December was a hard month. Not hard in the way most people think of when a World Racer says “a hard month.” I didn’t have to live in the bush, have to use squatty-potties or bucket showers and only eating rice and beans. In actuality it was a great month. I lived on top of a mountain in Africa surrounded by more mountains and valleys and rivers. It was breathtaking. I had a toilet that I could actually flush toilet paper down (very uncommon overseas) and a shower with hot water. I got to play with and show love to the cutest African kids, and on top of that, I had a Christmas dinner that came pretty dang close to being as good as one at home. I was living the good life, but spiritually and emotionally, I was spiraling downhill fast.
Serving has always come natural for me because I grew up watching my mom serve anyone and everyone. Being served is a different story. Anytime I’m being served I feel like I should be doing the serving. God used the past month to show me just how wrong I am in that thinking. When you live with 37 other servants for Christ, and are on a team with 5 of the most giving people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing (shout out to Team Lionheart), you’re bound to be served in some way. I can see now just how much I sucked at receiving it, but it took a long, hard month of comparing myself to everyone around me and a three-day fast to realize that sometimes to serve means to be served.
Trying to figure out how God speaks to me and works through me hasn’t been the easiest process. Instead of focusing on my own relationship with the Lord, I looked to my squad mates and compared the way God spoke to and used them to myself. As you can imagine, nothing good came of that, just a bad attitude and a shattered self-esteem. I wanted God to speak to me in a very specific way and I wanted to know exactly how He uses me to make a difference. The problem with all of that was everything was about me. What I’ve learned is that nothing is about me. My relationship with Jesus has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the Kingdom.
God created that gorgeous mountain I lived on for a month and yet He says I am more beautiful and more precious. Living in that truth made me desire an intimacy with Him that I’ve feared for a long time. I wanted that intimacy for myself, but an intimate relationship with the Lord is actually about furthering His kingdom. It’s about loving better. It’s not about me at all. It’s a cycle. It’s a cycle allowing our Father to love us so that we can love others. Without first receiving, we can’t give. In the same way, without allowing ourselves to be served by others, we can’t serve well.
As for figuring out how God uses me to further His Kingdom…in whatever way I want. I wanted so badly for Him to tell me two or three specific qualities He created me with to do His work, but the truth is, as long as I’m in relationship and depending on Him and not depending on myself, I can be and do anything I want. That’s what Jesus did.
W.M. Paul Young explains it so well in The Shack.
“Although by nature He is fully God, Jesus is fully human and lives as such. While never losing the innate ability to fly, He chooses moment-by-moment to remain grounded. That is why His name is Immanuel, ‘God with us’ or ‘God with you’ to be more precise. I (God) can fly but humans can’t. Jesus is fully human. Although He is also fully God, He has never drawn upon His nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of His relationship with me, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being. He is just the first to do it to the uttermost- the first to absolutely trust my life within Him, the first to believe in my love and my goodness without regard for appearance or consequence. So when he healed the blind, He did so as a dependent, limited human being trusting in My life and power to be at work within Him and through Him. Jesus, as a human being, had no power within Himself to heal anyone. Only as He rested in His relationship with Me, and in our communion- our co-union- could He express my heart and will in any given circumstance.”
Jesus relied solely on God to do everything while He was on Earth and that is all we are called to do. As I rest in that truth, I find myself asking how do I want to further the Kingdom rather than asking how did God create me to further the Kingdom.
Matthew 7:8 Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened.
So, go ahead, ask for the wisdom and power that’s waiting for you.
