What has the Lord been teaching me?
This question I feel like is asked a lot on the race. It has been a great question of accountability and encouragement to really be listening to what the Lord is saying.
So I want to share what the Lord is teaching me. It may be a mess of word vomit, but I hope it encourages you as I have been encouraged.
Before coming on the race, I thought the World Race would fix everything. I thought that my relationship with the Lord would grow and deepen overnight. I thought that I would feel and see Him move all the time. While don’t get me wrong, the Lord is moving here and my relationship with Him is so much deeper and real than I could have ever imagined. What I didn’t realize was that even though I left my comfort zone, my friends, family, everything back home in pursuit of living on mission for God every day in third world countries, I was still carrying my old routines and habits. I thought that just coming on the mission field I would automatically become more spiritual, and my laziness of not spending time with the Lord back home would somehow disappear. While I read about this in so many blogs of former racers, I still had the mindset that somehow I would be different.
But what I’ve realized is that a relationship takes work. (I’ve known this for years, but is has become so real for me these past two months.) My relationships with the people I meet, my team, squad, people from home, and mostly the Lord are two sided and I have to play my part in it. I had this false image in my head that on the Race, I would not have distractions and that spending all my time with the Lord would be easy. I’m here to tell you, that it is not. That I have distractions all around me, and things pulling me every direction. The struggles I had back home in the states are still just as real (if not more) on the Race. I have not been fighting for the relationship with the Lord that I so desire. This has been something that I have thought a lot about since coming on the Race, but never really could put my finger on where it was coming from or how to combat it.
Well, This month, our ministry hosts are incredible (more of what we are doing/who they are in a blog coming soon). They take time out of their busy schedule to sit down with us twice a week and pour wisdom into your lives through devotionals. In our first week here, these times with our host have been influential in the Lord revealing truth to me. I have to get ready for battle. Both of these devotionals came back to the same topic. Being ready and on guard because you never know when your moment will come where the Lord is asking you to do something huge or you will be faced with a difficult situation. When that moment or phase of life comes, and you have not been preparing and seeking the Lord, you will likely lose or fall on your face.
I have not been preparing for battle. But I am starting again now. I may not be completely where I need to be when my time comes, but I am going to start seeking the Lord now and preparing myself now to do the bold, scary thing.
I want to encourage you to do the same. Start now, it doesn’t matter how far you think you have to go, just start. The time will come when the Lord is asking you to do the big scary thing, will you be ready?
Life Update:
We have made it to month 3 of the race!!! Crazy how fast it is going by. We are currently in Talanga, Honduras working with Heart of Christ Ministry. I will share more of what we are doing later, but this place is incredible! The Heart of Christ is a refugee home for women and children that have been abused or in human trafficking. They also have a children’s home and do a ton of outreach. Honduras is beautiful! The people here are so amazing and so beautiful! I’ve seen the Lord work in incredible ways already and it has only been a week!
