As I sit here 3 months out from giving up this comfortable life I have here in Atlanta and leaving to go on the World Race, I am reminded of my identity in Christ. For the last 5 years (and if I was completely honest with myself, my entire life) I have held my identity/success in things of this World.
I was very blessed to be born into an amazing family with very successful parents and grandparents. My Grandparents on my Dads side were good ol southern folk and worked very hard for everything they had. I remember staying the summers with them and working all day in the garden in order to have our fresh food for dinner. My grandparents on my mom’s side also came from nothing and worked very hard to achieve success. They founded Off Broadway Shoes and grew it to over 70 stores before being bought out from Rack Room shoes a few years back. They are now helping my uncle launch his new woman’s shoe company “50 East Shoes”. Both of my parents also had to work very hard and are very successful in their own right. My Dad grew up in a small southern town and won several national debate competitions growing up. He is now recognized as one of the top Medical Malpractice attorneys in the State and owns a big firm in Atlanta. My mom also had all kinds of accomplishments. She won Miss Teen GA and got the chance to compete in the Miss Teen USA pageant when she was in high school. She still looks just as good to this day! Both of my parents ended up at UGA Law School and are still practicing in different areas today. My Step Dad and Step Mom on both sides of the family would also fall into the good ol southern folk category. Both worked very hard to get to where they are now and are both running 2 very good businesses. My Step Mom just happens to be an attorney as well.
All I have ever known was to work as hard as I could and hopefully one day be half as successful as my parents.
This all started for me at a very young age. Being the oldest of 7 (yes 7!!) athletic children, we were always competing for everything. Everything was about getting that next trophy, playing that next sport, and being the best we could be on and off the field. It was always a competition between my brothers and me no matter what we were doing. I will save all the details here, but as you can imagine, this could get very intense. If you were to ever walk into one of our rooms as a child, it would be hard to get passed the shelves upon shelves of trophies.
This competitive drive continued on into high school. I was one of the top golfers in the state and was competing in tournaments every weekend. We won the state championship when I was a senior and this was the most rewarding thing of my high school years. This happen to be the very first year North View high school opened up and we will always hold the first state championship in the history of the school. I remember the massive parade and celebration our entire school set up for us as well pulled back into the school parking lot on our team van. This was just another step of “success” in my book up to that point.
In 2003, I graduated High School and headed out to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). When I got to Ole Miss, I decided to drop sports and join the social scene. The competition shifted from sports to being the “man” on campus. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ole Miss, it is the Mega of the fraternity/sorority scene. Almost 95% of the student body takes part in the Greek life. Rush at Ole Miss is one of the most intense things you will ever see on any campus around the country. Girls wouldn’t leave there dorm room for 8 weeks leading up to that in order to save their “good girl” status and get into the sorority they wanted. I always thought this was very funny. I will never forget seeing the line of U-Haul trucks lined up outside the girls dorm rooms after the bids were handed out. This day had a name and it was called “U-Haul Day”. Girls took this so seriously that they would move out if they didn’t get the bid they wanted. For us guys, it was a competition to see who could date the best looking women. I joined the Sigma Nu fraternity and my life began to be all about the approval of other people, my fraternity brothers, and especially women.
I graduate from college in 2008 with a major in hospitality management and a minor in business. After this, I did the only thing I knew to do and that was to come back to Atlanta and start looking for jobs! It was at this time, by the Grace of God, I was radically saved and fully surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. My life and desires really began to change after that. I got the chance to go on my first overseas mission trip to Haiti and I really felt alive for the first time. The seed was planted in my heart that God was calling me into some type of full time ministry then. I remember a friend of mine on that trip mentioning an organization called “Adventures in Missions” and told me about a yearlong mission trip called “The World Race”. As soon as I got back from that trip I googled “the world race” and went to their website. I remember watching the promotion video and instantly got excited and felt like this was what God was calling me to do. I decided to apply for the Race and was going to wait and see what happened. I was also fresh out of college and was applying for jobs in the financial world at the same time. It only took about a week for that little fear/identity crisis I had grown up with my whole life to creep back in and completely diminish everything that God wanted for me. I will never forget when I received the job offer that I had really wanted from Capstone Financial and the acceptance to the World Race the same day. You want to talk about a crossroads. Here I am left with a decision that would completely change the course of my life. Everything in my heart was leading me to the World Race but everything of this world was pulling me away from it. As you can probably tell, I let those fears control me and decided to take the job as a financial adviser and nestle into the corporate world here in Buckhead.
Back to the identity crisis. In August of 2010 I joined Capstone Financial and started to climb that corporate ladder I had always envisioned for myself. I fell into an extremely competitive sales environment and was one of 30 new advisers they brought on that year. Naturally, this is what I thrived on and was nominated “Rookie of the Year” that first year. I also won a national sales contest that year out of 5000 advisers. I qualified for the leader’s conference each of my first 3 years and that allowed me to take some very fancy trips. In 2012, I had the privilege of joining one of the more prestige country clubs in Atlanta, Cherokee Town and Country Club. Between the job, country club, nice apartment, nice car, you name it, I felt like I had everything the World has to offer.
How could I possibly feel like there was more? How could I possibly have an empty feeling in my heart?
I didn’t think about the World Race during these 4 years and it really even crossed my mind until earlier this year. I remember seeing my friend Ashley’s post a few months ago and she was getting ready to head to training camp. She is actually leaving next week for the Race. I remember watching her video blog from training camp and hearing her excitement began to make that excitement come back into my heart. I reached out to her to tell her how excited I was for her and what an amazing time she would have. At this time, there wasn’t even the smallest thought of me going on the Race.
That all changed about a month ago when I moved in with a friend of mine Steve. I needed one month before the house I was supposed to move into was ready and he happened to have an extra room. Little did I know, God had a much bigger plan and this move was the beginning of the whole journey for me. It just so happened that the other guy who lives in the house where I moved into, Kelsey, was leaving in January to go on the expedition route. You can call it a coincidence but looking back it was nothing short of providential. I remember hearing him tell me about his trip over dinner at night and that excitement for the trip started stirring in me again. About 4 weeks ago I remember sitting in my big comfy office (suit and tie and all) and I googled world race. I was like “what are you doing Ryan, you can’t do this now. ha” I saw a route that went to El Salvador and it caught my eye immediately. I remember praying the boldest prayer I think I will ever pray. I said “Lord, if you want me to give up everything and go, I will go. But you have to make it so clear to me that there is no doubt in my mind this is what you are calling me to do.” I remember feeling scared almost after praying that because something in my heart knew that he was about to answer that prayer.
Sure enough, signs started coming pointing me to the race. Crazy things happened day after day. Running into the right person, a journal pointing to it, prophetic words spoken over me about going to the nations, and things like something special happening in Cambodia. It got so crazy that I randomly got introduced to Seth Barnes by a guy who I knew from Church. I had the pleasure of going up to Gainesville to meet with him and meet everyone up there. He introduced me to a couple guys who were financial advisers and left to go on the Race as well. All this was reconfirming a lot of what I was feeling in my heart, but I was still letting that fear try and talk me out of it. I don’t remember when exactly it was, but sometime soon after, that feeling of fear in my heart turned towards excitement. When the desire of my heart started leaning me towards the Race and when I hit number 38 in my journal, yes, 38 signs pointing towards the Race, I decided he was calling me and I couldn’t say any more.
I decided to apply for the Race but I didn’t think there was any possible way I could be ready to leave in January. I was hoping for a June or July route and was going to wait for the routes to come out before I made my decision. A few days later, I found out that the routes were not leaving until August of 2016. What do you know, I was at another cross roads in my heart. I thought January was too soon with everything I had to get in order at work, with fundraising, etc. I am a financial adviser and have about 300 clients so let’s just say there are a ton of logistics I still have to do before I leave. On the other hand, I thought that August was too far out. There is no way I would be able to keep focused at work for that long knowing I was leaving in a year. With that said, I looked back at the January routes and that original route that I saw that first day in my office to El Salvador was the one I ended up applying for.
I am now way over 38 signs and crazy things have happened since then. I know that God has called me to this and it is the most exciting and freeing feeling to think that I will be giving up all this “stuff” and turning EVERYTHING over to Him.
I was officially accepted to the January 16 route 5 team last week and am now ALL IN. The World Race has been His Will and His calling the whole time and I can’t run from it anymore. I will be giving up everything I have here and trusting Him with it all. After all, it is ALL His anyways. It is time for me to leave my comfort zone, love the way Jesus does, and see myself the way my Father sees me, not the way the World sees me. My identity was and always will be in CHRIST. I am a chosen, holy, righteous, blameless, never forgotten, beloved Son of the Most High.
