Check out A Little Digging pt. 1 to get the bigger picture of what God is doing in my life.
So here’s my confession to you. Here’s what the Lord is asking me to surrender. And it sucks to admit it because you can all see how prideful I am. And you all have the opportunity to judge me and think, “yeah, right, like that could ever have happened anyway.” (Which, obviously, it couldn’t, but you know what I mean. 🙂 And you all get to see just how ugly I am.
But here goes…
I have to surrender my desire, plan, even scheme to be the model World Racer. Actually, that sounds a little silly when I write it out. I think bringing things into the light exposes those big, dark shadows for exactly what they are…small lies that only have power if we let them! But the truth is, I’m not sure I would have even signed up for the race if there wasn’t some part of me that thought I could be the perfect Racer. I could have the best stories to write home about, have all kinds of featured blogs on the homepage, be the person that inspired hundreds, nay thousands more folks to go on the race, singlehandedly change the world, never get sick or homesick, come home and immediately be asked by AIM to lead the next squad heading out because maybe some of my greatness would rub off on them. When people googled The World Race, my picture would come up. Part of me is hoping that you’ll think I’m exaggerating. And to be fair, I probably am a little bit. But not really enough to matter. (edit: I also realize the foolishness of this because this wouldn’t even be the model racer…this very attitude is the opposite of what The World Race is about!)
So there you have it. Me completely spread open and raw.
But I realize not only how ridiculous that is, but also how that directly opposes so many other desires I have for this year. Desires to be changed, desires for community, desires to see God work. Because I’m pretty sure God can’t work through what I just confessed to you. And I’m certain that attitude doesn’t lend itself very well to community! It doesn’t even make sense.
So, this week, I have surrendered it to the Lord. i surrendered my selfish desires for that and my prideful attitude that actually believed I could do it!
And I realized what my deepest desires truly are. Someone asked me this week about my expectations for this year . And I answered, “That the Lord would completely shatter me and rebuild me and that I would never be the same again.” And as soon as I said that, I realized how much I meant it and I knew I truly had surrendered my dream to be the poster child for the World Race.
I have no intention of coming home the same person I was when I left. And I say, “Lord, bring on any amount of pain, digging, surgery, correction, yelling, hitting, breaking, molding, forming, stripping, changing, killing, healing, hurting, loving, emptying, filling…Bring on anything that will make me the person You want me to be. A person who lives for Your glory and is bringing Your Kingdom to earth.”
