Ever since I left training camp, I wanted to be a Squad Leader. It seemed highly improbable since I wasn't even serving as a Team Leader at the time.
So many people saw in me the potential for leadership. To be honest I've always been put in those positions before, but when it came to the World Race I couldn't figure out why I was being held back.
Are they blind?
Do they not like me??
Is this really the crazy social experiment I thought it was???
Since it is literally mind boggling to think someone couldn't like me :-), all I could conclude is there was something else God intended to open my very stubborn and more than slightly conceited eyes to regarding how I lead others.
Something we speak about on the Race is how leadership is not about power and position, but its about empowering the people we lead to excel and shine, even if that means they shine brighter than we do.
My first team leader, Jon Dundore, is a pro at this. There is NO ONE who could have led me at the beginning of this race like Jon. The man just has a gift to see others as better than they even see themselves. He understands what it means to empower others to seek God's purpose for them in any given season and to live closer to Christ than we currently do.
He was also the first person to tell me that he thought I would be raised up as a Squad Leader. He didn't even know I desired it! He assured me God's work is bigger than my ego and He had extraordinary things for my Race… And not to worry about it.
So I stopped.
Then things got clear.
One of my strengths is my love for people. God has given me a capacity to care about others that I know is a gift from Him. It was in my first three months of not having to lead that showed me how valuable that gift is.
For so much of my life I focused on myself while saying I loved others well. The reality is most of my life, I was just playing favorites. I always have and it is really hard for me not to.
I love those people I choose to love really well, but I neglect others who may need it so much more. I think that is why God always brings those tough-to-love or under-loved people across my dusty path so frequently. He is waiting for me to exercise that heart He put in my chest and ACT in the loving way He has purposed me for.
It's like He keeps tossing me easy pitches and I am stuck eyeing the hotdog guy in the third row.
He wants to show me how to love everyone I am blessed to meet, not only those I choose but those HE chooses as well.
I didn't choose anyone else on P-Squad. They were given to me (Best Squad Ever. Literally.).
I didn't make friends with them because of the school we went to, or the music we listen to, or our tastes in food or our ideologies on politics. I did so because they were on this journey with me, and I feel like that means something to our relational God.
You see I know now the relationships I have been uniquely blessed to form are a gift. I would have never met these people who I now call friend if it weren't for the World Race.
I would not have the chance to share meals, hear about their families and interests, and find out how to love them in the best way I possibly can.
And now as a Squad Leader, I get to spend intentional, quality time with ALL of them instead of just those on one single team.
God gave me this Race to go and love people who desperately need it.
He gave me P-Squad to experience that kind of love for myself.
He allows me to serve as a Squad Leader to show them how much they mean to me and I've finally opened my eyes to what that truly means.
Now everyone is my favorite.
With four more months with these astonishing men and women of the Spirit, could I ask for anything more?
