out our faith daily, World Racers seek to live in that intersection of supernatural and literal. We want to live inside of the sloppy, wet kiss, in the place where heaven meets earth, but what does that look like?
Basically, it looks exactly how it sounds…sloppy, messy, confusing, intense, amazing. It’s like living inside of the spark that happens when two electrically charged things touch. We live in moments of divine appointment, moments of influence, moments of uncertainty, moments of impact.
Sometimes it’s a million degrees and you’re covered in mud, sweat, and countless bug bites. Sometimes kids are climbing all over you, slobbering on your shirt and blessing your already-hot body with their additional body heat. Sometimes, like I did last night, you get all your things stolen when thieves break into your apartment.
But at those same times, you remember that the mud you’re hiking through is leading you to people who need to hear about God. You realize that you are getting to love his children, and thereby love him. You understand that things are things and that people matter more.
The World Race is all of this. Instead of a nicely wrapped package with a pretty bow on top, it’s messy, but it’s the means through which God is bringing his Kingdom to earth, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be. My time at Wheaton College taught me to do everything For Christ and His Kingdom, and the World Race is certainly that. Even though right now I’m dirty, I don’t exactly smell like rose petals, and I no longer own any of my valuables, I’m happy, because unlike most people on planet Earth, I’m doing my dream job. I’m living in the sloppy, wet kiss.
On earth as it is in heaven…
