The Lord didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night and say- “Leahhh, this is your Father speaking. I want YOU to go on the World Race!”. Although that would’ve been sort of awesome…and really freaky.
I’m not a world race prodigy child either… one of those who knew for years and years that as soon as they finished college they wanted to go on the race and saved all their pennies and stalked everyone’s blogs. Nope. I actually never thought this kind of trip was a possibility for my future. At all.
I didn’t pray about applying for months like I probably should’ve. I'm a terrible christian. I pretty much just pulled up the website, clicked apply, and that was that. One minute I was working on my resume and applying for “real life jobs” and the next thing I knew I was crumpling my resume up in the trash.
I didn’t get a phone call from God. I didn’t have a vision. I didn’t get those holy spirit goosebumps. I didn’t walk down an aisle and dedicate my life to becoming a full time missionary.
Recently I've noticed that alot of people we meet around the world are really interested in how we got here and why we’re doing the World Race. And most of the time the response from my squad is-
“I just knew that God was calling me to do this”.
Now would probably be a good time to say that I’m not knocking that answer. At all. Because I genuinely believe that lots of the people on my squad were specifically called to the World Race and some of their stories about how they got here are just crazy cool. I just look at things differently (shocking…I know).
BUT here’s how I got here-
God wrecked my life and broke my heart.
He said no to every single plan I tried to make.
He closed every door.
I'm talking like slammed them shut.
And so I sat at my house one day
staring at a fancy diploma
and a resume full of odd camp jobs and coaching gigs.
and I decided to give it up.
my future.
my past.
my sin.
my selfishness.
my dreams.
my fears.
my chains.
my reputation.
my pride.
I just gave it all up.
And in that moment God called me to something. But it wasn’t the World Race. Not exactly. He called me to more. God called me to love people with the love that He promised to pour into me every day. He called me to live differently…to look different, to spend my money and my time and my energy differently. And to dedicate my life to sharing His love and grace with everyone I meet.
See, here's the thing- I don’t really want to be a missionary.
I don't know why…but the word just weirds me out.
And I don’t want to spend this one year of my life 2012 living radically and then go back to America and live comfortably hunky dorey again, always referring back to “that one time on the world race”.
That’s definitely NOT what my calling looks like.
I am blessed beyond belief to have the opportunity to spend this year serving God’s people around the world. The magnitude of everything I left behind or had to give up pales SO much in comparison to what I’ve gained since I said yes to this journey. It blows my mind every day that this is my life.
And yet in my dreams there’s really no end to my world race. There’s always more orphans to hug, more starving children, more widows to clean houses for, and more beautiful mountain villages that haven’t heard the name of Jesus.
God didn’t call me to go on the World Race.
He called me to follow Him.
Radically. Passionately. And with all of my heart.
So I answered THAT call.
And wow. Its been good.
