It’s those nights that I can’t sleep that God teaches me. When you’re tossing and turning and you’re putting thoughts together and things start clicking. Before you know it you’re figuring out answers to your very own questions.
It’s the question I’ve been asked the most, and also the one I was least prepared to answer. “What got you to the point of applying for The World Race, why do you want to go?”
It was an important question and one that I didn’t even have an answer to. I want to travel. I love missions. I want to be a missionary. I want to be adventurous. I want to challenge myself. Of course those are all true, but are any of those actually the driving forces of why I took the leap? I recently read a blog post about why short term mission trips are actually selfish and don’t help anyone but the person going on the trip. She suggested that giving a little kid a colorful bracelet, or a family a bag of rice, or a temporary medicine to relieve pain wasn’t actually helping anyone out. Her proposal was that it was more beneficial to the country to go stay at a swanky resort and build up their economy that way, giving jobs to the people and circulating the economy. While that is a great idea, I couldn’t disagree more about the part about short term mission trips being selfish.
God’s greatest command to us is to love one another as he loved us. And all day I’ve been thinking about why I’m going. I’ve had a busy day going on many little adventures and it gave me time to think about why I’m leaving behind my friends and family for 11 months to go on The World Race. And the answer is so simple: I can’t imagine a better way to spend 11 months than traveling around the world and loving on anyone who will let me.
If I were to imagine what Jesus would be doing here on earth today, I think I would see him as a man who travels to the farthest ends of the earth just to love on people. I think he would go deep into bars and strip clubs and visit with drug addicts and alcoholics. He wouldn’t try to convert them to christianity, he wouldn’t preach about how their lifestyles are wrong or how they need to repent, I think he would go and find the one person who looks like they need to be loved on. I think he would listen to them talk and he would give them his undivided attention and he would tell them how valuable they are and how his Father loves them so deeply.
And that’s why I want to go on The World Race. Because I want to walk down the roads that prostitutes are on and I want to tell them that God loves them unconditionally and I want to go to villages far in the mountains who feel like outcasts because they are poor and can’t afford to stay in the towns and I want to tell them that they are worthy and that they are sons and daughters of The King of all Kings. I want to hug victims of human trafficking and tell them that God has a plan for their life and they are on this earth for a reason. I want to let them know that even in the midst of the storm they can find joy because joy is in GOD and NOT in our circumstances. I want to dance with little kids and smile at them and teach them games and songs and show them love anyway that I possibly can. Because that’s God’s greatest commandment. To love. And the only way I can spend 11 months pouring out love is because He first loved me.
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” John 13:34
“We love each other because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
