It was about the beginning of month three when the thought first struck me. Two months of ministry under our belt. Two countries and the experiences of new places and local people and adventures I never dreamed I’d get to take. I had been challenged and loved well by my team, Peculiar Treasures. I had found friendships in my squad. I had heard some of the most stretching, Spirit-led truths that I had ever heard.
Yet the thought still lingered, and I couldn’t seem to shake it.
I don’t feel different. I don’t feel changed.
I pushed the thought aside for a while. Maybe Cambodia would be the country where I really felt the change, where I knew it was permanent. Surely, three months in I’d begin to notice the change.
Because one of my silent pleas to the Lord as I prepared for the year was that I would not come back the same person. I didn’t want to struggle with the same things that had plagued my life and relationships and the simple day-to-day. I wanted the Race to challenge me and change my life. I had read all the other blogs. It seemed like the Race did that for most people.
It was about the middle of month three when I skyped my sister in a panic of desperation and frustration. I explained to her how I still let the little things bother me. I told her I was still struggling with patience. I explained that I seemed to have the same amount of moments on the Race where I questioned the Lord’s nearness to me as I did at home. I didn’t feel changed.
The simplicity of her response has actually played a resounding chorus in my heart every single day since that moment.
“But Lauren,” she spoke gently and with so much grace. “You’re waiting for the Race to change you, but the Race won’t change your life. Only the Lord can do that.”
There is wisdom in that revelation. For there is no hurt that heaven can’t heal, and there is no quality in ourselves that can’t be worked out for good, but only the Lord can do that.
After three full months of waiting for deep, challenging, heart-twisting change, I realized I had been waiting for the experience to change me, but I had forgotten that I was having this experience because of the Lord. It had all begun with Him. He is the one who placed a longing on my heart. He is the one who opened the necessary doors. Yet, somehow, along the way, I had forgotten the One I needed most.
So, is the World Race changing me? Actually, no. But the Lord is growing me. And He is placing me in exactly the situations I need to be in to experience this growth, this stepping-into of the woman He has intended me to be all along. The Lord brought me to the Race so that I could experience a desperation unlike I had known before, a community which functions under the understanding of unconditional love and acceptance, and heart change that I could never have known I needed had I not come on the Race.
So while the Race won’t change you, it will allow you the necessary brokenness and life to run with perseverance to the heart of the Father. And that Race is overflowing with growth because that’s what happens when our eyes are fixated on things above.
