Awaken (v): cause to stop sleeping; make someone aware of something for the first time.
When multiple World Race squads are in the same country at the same time, Adventures in Missions likes to get them together over a couple days for this thing called “Awakening”. So, our last few days in Ecuador were spent with two Gap Year squads. (Gap Year is 6 countries in 9 months, and usually only 18-20 year olds). We had three days of teachings, breakout sessions, awesome worship, and super fun games – all planned, prepped, and executed by US.. the three squads. There were different areas each person could choose to serve in, and one person from each squad as these areas’ “coordinators”. I was asked by my squad leaders to be one of the Hospitality coordinators – I. Was. Stoked!!
So far, the Race has been one new thing after another: new food, new people, new places, learning new things about the Lord, and new things about myself. In the midst of all the new, being Hospitality team lead thrust me into the center of my comfort zone, and I was excited to get a quick taste of normal again. Fun games? I can lead those. Inclusive? That’s my middle name. Getting hype? My specialty. Let’s freaking GO, y’know?! And then to top it all off, we were going to be outnumbered by my FAVE people on the planet: teenagers!!
At first, I thought maybe I had made the wrong decision in choosing to be the lead of a team I knew I would be great at, versus joining a team that would be a challenge: like Intercession or Evangelism. I thought that I was cheating myself out of the “this whole year is of challenge & growth” mentality I’ve had thus far. It was going to be too easy. But the Lord works in His mysterious ways, and even by placing me in ultimate comfort He stretched me & revealed so much.
During an Intercession breakout, we did an activity on listening to God for other people. We all sat at different tables with people we didn’t know, took a piece of paper and wrote our prayer requests/struggles/worries on it. We put that piece of paper in an envelope, mixed them up, and passed the envelopes out at random to everyone. One by one, without looking at the paper inside, we would ask God what He wants to say to that person, write it down on the front of the envelope, and then move on to the next envelope.
For one of the envelopes, I got this really great image/vision/whatever and was so proud of my relationship with the Lord to get something so good. It was clear, I knew the meaning behind it, and, seriously…dang, it was GOOD. I wrote about a paragraph of this image & it’s meaning on the envelope and passed it on. At the end, we all got our envelopes back… and that awesome image & message of encouragement that I was so proud of? Yeah, it was on my envelope. It was for me:
The Intercession team gave us an opportunity if anyone wanted to share what the Lord did through that exercise, either on their envelope or while the exercise was taking place. I kind of had the feeling that I should go up to the microphone and talk about what I had written, but I don’t like the whole public speaking thing or the fact that I had to walk up to a microphone. I stayed sitting until the feeling in my gut was so uncomfortable that I knew I had to go up there just to feel normal again. Ugh, the Holy Spirit just does the most!
I got up, walked to the mic, and said, “Yeah, so I don’t like doing this, but when the Lord makes you uncomfortable you just have to, y’know? Let’s see how this goes…” and then I went on:
There are times where I just feel like I’m chasing something, that I’m falling behind on figuring it out, reaching potential, or missing out on something great. Sometimes I’m the rabbit, sometimes I think God is (and if He isn’t, He should be). We KNOW that God’s timing is perfect, of course we KNOW that. But there are times in the moment where that’s hard to believe. I mean, we’re all human here, right? It happens. Here’s the thing: yes, God’s timing is perfect. And we don’t always understand it….okay, like, I usually NEVER understand it. But something I’ve learned is that the closer I am to Him, the more I desire and pursue and dive in to a real relationship with Him, it’s like… we’re walking down HIS path, the right and true and GOOD path. And when we’re walking side by side, on His path, we’re walking at HIS pace. In that, His timing is always perfect, and then so is mine.
I realized that I was rushing my growth. I was rushing reaching my own potential. I was rushing the timing of God in so many situations: personal, family, relationships, just all the things. And in my rushing, I was looking like a CRAZY PERSON. This was the new thing I was made aware of, this was the first time I realized that I’ve been praying and praying and praying for things to happen…and I’ve been frustrated with not seeing Him answer the way I’ve wanted Him to. I’ve been rushing His timing. It’s time a stepped back, calmed down, and let Him do His thing.
There was so much more. I have one more story. I’ll post that later 🙂
