“The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.” Isaiah 61:1
Proclaim freedom. This is the cry of my heart. I’ve always felt this stirring inside of me, even from a young age. This voice inside saying that God was going to use me in a big way. Maybe it was just my dream to be a part of something greater, but I had a feeling that things were going to look a bit different for me. I didn’t know how that would look or when I would get my “revelation” but in my heart and in my spirit there was a whisper, “there is more to come.”
Fast forward to now, I am soon to be 30 years old (mouth drop), no husband and no kids. Definitely not what I would have planned for my life. But God is funny like that. I come from a small town. The unspoken rule is, you graduate high school, go to college, get married and have a family. Pretty much everyone I grew up with had this accomplished by the age of 21-25. And then there was me. I’m content with my situation now, but for a few years there I struggled with why it hadn’t happened for me. But even still, even now, that whisper is there, “there is more to come.”
I just knew there was more. It’s something I can’t explain. There was just a longing in my soul and in my heart for more. More of Jesus. I didn’t want to just keep spiritually “coasting” or doing “just enough” to get by. I wanted to be in a position where my sole reliance was on Jesus. To be in situations where I needed Him to desperately come through for me. But that also meant giving up things that I hold tightly to. Things I was scared that Jesus was going to ask me to give up and that was just terrifying. So I wrestled with this for some time.
Last summer, as I was coasting through life trying to figure out this mystery plan that God has for me, I came across something that grabbed at my heart. It was an ad for The World Race. The World Race is an 11 month, 11 country mission trip. The ad was one of those promotional videos explaining what it was all about. Within seconds of watching, my heart said “this is what you are going to do.” (insert a big laugh out loud). Ummmm yeah right PaPa, you funny! Oh how I loved the idea but the reality of that really happening was a joke. I just kept pushing it away thinking of all of the reasons why I couldn’t do something like the World Race (not good enough, can’t be away from my family that long, can’t quit my job, no income, put the search for my future husband on hold). These thoughts terrified me enough to say “nope, sorry God, you’ve got the wrong girl.” But God had different plans. Literally every day FOR A YEAR I thought about the race. For a YEAR people!! I wrestled with God on this for a whole year. In some form or fashion it would cross my mind, almost out of nowhere. Every. Single. Day.
Jesus has been tugging at my heart this past year whispering:
“I miss you, let’s do life together please.”
“Hey, I want to walk with you today, will you let me?”
“My daughter I’m here, come rest in my presence. ”
But oh how I wrestled with him. My Papa nudging me ever so gently, and myself pushing back with all that I had. See I was terribly afraid because I knew what God was asking me to do. He was asking me to surrender. Surrender my life, my plans for my future, my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my job, the comforts of home. Papa was asking me to lay it all down. He was asking me to let go, to trust him, and to have a life/soul/heart changing year growing with Him. He was asking me to join him in the World Race.
After a year of wrestling, fighting, running, I said okay God. I want more of you. So this past May, I applied for the World Race. It took me several days to complete the application. I was still questioning and wrestling with God a bit. But his peace kept flooding in and finally I finished and submitted the application. Now it is November and I can confidently say that I am a World Racer and I will be leaving in January to go and proclaim freedom to the captives all around the world.
I can’t wait to do life with Jesus this year. I can’t wait to grow in intimacy with Jesus, live in community with like minded brothers and sisters and spread the Gospel around the world. I hope that you will take this journey with me. I need you fighting the good fight right alongside me. First and most importantly, you can do this through prayer. Also, through financial support, you can partner with me to show the love to all of His children. You can do this by clicking on the donate button at the top.
Scared, excited, terrified, expectant, joyful, sad. I experience these emotions daily when thinking about the race. But there is a peace in my soul and a YES in my spirit and that’s all God asks for.
For detailed information about my route and the kind of work we will be doing, check out my previous blog post, “The What’s, The Why’s and The How’s”.
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With love in Jesus,
Rachel
