This is it. One life. One journey. One mission.
I believe my family and friends can best tell you that growing up, I was a little rough around the edges. Coming from a strong Christian home with strong parents and siblings, it was a shock to some that I didn’t necessarily follow the path my family followed. I didn’t fit in, got myself into trouble, and always wanted to do things my way. I was a runt, and although I hate to admit it, I wasn’t the perfect child by any stretch of the imagination. As I grew older, I started lying, cheating, stealing, getting involved in drinking, smoking, basically almost anything that your typical “Christian kid” would be shunned for if in fact any of these were revealed at the church. I was extremely far from God at every level of my life. Think of something you consider to be a sin. Chances are, I had done it.
But God redeems.
Fast forward to my Junior year of college. Here was a man broken by sin, tarnished by deceit, shackled by abandonment, and enslaved by jealousy at a christian college in the heart of the bible belt in South Carolina. Like a sore thumb, I stuck out to everyone the first week or so. It was extremely evident that this piece of Yankee trash that the wind blew in would have absolutely no positive affect on the lives around him.
But God redeems.
Seven weeks into the first semester of my Junior year, a missions conference was held at Southern Wesleyan University. Hesitant to go, I decided to attend not only because I needed chapel credit for the semester, but because I felt a little something in my heart that told me, “Nick, this conference will change your life.” You can imagine how ridiculous I felt as I walked in slowly to that Missions conference, head down, taking my normal seat on the left side of the chapel auditorium. “Why are you here, Nick?” I thought. “This is ridiculous. You have pages upon pages of Management homework to complete, not to mention your lack of sleep you’ve gotten over the past few days.” I was grumbling here and there, not really paying attention to what was going on. I was snapped out of those thoughts as soon as my favorite worship song blared over the loud speakers as the worship team began to play “You Won’t Relent.” Slowly, very slowly, I found myself engaged in the words of the song. I slowly began getting lost in the music, as if the music itself were in slow motion, only then to find myself thinking of the words more deeply than I ever have before.
“You won’t relent until you have it all. My heart is yours.”
I began to think about the life I’ve lived up to that point, and began breaking down. I made an extreme effort to control my emotions but could not prevail. It pains me to say this, but I let a tear or two fall from the side of my eyes! At that point, I prayed that God would open the eyes of my heart that day, and see what He could do for the day He had my heart. But man, let me tell you, I was in no way ready for what happened next. A missions representative from Adventures in Missions came to the stage directly after worship and began talking about World Race. I mean I can try to describe my emotions at this point in time, but no words will ever be descriptive enough to explain it. I can only describe it as God screaming out” NICK! THIS IS IT! THIS IS WHY I CALLED YOU HERE! THIS IS MY PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE! GO!” I found myself in an instant state of prayer. It felt like a sack of righteous bricks broke down every wall of pain, pride, jealousy, envy, and despair and in it’s place built a fortress of love, compassion, and longing to help the sick, blind, rejected, and lonely. Never in my life had I heard God’s voice as loud and clear as I did on that day. You talk about God laying it on your heart? I’m pretty sure he used a dump truck to drop these emotions on my heart.
I will be the first to tell you that never in a million years would I have ever imagined a person like me, a person who was so broken, so lost, so involved in the sins of the world to go on any sort of missions trip at all. With my past, even the least-righteous of all people would be justified to cry “HYPOCRITE!” if they saw me then in comparison to now. I’m far from perfect. I still have a hard time dealing with certain things in my life that bring me down. But then I remember the story of Paul, how God used a man who persecuted Christians to bring sinners to salvation. I think about Jonah who ran away from God, but God used him in incredible ways. I think about David, and how even though he sinned with Bathsheba, God considered him a man after His own heart. In short, God redeems. It is my hope that I can use my experiences with the sin I have struggled with to impact those who may be struggling with the exact same things. I can see now why God allowed me to go through all of those things that I did. I can use them to ignite the fire in the life of someone else!
This adventure is just beginning, and from the time you read the end of this post to the time my squad and I leave in September, I humbly ask for prayer. You know I don’t ask for much, but when I do, it’s for something serious. Pray that God works in not only my heart, but the hearts of my team as we prepare for a trip of a lifetime. Pray that God continues to scream out, “NICK! I am yours and you are mine! Come to me, my Son, and take rest!” because there will be times where I will doubt God’s presence if all doesn’t go as planned. Pray for those who we will reach while out on the missions field. Pray for our travels and for our safety. But most of all, pray that God keeps calling each and every one of us to Him, because he DOES NOT relent until He has it all! Pray that we all as brothers and sisters keep coming to the foot of the cross in humility and devotion.
With that, I can say that it’s time. With your support and your prayers, we can make a difference in this world by bringing the Word of God and the Truth to the darkest parts of the earth. I’m absolutely pumped, because if God can grab a hold of a broken man such as myself and transform my life to transform the lives of others, He can certainly do the same for those whom we reach. So let’s do this! I’m super pumped about this, and you should be to! Let’s go!
Your redeemed brother and friend,
Nick
