So, I had this dream that all of a sudden I was back home….home early. I dreamed I was back to life as I once knew it….a life where I was comfortable, a life where I had pretty much everything that would make me content (long hot showers, an endless supply of freshly brewed coffee at my fingertips, high speed wireless internet, and Wii), a life that really didn’t require or need crazy spiritual encounters, and a life that only needed Jesus here and there….
Except, you see, the truth is this wasn’t really a dream but reality. No, I’m NOT dreaming, and I am DEFINITELY not home early…but very much still on this adventure called The World Race. Here I find myself in month 9 of The Race not in America or some third world country…but in Cologne, Germany. Here I find myself thrown back into western culture as I once knew it in the blink of an eye. I went from using the bathroom in a wooden outhouse and not bathing for 2 weeks one day to a 3 bedroom/3 bathroom penthouse apartment complete with all the hot water you could ever want in the span of about 24 hours. For the last 8 months I actually got used to being the one that looked and acted DIFFERENT to looking much like everyone else and STRUGGLING to BE different.
The other day as I was journaling and spending time with the Lord, I was drawn to the screen saver that came on my computer. I began seeing images from The Philippines, where I held this little guy named Chris John in my arms one night in a hospital room, desperately praying that the LORD would heal him and watching in amazement as HEALING happened THAT NIGHT.
Then my mind went to other places I had been, people I had encountered, ways in which I had seen God show up. I remembered being in the bush in Kenya, Africa where the Lord brought my team to the site of an African funeral…village style to teach us compassion and to bring an entire village a few seconds of healing through a random song we had practiced earlier that day. I then remembered the joy of taking off my sandals, hiking up my skirt, and wading out into the middle of a dirty African river to witness God’s chosen being baptized on Christmas Day. My mind continued to remember…China, Uganda, Tanzania, India…all these exotic places in which I was super pumped to be taking Christ and His love, places where I WITNESSED first hand God showing up and working in ways that I never dreamed of. So, I asked myself, “Why is Germany different?” Why am I not seeing God show up in crazy ways HERE? For the last 8 months I have expected and seen God show up and work in miraculous ways, so why was that expectation all of a sudden absent? Why all of a sudden, was I missing life in the 3rd world?
You see, God showed up in all of those places, because I EXPECTED Him to. “Ask, and I will give the NATIONS to you”, God says. So God, why not the nation of GERMANY? “You haven’t asked me for it….ask ME, and I will give it to you too.” So, God give us the nation of Germany! I’m EXPECTING God to show up here too. Our coaches always tell us that WE are it. We are the generation that brings change. God…they are it too! The students here in Germany that we are trying SO desperately to reach are it too…they are ALSO part of that generation!
No, I’m definitely NOT dreaming. I am living life FULLY ALIVE! I am living a life walking in the FAITH, HOPE, and TRUST in Jesus and the CHANGE that His love can bring. I am living, breathing, BELIEVING that maybe I DON’T need modern medicine to heal my eyes…just the healing power of Jesus…(and 6 teammates who have the crazy, radical, faith that make them want to pool their spit to spread on my eyes in Jesus name…), the life that tells me that my value is in JESUS and no one else, the life that opens my eyes to the girl sitting across from me on the Subway…my heart breaking for her as I look into her sad eyes. THIS is the life I have chosen, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else on earth!
