And in my moment of greatest failure, you gave me a position of honor.
Have you ever had one of those moments that just went too far? You’re in the middle of it and you start to realize things are not okay but you also feel like you’re wildly unable to regain control. It’s like driving a car on ice, going too fast, and then needing to stop quickly but realizing that slamming on your breaks isn’t going to help anything. In those moments we lose traction. We aren’t as grounded. We pull away from the truth that keeps us in line.
You would think that being on a mission trip means that my mind is constantly focused on God and things above. At least that’s what I was expecting when I got on the plane last January. When I went on my week long trip to Guatemala it seemed like I was more connected with the Lord than ever before, and I was ready for 11 months of that. Yeah. That bubble popped pretty quickly.
On the squad, we have this running joke about our World Race lows. Most of them are things like washing off our plastic fork in the pool because we have no running water, but there is also a list that I suspect many of us have personally of the days on the Race where we reached a point of rock bottom.
When you leave America, you aren’t suddenly freed of all the parts of yourself that are broken. Coming on a mission trip doesn’t heal you and doesn’t fix your ish. That was a rude awakening. Recently, I was reminded in a very in my face way of my brokenness and my need for a Savior.
When I woke up the next morning, I was expecting a hangover from hell. On the Race, we have a very appropriate two drink limit, and the night before I made the decision to exceed that. By a few. You don’t really read about alcohol being a thing on the Race because most people don’t want to advertise it, but it’s a bigger struggle than you would imagine. What was strange to me as I laid in bed recounting the events of the previous day and beginning to feel the heavy weight of guilt and ownership was that my decisions didn’t come from a place of trying to numb anything or escape. I just went too far and never made the decision to stop.
For that whole day, I sat in it with the Lord. I felt something like a crushing conviction. I was acutely aware of the full responsibility I had for my actions and also the conversations and apologies that needed to take place with the people who had been affected by them. Before I could chew on all of this for very long, the Lord asked me if I was willing to let Him share His perspective. I was bracing myself for a reiteration of my guilt when He did the complete opposite.
I sat with Him and almost felt worse because He wasn’t mad at me at all. He spoke to all the fears and lies trying to take over my mind and told me that this didn’t change the way He loved me or how He was using me even that day. He said He was still proud of me even when I made very human mistakes because I brought them to Him with a heart posture of repentance. That word, repentance, floated around in my head a lot that day. You hear about it in church, but what does it actually look like to walk it out? I think the reason I’ve always struggled to grasp this is because you can’t repent of something you’ve never felt convicted of. You can’t defeat your demons when you’re still enjoying their company. When I woke up with guilt, Papa asked me what I learned from my actions the night before. I was humbled as I processed through this with Him. After wading through the hard things, He asked me to make another decision and to turn away from doing it again.
Wait. You mean You aren’t going to punish me? There’s no fire of wrath falling from the sky? You realize I’m supposed to be a missionary and I got drunk, right? Do you actually know what I did? You can’t possibly really know all of it or You would be mad.
In that moment, I fully understood what it was like to be the Prodigal son. In one of my lowest moments on the World Race, He didn’t push me away. He pulled me closer. Throughout the day He sent people to speak to me. I had at least 5 people ask to pray for me or give me words from Him, some of whom I don’t even know. The first ones that He said though were, “I’m so proud of you.” He had already told me that earlier, but to hear it audibly affirmed by another person who was listening to Him shook my world. He came running with a ring and a robe when I felt unworthy to even ask to be His servant.
I learned a lot about honor and what it feels like to receive it at all times. As I sat down with person after person to apologize and take ownership for the way I acted and the choices I made, I was expecting them to react the same way I initially thought the Lord would. With anger or distrust. I have this fear that I can receive grace from God because He’s God but that man will never actually receive me with all my mistakes and accept me. That if people really knew who I was, they would push me away. Time after time, those who I sat across from pulled me closer to hug me. They accepted my apology but also told me that I had already been forgiven. They told me that my actions didn’t change the way they viewed me or felt about me. And. They truly meant it.
What started as a day of guilt and conviction turned into a day of redemption and honor. I’m grateful now for the way things played out because I learned more about grace, humility, and honor in the middle of my own greatest failure than I ever could have by someone else’s mistakes.
This is the Father’s heart. This is His heart for you. In our failures—whether past, present, or future—He doesn’t ever say He’s ashamed of us. Even when I was drunk on a mission trip He stood by me. He doesn’t give His heart in pieces because His love isn’t conditional. He loves us in all of our “even if”s. Even if you got drunk. Even if you cheated. Even if you’re gay. Even if you doubt His love for you. The way we respond to Him doesn’t change His heart for us.
The second part of action to this is to take this crazy, beautiful, radical, unconditional love He has given us and to love others in their “even if” moments. The great commandment is to love God and love others. Period. That is the gospel. That is what was given to me in one of my most humbling moments of the Race. I was loved both by God and by others in my “even if”.
