As I walk along the Dominican coast tonight, something I haven’t been able to do a lot in the last 11 months -walk alone, I begin to share my gratitude with the Lord by thanking Him for the opportunity to do life in 11 countries, 11 different cultures, 11 different people groups, 11 different ministry visions over the past year.
I guess when you embark on something like the World Race you think the end will never come. But it does. And you have to process it. While I’m so excited to return home to see family and friends and my community, my life has changed. I haven’t been “on the World Race” the last 300 days. No, I’ve beautifully and unsimply been living life. A life that God has called me into travel to the ends of the earth the past year. I didn’t leave home to come back to the same life. Whether I asked for it or not, I come back beautifully changed and grown. My desires are different, my perspective is changed, and my gaze is forever forward into the next adventure God asks me to partake in with Him. I don’t know what that is, and I’m just as curious as you are.
As I walk along this dark beach at night, eternity of the sea on one side and lives being lived on the other, I realize that’s me. That’s life. On one side of this life I have eternity waiting for me. But on the other I have the present. I have opportunities, encounters, friendships, life calling my name. I do it all with God walking by my side. But as I walk on towards the eternity of Home, I never want to miss the steps He’s designed for me to take. May I never lose sight of the path I’m on. May I never be distracted by things that don’t matter. May I always be looking at Him as He walks with me towards forever. May I always be willing to take others by the hand to walk with me. May I never just coast.
One day the end will come. And I want to look back at a path of no regrets, no untaken opportunities, no selfishness. I’m asking for something bold, something uncomfortable – to live an interruptible life, to lay down selfishness, to seek direction from my God, not my self.
So.. I’m not on the World Race. Im not ending an 11 month trip. I’m on a journey. We all are. And in 20 days my journey happens to shift to a different part of the world. It may not look like living in 24/7 community. It may not involve squeezing 7 people into a tuk tuk to evangelize in the slums of Asia. It may not look like walking out my front door to the remote mountains of Africa. It may not look like building relationships with voodoo doctors and orphans. It may not look like playing UNO with Costa Rican convicts. It may not look like walking through the halls of prisons. It may not look like planting seeds on a farm in Central America. It may not look like hiking two hours in a skirt to share the Gospel. It may not look like killing a cow to feed 100 people. It may not look like speaking broken Spanish to the man in the bakery. It may not look like doing a bad job of hand washing a family’s laundry while talking about Jesus.
But it will be just as beautiful. Because it’s His.
