30 DAYS UNTIL TRAINING CAMP!
Can I just tell you about how much that statement scares me. To think that in one month's time I will be driving down to Tennessee to meet close to one-hundred strangers who I will be traveling the world with in the next year slightly terrifies me.
When I think of the word missionary often I associate it with an extrovert; one who boldly proclaims the gospel to large groups of people and is confident and has no trouble building relationships and conversing with those around them. Simply put, quite the opposite of me.
Meeting new people always puts a high level of stress on me. Perhaps it's because I feel that I have to measure up the lie that I have to be who others want me to me. For years I believed the lie that in order to be accepted by others I had to be outgoing and fit the mold that everyone else seemed to fit in quite nicely. It always seemed like I was the lone introvert in an ocean of extroverts and I was just trying to stay afloat.
So why would God call an introvert to The World Race, a task that seems much like a job for the extrovert?
Simple. To display his glory.
It truly is a beautiful thing to witness how God uses individual personalities and gifts to accomplish his will. Paul paints the perfect image of the body of Christ in Romans 12:4-5:
For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
As a member of the body of Christ, I have a specific function and design. While I have the same purpose as the body of Christ as a whole, I have a unique function that has been tailored to my identity.
In Ephesians 4, Paul aptly describes this:
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.
There is so much freedom in being who you were created to be. When we finally come to grips with who we are and find joy and pleasure in who were were created to be, we can serve fearlessly.
