If there is one question I am constantly asked on the Race it’s “what are your plans for after the Race?” This question started to be asked of me months before I even left for the field. At first I would politely answer that I wasn’t sure yet, hoping that as I got closer to launching for the Race that the answer would magically come to me.
The answer never came then, and it didn’t come my first five months either. In fact when you go around the circle of my squad and ask them what they are doing after the Race, most would say that they don’t know right now. Most people came on the Race because they were done with what the American Dream expected of them. Many are not looking to go home to a 9-5 job, myself included.
when you reach your twenties there is the expectation that you will begin to be a productive member of society. There is the expectation that other people will stop supporting you and you will begin to support yourself. But what happens when you spend a year living off of other people’s money, and yet still don’t have a plan for what happens after? At what point do the stares and quizzical looks stop?
I don’t know what the Lord has for me when all of this is over. I know that over the year he has refined passions in me and shown me what it looks like to live fully for him. And I know I am not going back to how things were before this. I’m not willing to walk away from my passions and I’m not willing to live anything less than the abundant life that God has promised. Because of all of this, I have to depend on the Lord to set up the opportunities for me at the end of the Race. I can’t tell you what comes next because I honestly don’t know. I don’t know the Lord’s plans for my life and I won’t even attempt to figure it out on my own.
So what do I hope you get out of all of this? I hope you realize that most racers don’t know what happens next. And we honestly aren’t in a rush to figure it out. We took a year of our life “off” in order to see God at work and allow him to do a mighty things in us. This year is a chance to see the world, impact lives and allow God to impact the course of our lives. So I’m not in any hurry to figure out where I will be in 5 months time. I’m not in a hurry to provide you with an answer of what I will be doing in December. I’m more than ok with waiting on God to lead me where he wants and just telling you that I don’t know what’s next.
