But can’t you? Can’t you change the world, or at least the people in your life? Didn’t you grow up with parents, teachers or pastors saying that you can make a difference in those around you?
The problem with this is that it’s lacking in total honesty. It’s a partial truth, a half-embodiment of what it takes to actually make a difference. If not included with the first step, it’s a bold-faced lie: ready and willing to bring you disappointment and bitterness.
The whole truth and nothing but the truth would be telling you that in order to change anything or anyone, you must first be willing to change yourself. The basis of the faith of Christianity, the cost of following Jesus and truly being a disciple, is that WE are willing to be transformed.
I got the honor to lead my first team on the World Race, way back in January. Fresh from training camp, launch meetings and leadership talks, I was prepared to forge the path for my teammates and prove just how qualified I was at the task I had been selected for. I would have the answers to their questions, I would always point them back to Jesus, and I would never compromise the Godly character that leadership required. I was ready to change the world.
WOMP WOMP WOMP. Team leading kicked my ass, guys. It dredged up my pride and self sufficiency. All of my preconceived notions had been knocked out like a newbie at fight night. Besides the fact that I felt under qualified to lead these four women, and ignoring the temper that often flares in my mind, I had one HUGE problem. I didn’t even like women. The main reason that I had almost denied the position of team lead in the first place was because I believed that women were scheming, gossiping, and untrustworthy as people. They were everything I disliked and I wanted nothing to do with a whole team of them. I figured it was only a short time until their true colors started showing, so I placed my happy face on and tried to lead as peacefully as I could without rocking the boat and causing their inner monster to emerge.
I wanted to forget what God had spoken to me during training camp about being on an all girls team. Let’s face it, forgetting was an impossible task when you are surrounded by those women day and night. God had told me that He was in process of redeeming my perception of women, specifically of Christian women and the way that our friendships are supposed to look when we are locked in with Jesus. I carried intense distrust from what I had experienced in friendships during the last couple years of my life. I always felt the need to explain and defend myself, because many of the relationships I had experienced weren’t genuine, and they often sought the worst about one another. I had come to the conclusion that female friendships (in the church, especially) might be biblical, but were not trustworthy. I felt it gave me a plausible reason to not invest my heart; I had to protect myself, because the only one looking out for me was me. The women on my team were not perfect and I was definitely NOT perfect, as a friend or leader. But the way that it’s supposed to work is that we encourage, we correct, we forgive and we pray for each other. We don’t pick one another apart or try to fix each other. God is the mender, not us. So in the midst of this first team, God did a miraculous heart surgery on me and uprooted bitterness I held towards women. Trusting is still hard sometimes, but I trust God in the women around me and I know that they are genuinely trekking toward Christ. Their authenticity is something that I’ve come to count on, and it has instilled faith in me. We are all worse than we think we are, but we are loved and forgiven SO MUCH MORE. In the middle of my faults or the faults of those around me, we choose to believe the best in one another.
I was taken out of team leading in Month 3 (before we left for Panama), when we switched teams for the first time. Naturally, in being taken out of leadership, I assumed that it was due to subpar performance. It was all about what my leaders didn’t see in me. In reality, it was due to the fragility that my ego rested on. God knew, y’all. I was devastated, because this group of women had become safe for me, and I clung to them as if they had saved me. I was so angry at God for taking them from me, yet the anger was simply a cover for the pain I felt in assuming that He didn’t understand what I needed. Enter self sufficiency again, right? I thought that He didn’t get it, and that I needed to once again take care of me. I didn’t realize at the time that I had placed safety in my team, but that I hadn’t found ultimate trust in my Father. He was taking the safety net I had constructed and letting me know that it was okay to just fall back and trust whoever He placed me with.
Fast forward to now, and I am in Lesotho. I was placed as team lead again in Month 9 and it’s now Month 10. Once again, I began riding the roller coaster of emotional responsibility. I adopted the idea that I was responsible for the outcome of emotional and spiritual growth in my teammates, that I held the weight of their end-of-Race experience on my shoulders. As if I have that much power on my own. As if I am so important, that God isn’t bigger than what I think I can do for my team. How prideful, am I right?! I thought I learned my lesson during the first round of team leading. I thought I put the comparison to bed. I assumed I had control of my self sufficiency issue. But here I am, realizing all over again that I can’t change the world. I can’t change my team. The ONLY way that ANYTHING or ANYONE changes is when I CHANGE.
We don’t seem to understand this concept today. That whether it’s within the secular world or within Christianity, what you do matters only when WHO YOU ARE matters to you. Mahatma Ghandi could write books, speak on television, or broadcast on the radio.. but without ACTION, nothing he said or did mattered. Martin Luther King could have given a thousand more speeches on the dreams that he had for equality, for his nation, for his children.. but without taking action, nothing he said would have mattered. If Jesus was TRULY WHO HE SAID HE WAS, the only way that it continues to make a difference and change the very core of our existence today is because He followed His every word with absolute truth and action.
This is how I lead well: by leading myself well. It’s by submitting my heart to Christ and to change before requiring it out of my team. Change is transformation. Nothing we say or require of people will matter, unless we are first willing to do it ourselves.
“If I could speak all the languages of the earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”
- 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
God, I will be first. I will love above all else. I will serve first. I will put others first. I will worship first. I will pray first. I will dance first. I will surrender first. I will be thankful first. I will fight for others first. I will choose justice first. I will choose to forgive first. I will die to self first. I will lay down pride first. I will stop gossiping first. I will choose joy first. I will stop complaining first. I will choose unity first. I will choose gratitude first. I will say yes first.
Once we change, once we are willing to do what we so badly want others to do.. THAT is when we change the world. That is when the people around us experience a heart that is transformed: when we are willing to surrender our expectations, and say yes to Christ transforming us first.
