This month has been hard.
Month 8 is a turning point in the Race. I've started feeling the end fast approaching and home sounds more and more appealing with each day. I am more actively praying and researching what I am going to be doing after I get home from the Race. I get more and more excited about the future God has in store.
I am tired of wearing the same clothes for the past 8 months. I am tired of living out of a backpack. I am tired of community. I am tired that the most simple decisions become extremely difficult because you have to figure out a happy medium for 6 different people. I am tired of standing out wherever I go because I have different skin color than the rest of the country. I am tired of being told what to do each and every day. I am just tired.
One of our squad leaders Alyssa came to stay with us for a week at the beginning of this month and she asked us a question that I needed to be asked.
Why did you sign up for the World Race?
As she asked the question, tears welled up in my eyes.
Memories started to flash back to the moments that led up to me sitting here in Kenya today.
I remembered the moment when it clicked for the first time that following Jesus meant forsaking comforts and loved ones for the sake of His name.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26
I remembered the prayers prayed that I told God I only wanted to follow His will for my life, no matter what that meant.
I remembered the first talks with my family about the World Race and the life changing opportunity it was.
I remembered the months of preparation and fundraising. I remembered the worry and fear that I would not be able to raise the $15,500. But then how beautifully God taught me that I could not raise the money on my own, but that He is more than able to do the impossible.
I remembered the tearful goodbyes as I walked away from all the people I love and the comforts of home. I remembered feeling so unsure of this crazy decision to come on the Race, but clinging to the promises of God more than ever in my life.
In the days since she asked that question, it has constantly been in the back of my mind.
I have found myself reminiscing on the craziness that has been my life over the past 7 and a half months.
And the only thing that has been consistent throughout the entire thing has been God’s faithfulness.
He has taken me through more in this season than He has throughout my whole life. He has opened my eyes to things I was completely oblivious to in the world and in myself. He has pursued my heart in the most beautiful ways. He has given me such rich experiences that have grown me in ways I can’t even begin to process.
The Race has been tough. It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Sometimes I’ve wondered why in the world I would choose to be this uncomfortable or this far away from home.
But then I’m reminded of why. Because Jesus did.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” Hebrews 12: 1-2
I love that this passage even refers to our life as a followers of Christ as a race. Quite appropriate for this journey I’m on right now.
Something that God has really emphasized in my heart recently is the key word of endurance in this passage.
It doesn’t say “run quickly and easily”. Nope, it says with endurance.
Endurance takes time, patience, and even pain sometimes. Endurace means “the fact or power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way”.
But we aren’t blazing the trail in front of us on our own. We have the most perfect example that paved the way for us thousands of years ago.
He had a pretty rough life, I think we can all agree on that.
But he trusted the eternal joy that was ahead of Him. He didn’t see the rough situations He was placed in on Earth and see Himself as doomed.
He knew and believed the promises God has in store for all that follow Him and allowed those to fuel Him in each moment of His time here on Earth.
So as I sit here with dirt caked on my feet, a farmer’s tan from the Kenyan sun, and wearing clothes that I have worn far too much in the past 7 and a ½ months, I know I am where I am supposed to be.
Would I rather be at home right now? You betcha.
But I know God is teaching me one of the most important things I will ever learn.
To keep my eyes off of this world and on Jesus no matter what the race takes me through.
