9/19/12
As many of you probably know missions trips- or as Seth Barnes calls them, Kingdom Journeys- are full of lessons to be learned and experiences to be had. The Race was full of those, I probably learned more things from The Race than I can even remember, but all of those lessons and experiences have stuck with me. I wrote about this experience in one of my earlier blogs (So God Has Been Doing Some Crazy Stuff), but I want to share with you how it has continued to impact me.
The first "big" thing that happened to me on The Race was being put into a situation where I HAD to rely on God. It was something that was completely new for me, and scared the crap out of me! I had always thought that I couldn't speak well, that what I had to say wouldn't come across properly or that what I had to say really wasn't worth anything coming from me. So God decided to throw me into a situation where he showed me that the words he gives me to speak are so very important, the words he gives me are given to me so that I can speak them, not so that they can just sit in my head. It was a very scary situation for me to sit in someone else's home in the DR and feel like I had nothing to say, but knowing that I had to say something. With that first house I thought I had to be the one who came up with what to say, I had to be the one to miraculously think on my feet, I had to have all this bible knowledge to make a difference. It turns out… God likes to let us know when we are trying to do his job, so he basically shut off my brain.
I couldn't think of anything to say. As we were walking to the next house I was talking to my team mate Sarah about it, and she began explaining to me why she wasn't talking like she usually did. And I began to realize, I needed to stop trying to do God's job! So, I decided to give God the control he was asking for, and things started to get better. The words just started coming out of my mouth, God began using me like he originally intended to. It was God who gave me the words to speak, it was God who didn't have to think on his feet, it was God who already had the bible knowledge to make the difference.
I think this is one of the biggest lessons I learned while on The Race, because I literally had to do it everyday. I had to give every moment of everyday, every word I spoke, every move I made to God and had to rely completely on him. It is so easy to say that, but so very hard to give up our human desire for control, but like many things it is so good!
Yes, it is very hard to give up control of your life to God, especially in the world we live in, but there is a kind of freedom that comes with it that is just indescribable. I want to encourage you all to try and truly give your life up to Christ, not just the simple things that you feel you could be okay with screwing up, but the hard scary things too. Give God control of the hard decisions you have to make, give him control of the scary talks you have to give, give God control in the times when you feel you need to have the most control. Those are the times when you really need to rely on God. He wants all of you, every part of you, every decision you make, every part of your life, he wants to have control of that. It sounds so weird when it is put like that and it sounds like there is no freedom in that, but trust me there is a whole lot more and a better kind of freedom by giving him control of your life. He loves you and he wants the best for you, and that means handing the reins over to Christ.
