“Are you ready?” Of all the questions I’ve been asked this month, this question always makes me stop and think extra hard.
“ being ready”
What does that even mean? To me, being ready sounds like a really good thing to be. Being ready means you have thought ahead to what could possibly go wrong and have plan A, B, and C as back-up. Being ready is preparing yourself not only physically and emotionally, but also having the right tools and materials nearby. Being ready is maybe even glancing ahead at the directions so you can make every turn in cool, calm, confidence. We tend to view being ready as a quality of someone who is well-prepared, put together, and successful.
I start this 11 month journey on Thursday, and I feel the furthest you could ever be from ready.
I’ve had this quote on my wall for a couple years now, and I honestly have no idea where it came from. It has been written on an index card that I’ve been bringing with me everywhere I go – pinned to my desk in my dorm, on my wall in Prague, and now right next to my bed. This week it felt like I was reading it for the first time:
“Ready is for people who trust in themselves,
Who want to live small & safe lives.
Freedom is for people who trust in the One who made them,
Who want to live lives too big to be ready for.”
When God called me to go on the World Race, he didn’t call me to be put together or even successful. God didn’t call me to whine about leaving behind my favorite dresses, my favorite pair of leggings with the hole above the knee, or my favorite athletic shorts. God didn’t call me to trust in myself and only be prepared for the tasks I am comfortable with. God didn’t call me to be ready, He called me to live in freedom.
Freedom is living in Matthew 6:25-34:
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you. O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious saying, ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
It doesn’t matter how many sticks of my favorite deodorant I have – currently ½ of one because it was discontinued. It doesn’t matter how heavy my pack is – too heavy, don’t ask, I’ll cry. It doesn’t matter if I have every medicine to cure every disease known to man – I’ve got ibuprofen and essential oils?
It really doesn’t matter what I have and what I don’t because I get to live in the freedom of Christ in a way I haven’t experienced before. I get to live in the simple freedom in knowing I get to be a part of some pretty glorious Kingdom building in the next year that will far greater than anyone could ever imagine. I don’t need to be ready, I just need to be who Jesus already created me to be.
Thank goodness that doesn’t weigh anything.
