Expert tip: backpacks are meant to be worn on your back.
Last night my 46 lb pack, safely ensconced in a travel duffel, had pulled at my shoulder muscles as if to permanently stretch them. But standing outside the Sleep Inn Atlanta waiting for an Über to take me to Starbucks, the pack settles nicely into the curve of my back.
Maybe I will actually be able to carry this, I think.
Duane honks. He’s earlier than the app says. “You Sarah?”
I nod as he hops out, then reaches around for my backpack.
“It’s heavy,” I begin to say, but he’s already hoisting it into the trunk of his Hyundai.
He exclaims at the weight. “That’s quite a workout you’ve got! Wow!” He keeps saying that—Wow!—as I throw my pillow ahead of me into the backseat.
“Yeah, I’m a little nervous about being able to carry it,” I say. “I’m going on a mission trip. I’ll be living out of that pack for a year.”
“Really?” He eyes me in the rearview. “So are you going to do aid, or to spread the gospel?”
“Both,” I say. “My trip is a little different.”
I explain about the Expedition route and the World Race in general. He has a few questions (How many people go? How did you get signed up for this? How do you get the money?). I answer them as best I can. I’ve recently been challenged to make God the hero of my story instead of myself, but I’m still nervous doing this around strangers. Sometimes it makes them shut down. So I cautiously start throwing little bits of God in there.
“I have to raise $20,000 actually,” I say. “God has been super faithful, though.”
“Where the Lord gives vision, he gives provision,” he says.
I just nod, stunned. I hadn’t expected that.
Next thing I know, I’m giving him a brief overview of some of my struggles this year. “God has blessed me so much,” I say, encouraged by his acceptance of my earlier words. “Back in September I told God, ‘Look, I don’t think I have the bandwidth to fundraise. So if You want me to go on this trip, You have to bring the money.’ And He did! I’m not there yet, but I’m at $10,000, which is way more than I’ve ever raised before. I know he’ll bring the rest.”
Duane holds out a hand. “Can I pray for you?”
“Yes!” I exclaim, and grab his hand.
He keeps his eyes open, but I bow my head and listen as this man I don’t know begins to pray blessing, encouragement, and strength over me. He prays for angels to protect me and my team. He prays that God would give us favor and go before us to open the way. And then he starts to pray Ephesians 1.
Tears spring to my eyes. Duane couldn’t know it, but my Bible study has been going through Ephesians since February. The passage he prays over me is one we’ve referenced frequently, and one that is now stuck in my memory.
He finishes. As I wipe the tears from my eyes, he hands me a small vial of oil.
“This is anointing oil,” he says. “Put some on your hands and your forehead. God is anointing you to go out and do the work of ministry to which He’s called you.”
“Do you carry this around with you everywhere?” I say.
He nods. “You wouldn’t believe the number of people I meet who are going through a hard time. I just minister to them as the Spirit leads me.”
“Like me.” I smile. “God knew what he was doing when he put me in your car.”
He returns my smile, then starts speaking in a different language. It sounds familiar to me, though I can’t place it, nor understand what he’s saying.
“Sorry,” he says. “I have no idea what I’m saying.”
“That’s all right,” I say. I’ve only had tongues spoken over me one other time, and then so quietly that I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. In this moment, though, it feels right. I don’t feel uncomfortable at all… although the words from 1 Corinthians about tongues needing to be translated scroll through my mind.
Duane speaks in the other language again. “I know what that meant,” he says. “You will see and you will see. You will see the ways God will move.”
“Yes,” I say, and the certainty of it settles into my soul. “Yes, I will.”
We sit in companionable silence for the rest of the ride. Duane and I sigh at the same time. “You feel it too,” he says smiling. “The Spirit of God is in this place. I know that He’s going to be with you. That’s what He’s saying—He’s going to be with you. And He’s going to work in the situations you shared, especially the ones within your family. You don’t need to be worried about anything as you go on this trip, because God is going to take care of it.”
“Yes,” I say. “I know He will.” He already has, I think. And I will continue to see him move even more powerfully.
Duane drops me off in front of Target. I give him a hug and one of my bookmarks. When we met, we were strangers, but we part as brother and sister in Christ.
Friends, God’s church is so much bigger than a building. Sometimes his church is as close as your Über driver. Sometimes he has you in the exact place you need to be to receive from His church. And sometimes He places you to give to His church. Duane couldn’t know that today makes the official start of my World Race, and potentially a life of missions. He didn’t know what I was going through. He doesn’t know any details. He just did what God asked him to do—in his words, “As the Spirit leads me.”
Ephesians 1:17-22
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
