Last Saturday, October 13, I got off the plane in Atlanta, Georgia, for World Race Training Camp. While waiting for MARTA with some of my squad mates, I began to get the urge to pray out loud, so I did. It was rather profound – “Jesus, I would love to have a turkey sandwich today — with cheese, and small bag of potato chips on the side. And in Your Name, I’d love for it to be free because I’m broke!” I got to training camp a handful of hours later; we had turkey and cheese sandwiches with potato chips for dinner. THANK YOU JESUS.
Now, I agree that this may have seemed like a silly prayer, but in that moment, I had to laugh, because the Lord actually heard me! It was a simple reminder that He is present, not off in the distance, but right here with me.
(However, He also quickly reminded me that He wasn’t a genie, and that the fish soup for breakfast the next day was not going to turn into banana pancakes. Hey, it was worth a shot!)
photo by: Chelsea Ellis
Yes, you heard me correctly, fish soup, for breakfast — training camp was an experience to say the least. It was hard + AWE-some all at the same time. There were plenty of wacky challenges along the way, for example sleeping in a swamp on night four seemed luxurious. But the hardest + most AWE-some part of training camp was learning the selfishness of my own heart and the beauty of Jesus’ heart towards us. We had been stripped of comforts on such a small scale. I had more entitlements, rights, and other junk in my heart than I had thought. But Jesus quickly won the battle of my heart, reminding me of how He left heaven to come get me. He abandoned a perfect dwelling place, where He was worshiped and treated like He deserved and came to earth to be despised and rejected by all. He saw me in all my sin + junk + my selfish heart and never questioned whether I was worth dying for. His heart SCREAMS that I am worth it all and that you are too.
It was a week of thankfulness + begging the Lord to change my heart – I want to LOVE like You LOVE, Jesus. I want to have Your attitude + Your passion for people! I long to be like You + have Your heart. I want to live my life preferring others over myself — yes in this next journey, but for the rest of my life. When I say that Jesus is worth it all – I want everything in me to have joy in that and to actually live that out. Paul sums up my training camp experience best in Philippians 2:
“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Thank-you for all your prayers + love + support! This is my awesome team!! I’m so excited to serve with these women!
MORE TO COME ON THEM SOON!!
