Month four of my World Race is ending. The past week my squad and I have been in Siem Reap at a little conference shin dig called “Awakening” and at our second debrief processing a lot. As you, my fellow blog-readers, may or may not have noticed, I stopped blogging about anything except “the facts” of ministry and what I’ve been physically doing since the first month, not what the Lord is teaching me or how I’m feeling, etc. etc. There is a reason for that. Things have been hard and messy, and I didn’t want them rain on everyone’s joyful parade of life. But that’s just an excuse. The real reason is, I’ve been missing something really big.
At the beginning of month three, I really started struggling with feeling like I wasn’t growing or being challenged. There’s a lot that plays into that, but basically, I felt like because I was investing a year of my life on this journey of abandonment, I would come out a different person. I was not seeing that change or growth in myself. At all. And that was really frustrating to me.
A few days ago, one of the speakers at our conference reminded me that this journey is not about “finding myself and figuring out who I am.” It’s about finding out who God is and growing in intimacy with Him. It’s not about seeing growth in myself, but rather understanding God’s heart for His people. It’s about serving and loving those people. Woohoo… convicted in allllll the ways. That wrecked me.
The past few days, my eyes have been opened to just how selfish my thinking has been in feeling like I wasn’t getting anything out of this for myself. I’ve been missing it. A simple truth that I know, I just needed to be reminded of. And it breaks my heart that it has taken me this long, but His timing is good. This is about who He is. Not my personal gain.
So I am walking into month five with a perspective shift – one that the Lord has been trying to reveal to me for quite some time now. And I am super excited. Because when I take my eyes off of me, I have such a clearer picture of who the Father is. I have such a deeper desire to serve and love His people. And through that process, He reveals all the truths of who I am in Him. He is too good to me.
