Have you ever thought about the seasons? I mean, really thought about them? How perfectly designed each one is…preparing and giving life to the next, each in its time, for its time, completing its intended purpose?
I am a person who loves seasons. I can appreciate them all…even the blazing 110-degrees-plus of the AZ summer. But seasons of the soul…those can be a little trickier.
It’s no secret that I signed up for the World Race expecting change. Desiring it. Craving it. But sometimes, change comes in unexpected ways. I guess you could say, in the last three months, I’ve been in a season. A season of transition. A season of unveiling and straining for vision as my eyes adjust to the light around me.
And now, the seasons are changing…
I am on a new team. In a new country. Our route has changed. And in the midst of all this physical change, there’s something even deeper on the inside, something I can’t quite get to yet, that has shifted.
I mean, I knew when I left for the Race that I would be giving things up. A steady job. Comforts. Connectedness to the people and places that I love. But somewhere in the last month, up in the mountains of Peru, isolated from anything remotely familiar, I realized something: I have lost it all.
Paul puts it this way: “Whatever was once to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, for whose sake I have lost all things.� (Philippians 3:7).
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not imprisoned somewhere for sharing the Gospel of Christ. I am not tortured, I am not beaten, and I am not in chains. I could lose so much more…my health, my family, my sanity…the list goes on and on. But here’s the simple truth: whatever was once for my profit, even the very good things of life, are somehow now worthless compared to knowing Christ. They just won’t satisfy. I have to have Christ, and have him in abundance. And that is a scary admission, because I really don’t really know how to walk in that yet. When has Christ really ever been ALL I have?
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold f that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavanward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14
**New blog to come on the team/route changes. We are currently in Candelaria, Nicaragua working with New Song mission. It’s amazing here, and I am so pumped to be a part. Stay tuned, family & friends. Much love!!
