For the past couple of months, I’ve been kind of processing my eleven months as a racer. Looking back at experiences and what I learned from them will probably never stop. I figured I would share some recent thoughts on my process. I kind of forget truly how much I learned, and how much of a perspective shift you get from living in four different continents in a year. Even that sentence sounds crazy, but it really does become real life.
I realized on the race how romanticized taking a year to travel the world sounds. You get home and people ask “what’s the craziest thing that happened?” “what’s your favorite country?” “what weird food did you eat?”
The thing about the race is that it’s real life. You still eat and wash your clothes and sweat and laugh and maintain relationships and go to church and get in cars and buses and have good days and hard days. The thing about it is that you get an extended period of time away from the pressures of American culture. You have less media telling you who to be and what expectations you need to fill. You get a stillness that helps you to learn how to pick the truth from the lies, at least I did. What is biblical and what is cultural in the American church. You get the space and time to dig into who you are because of who Jesus is. I’d say the thing people learn the most about on the race is identity. You’d think its community or ministry or discipline or culture. You are surrounded 25/7 with people that give you honest feedback on what they see in you, things you can’t see in yourself. You realized a lot of the ways you respond to situations and conversations are actually symptoms of things much deeper.
Self-reflection and self-awareness are two of the biggest parts of most people’s race. I think it’s because you give up things (like cell phone service, Starbucks, your wardrobe, your personal space and preferences) and the Lord really gets space in your life to work. Not saying He doesn’t if you have all those things or that you must go on the race to grow, it for sure isn’t a magical solution to everything. What I do know is that intentionally giving things up allows you to really need God. You have to depend on Him. It isn’t a choice anymore. Then you learn the dependence, and you get to take it back to America. You get to take living your life willing to be interrupted, willing to speak truth, willing to depend on the Lord when you don’t “have to.”
So, what I’m saying is – yes the race is an adventure – yes you get amazing opportunities – but it’s all about how willing you are to buy in. It’s just like “normal life” in America. Do you invest in the people around you right now? Do you create space to pour out what you know or learn things you don’t? Do you depend on the Lord when you don’t have to? Do you choose to learn from the people that get on your nerves? You don’t have to be in a village in Africa to experience the Lord, you might have a bit of a cultural perspective shift. However, God shows up in America just like He does in Africa. He’s the same God in Mississippi and Bangkok and Guatemala and anywhere else. His heart and character aren’t dependent on geographical location.
Thanks for sticking with me this long friends,
The best is yet to come.
