Lately, I have been working on being completely BOLD in my faith and in my community. Today I failed in my boldness, but because of today and how it made me feel – I won’t let it happen again. I was sitting in church and our pastor asked us to pray – this was normal, but this time he asked us to pray with the people around us… aloud. Now, I have prayed in groups before, but I’d known the people at least a little before jumping into prayer with them. I found myself just sitting there in church praying aloud, but alone. I heard a few groups praying aloud around me, but something was completely holding me back. I could have easily scooted over to the group next to me and joined in, but I kept telling myself “that would be awkward”. Fear had ahold of my heart and I let it take over.
Leaving the service today I was so completely disappointed in myself. I know in my heart that God not only calls us to grow our relationship with Him but with His people and to live out His word in community. I started thinking about the race and how I will be praying with complete strangers. After today I decided that even if the situation may be uncomfortable -I’m going to embrace the awkward! I must humble myself and abandon fear in order to break down the barrier into other cultures. What in the world is there to be afraid of!? The Lord has already gone before me so what is there to fear when I have Him by my side?
One of the main reasons I decided to go on the race was because I felt uncomfortable being comfortable. I was not comfortable living a content material life when there were people out there that were empty in every sense. This past summer is when I decided to completely dedicate my heart to the Lord. I grew up in a Christian home and always knew Jesus and believed in scripture (more in my ‘About Me’), but I felt I was living life as a distant Christian, admiring Christ from afar, but not living according to His will. I fell away from God and was living my life through unfulfilling idols and false Gods. Since this summer I have spent more time with God and within His word than I ever have and through that He has brought me the most amazing people that I get to be in community with. Most of these people I met through me leaving my comfort zone. Today God was reminding me to get out of my comfort zone in order to grow with Him and in community. It is so easy to stay in the content bubble that we make for ourselves, but are we growing if we continue to stay in the bubble? As I’m preparing for the WR, I’m starting to think it will be easier for me to give up my material “comforts” than my inner comforts, and feelings of what others may think. What it all comes down to is God is my comfort – So I ask for prayer that my team and I can step out in faith and be completely humble and bold in sharing the Lord’s love with others and that we can EMBRACE and grow within the awkward. For without communing with others we may never know the extent of God’s love,
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” Ephesians 3:17-18
As I challenge myself, I challenge you too to break out of the bubble and embrace the awkward. Now I don’t mean make things awkward and go put your arm around a stranger while using a bad pick-up line…please don’t. No, I ask that you go out and engage with others in community and to not let fear cripple you from seizing an opportunity to grow and shine the light.
Go forth and be awkward my friends,
Sue
P.S. The teammate spotlight for this post is Lindsey Sullivan- After chatting through Facebook with Lindsey I’m pretty certain we have similar souls. She is an Elementary Education major with a passion for learning, teaching, outdoors, and family. I can already tell that she and I are going to be soaking up all of the lessons the Lord has to offer us throughout our journey. Lindsey is a Starbucks barista and knowing that fact alone makes me want to be her bestie. I can’t wait to share oodles of Jesus with this gal. Please check out Lindsey’s Blog at: lindsaysullivan.theworldrace.org
