Recently I was watching a show where a 5 year old character was introducing his dad to the concept of prayer.
He simply said, “You start by saying ‘Dear God,’ then you talk to Him like you’re talk to a friend.” His dad responds, “Oh wow, that’s so informal…”
I think the kid has it right, and that’s the biggest thing that I re-learned at training camp.
You see, I am a logical Christian. I am the person that likes the proof and the historical/scientific/tangible reasons I believe what I believe. I like the whys and the hows and the a+b=c. I like all of those things so much that I sometimes struggle with how to have an emotional relationship with a Omnipotent God.
I struggle with how the world can have the evil it does (particularly since I’ve seen a lot of it in the work I’ve done) and God can also be a loving and intervening God that wants to work things for our good.
I’ve said that this World Race is about serving internationally, loving people all around the world, but it’s also me running towards God.
It is me opening my heart to an emotional relationship and trying to step away from my logical box that limits a God that is far more powerful and loving than I can comprehend. I don’t think I expected that to happen at training camp.
At training camp, I prayed for exactly what a fellow racer needed, not because she asked me to pray for those things but because I asked the Holy Spirit to guide my prayers for her and He did. I also was on the receiving end of that sort of prayer.
I was worried that because I wanted to do this race and hadn’t felt the calling that everyone else seemed to have that maybe I wasn’t supposed to go. I was worried that I was missing something and that my logical brain was somehow going to keep God from using me. I struggle with how GOD LOVES ME and I struggle with the concept of being loved as a daughter of God. Without telling any of the people that came and prayed for me any of these things, they spoke prayers of comfort, prayers of belonging, prayers of thanks that God would use me, prayers that I would accept the love of God as a daughter, and prayers that I would know that though how God brought me to the race may be different than those around me, that didn’t make me any less called.
Coming back from training camp, I was trying to explain where I was with God and the shift that had happened to my squad mate. As we drove down the busy interstate I voiced it in this way:
Every car has a person in it, at the very least, maybe two or three, maybe more. God loves each and every one of those people. I’ve always understood that, but I’ve never been able to comprehend it.
I assumed that in order to work for the collective good, or the ultimate plan, God couldn’t also work for the individual good, but maybe, just maybe, God is big enough and great enough to do both.
That we are sons and daughters and God wants to work things for our good.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be pain or suffering or awful things, in fact I think that the world is full of those things, but I’ve been reminded that God is the father that wants to help us through those trails. He wants to be the father that kisses our scraped knees or offers the shoulder to cry on when we have our hearts broken.
How amazing is that?
