A common question I get is, “Why did you decide to sign up for this World Race thing?” Some ask out of fear for my safety – particularly since some countries on the list (ie, Vietnam) aren’t known for their love of Americans. Some are concerned that I’ll be unable to find a job when I come back. Some just don’t get it at all. I’ve had several people try to talk me out of it – including myself, actually.
So, if I’ve even tried to talk myself out of going, why *am* I going, and how in the world did I fail to talk myself out of it?
Well, the long and short of it is “God told me to.” In two different ways. First, he calls us all – yes, every single one of us – to what we often call “missions work”. It may be better known as “the Great Commission”. Jesus instructed his follows to go and spread the Good News – the Gospel – to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. And go they did, many of them losing their lives in the process. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “I count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Jesus also said that we must all take up our own crosses. Hardly a “safe” thought! The cross had no purpose other than death, so there’s really no getting around that fact. Now, of course, he clearly isn’t calling us to just die. We can show God’s love by being willing to die for our faith, but if we all just died, who would be left to actually preach the Gospel? (Don’t answer that – God would find a way.)
Combine these two and you get one side of how God told me to do the Race. We’re all supposed to spread the Gospel – and yes, that does include in our hometowns. But here’s the thing… in my hometown, I can think of at least seven churches in town, and another on the highway a few miles away. Even if those churches only average 100 people each, that’s 800 people to reach a town of 2500 people… pretty sure God can use any of them there. But how many of them are laying down their lives to travel around the world to advance the Kingdom of God in countries where there may be fewer than a dozen churches in the entire country? Not many. Not enough. If not me, then who?
(Side note: to relax some fears about safety, Adventures in Missions has sent a few thousand people on the Race in the past, and continues to send several hundred more each year. To my knowledge, each and every one of them has returned home perfectly safe.)
Now for the second way that God told me to sign up for the Race. A while back, I was searching for mission trips online. I was looking for the typical one week trips. I stumbled upon Adventures in Missions and started looking at their trips. It didn’t take me long to sign up for a trip to Cambodia. But while I was on their website, I noticed a trip that was separate from the others, called the “World Race”. Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to check it out. It seemed cool, but given that I had never even been out of the country a single time, I decided to pass. I had too much happening in my life to be able to put it all on pause.
Yet, every time I went back to the AIM site to check something or update my profile for the Cambodia trip, I found myself looking more and more at the World Race. Knowing that there was no way I could make it happen, I found myself drawn inexplicably to it. And then something happened that I didn’t even notice at first. One by one, the various things that were keeping me from going… they disappeared. Finally, one night, I received a message on Facebook, and the last thing that was holding me back was gone. I no longer had any tangible excuse *not* to go. So that very night, I applied for the Race. With my attention having been constantly drawn to it, and everything holding me back disappearing, it was obvious that this had to be from God.
I mentioned earlier that I tried to talk myself out of going… I’ll cover that in a post later. Stay tuned for updates by subscribing!
Soli Deo Gloria!
