Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow I leave for 10 days to go to Georgia and finally meet my squad face to face. We will train, worship, and begin the journey of seeking God together. To try and narrow my emotions down to one word is a bit impossible at this point. There are too many.
Naturally, I am excited to finally get to meet my team and join together for two weeks as we learn what it looks like to walk together in this journey. It feels like ages since I was given this opportunity, and this day seemed lightyears away at the time. 7 months later, though, here we are on the eve of training camp, and I am so excited to get things going.
On the other hand, I am actually pretty nervous. My whole life I have walked down a path that had pretty much been laid out for me since I was a child. I would go through school, graduate, go to college, graduate; after that I really had no plans. Don’t get me wrong; I am so grateful for all that I’ve learned in those formative years. I’ve made friendships that will last a lifetime, and I’ve gotten some serious life experience. I don’t regret any of it, and I am so grateful to have had this path already set out for me.
But now I’ve come to the end of that already cleared path, and that’s what makes me nervous. See, for the first time in my life I feel like I’m completely stepping out in faith into something so much larger than myself. I’m stepping out into the Kingdom of God to work with fellow brothers and sisters and to work with the Father in the spreading of his kingdom. I’m allowing myself to be swept up into something I have no control over, and I’m learning to live a life with God.
Yet there is still another dynamic to what I’m feeling. Excited, yes. Nervous, obviously, but also expectant and curious. I’ve been asking God for some advance words about this next year of my life, and what it is he wants for me in this time.
I was reading in Luke the other day and came across this verse:
“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51)
That’s where I am right now. I have set my face for training camp and ultimately the World Race beyond that; but even still I feel like I am setting my face towards finding God in his trueness.
I wrote in my journal the other day after reading this, “I want to know you as you are, not as I want or as I think you are. Your true nature is much more real than what I’ve made up. I want to experience the sheer weight of your reality.”
And it is that desire, above all others, that has set my heart wild with emotions. Because as excited as I am to meet my team, as nervous as I am to actually get started, and as curious as I am about my place in all of this, I have to put all that aside.
There is a living God from whom I draw my very life and existence, and nothing can compare to the uncontainable excitement and nervousness I have about getting to know him even more intimately.
See you all in 10 days!
