Two days until camp.
Forty-eight days until the launch deadline.
Sixty-three days until launch.
Forty-eight days. Forty-eight days until there has to be $10,000 in my account. Right now, my account has $6,112. This means there is FORTY-EIGHT DAYS to raise $3,888. My immediate thought is how impossible that sounds.
My immediate thought was that because I’ve always liked being in control. I’ve always needed to know the exact plan for everything happening. It’s a safety buffer, it always has been. If I’m in control and know the plan, then whatever is happening doesn’t startle my introverted self.
If I can plan fundraisers to be successful then I can guarantee to be funded. If I can make lists and charts and be organized about the Race, then I can guarantee success with fundraising.
But here’s the thing: we don’t get to be in control. God does.
If we’re in control, then the focus is on ourselves, not God. If we’re in control, then God isn’t the center of our lives. If we’re in control, then we are still living for ourselves and not for God.
This isn’t how God wants us to live. And it’s not how I want to live. It’s not a fun life to be stressed and worried about things that are already out of our control.
Tony Reinke guest blogged on Ann Voskamp’s blog two days ago. He talked about John Newton and how Newton has impacted his life when it comes to walking through the hardest part of following Jesus.
“Most soberly of all, Newton reminds me that I live by the death of Christ, who was hammered to a cross in my place, and who drank down all the bitter dregs of God’s wrath for all my hell-deserving acts of rebellion against my Creator.”
“This Christ. How can I forget that I live by this Christ, who bled blood so red that it bleached by soul white?”
“Christ enlightens the most ignorant, He softens the hardest heart, He rescues the most lost, He delivers the most tempted, He comforts the most distressed, and He pardons the most guilty. In defiance of all my sins, and my fears, and my forgetfulness, Christ saves to the uttermost.”
“John Newton reminds me that keeping my focus on Christ is the hardest part of my life. But Christ is worth fighting for.”
I knew this journey would be hard, but I didn’t realize God would break me of things that brought me such comfort. As an introvert, being in control of things keeps me sane. But I don’t want to live a life where I’m in control, I want to live a life where God is in control of my life.
I don’t like to be out of control.
I don’t like not knowing what’s happening around me.
I don’t like not knowing the plan.
I don’t like to be unsure about the future.
I don’t like walking into an uncomfortable situation.
But that’s exactly what the next year of my life will be. Not in control, uncertainty, uncomfortable. Eleven months of this, all of the time.
It’s really hard not being in control. Fundraisers have been a bust when I worked hard to plan them. Several squadmates have become fully funded when I haven’t seen a donation in weeks. Many squadmates are seeing radical things happen in their lives when I feel like I haven’t seen God show up at all lately. Putting myself out there when it comes to fundraising makes the introvert in me want to crawl into a cave and roll the rock across the entrance. Often, I wonder if this is the Devil playing games with my mind. Though, now I’m sure it is. He’s sneaky and hurtful, he enjoys tormenting our daily thoughts.
Christ is worth the fight though. Living for Him and for the kingdom are worth the uncertainty and being uncomfortable. He’s worth knowing that I have no idea how the rest of my funds will be raised. He’s worth knowing that I have no idea how the next $3,888 for the launch deadline will be raised, or even how the rest of the money to be fully funded will be raised.
What I do know is Christ is in my corner and when He’s the center of my life, life will be infinitely better.
God is good, all the time.
–Kristen
