“Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
for the gain from her is better than gain from silver
and her profit better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.”
Proverbs 3:13-15
It struck me with the same ferocity that a piano has when it accidentally falls six stories from an amateur moving company's hoist in New York City. It is as ground breaking as it is unexpected, holding a weighty significance; however, unlike the case with the Baby Grand, this consequential force is most welcome.
No amount of money can purchase it, no man can lay hold of it, no eye can scope it out and no contraption can capture it. I speak of personal, God given insight.
Earlier today you would have found me sitting in the common room of our team house amid the momentarily quiet company of Joel, Jordan, Kirsten and Kelsey. The breeze blew softly in through the door and ruffled the curtains from their resting place. Afternoon light leaked through the cracks of the window frame and pooled on the painted concrete floor in front of Kelsey and me. One blogged and one was journaling as another glazed over text messages from our contact as I complacently read, seated on the floor.
A few days before we arrived, another squad, H-Squad, took up residency here at our house. Often times while on the Race, people will decide that some possessions are no longer needed; thus, they will be abandoned to ye olde “free table.” Well, we have a modified “free bookshelf” that's stuffed with stuff from the stuff sacks of past squads, more than just from H-Squad, I'm sure. We've found items as far as books, cosmetics, clothes, soaps, Larry- our stuffed anteater and some left over team food.
I happened to find Kingdom Journeys written by Seth Barnes that was left by a previous Racer on a seperate mini bookshelf in the common room. Something about it called out to me as I picked it up and wiped off the fine layer of Malaysian dust that clung to its front cover. I decided a couple of days ago to give it a shot. This now brings us back to the lovely concrete of the common room where my figurative piano is about to befall me.
Barnes introduces his take on the significance of kingdom journeys, the importance of seeking Jesus and the value of being taken out of your comfort zone. A kingdom journey is essentially a trip that one takes with a spiritual motive and an aim to draw closer to Christ. “What sets a kingdom journey apart from gap years, road trips and volunteer jaunts is the central focus on Jesus' kingdom” (Barnes, 55). My Race is one such journey; but how did I come about to be one this venture? I mean, I had at least seven thousand other things I could have done with $15,500 and a year of my life, right? Why this?
The answer is at the root of all my aspirations and the fuel behind every moment in the clouds of the possible future. It is the common denominator for every longing I've had of home for the past nine weeks. It is both the reason for my frustration and my excitement. It is the drive behind my adventurer's instinct:
restlessness.
It is the call to the wild, the unknown and the mysterious. It is the desire to leave everything you have behind to seek something greater than a simple vacation experience. It is a place of dissatisfaction with simple routine and predictability and the willingness to be challenged.
“We've been too small, too safe and too provincial. We need to rediscover what God was doing when he sent out Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Jesus… to discover the kingdom” (Barnes, 50).
Eureka! Restlessness is the root of my dreams. To leave home and hike the Appalachian Trail for half the year- to cycle across America- to finally have the liberty and freedom and adventure that my Jeep Wrangler represents: this is it! This finally connects the dots for me as to why I want all the things that I want! This is why I haven't been able to get my thoughts off of home and what I'll do when I get back. This puts a name to the metaphorical face I've been staring at for so long who refused to introduce itself.
To give you a bit more perspective as to why this is so profound for me, I'll tell you that just before leaving Honduras I unfortunately played the comparison game with others on my squad. I saw their dreams written down and being shared and thought, “Why the heck do my dreams look so freaking different than everyone else's? Their dreams seem so much more admirable! They dream of adopting children from all over the world, developing ministries that supply primary needs to the poor, doing medical missions- and here I am, desperately pining to hike incredible distances, to ride around the country on my road bike and to own my famed, yellow Jeep Wrangler. Are my dreams just so insignificant?”
I was fairly disgruntled about it; however, now I have come to comprehend the method to this madness. I have the root of restlessness fueling my urges and it is a beautiful thing. My dreams are greater than the applications mentioned above- it is the satisfaction of restlessness that I truly long for. We are not created the same as our neighbor- why should our aspirations be identical? We need to do that which we were individually created to do, the thing that innately brings us alive, not the thing that brings our neighbor joy that seems to look good from an outsider's perspective.
You cannot measure this kind of peace.
Have you realized your dreams?
Are you living them yet?
What's stopping you?
LET GOD
