My World Race story is very different than most of my teammates. Unlike so many of them, I didn’t search for the WR. In fact, I ran from it! I didn’t want any part of this weird, crazy, extreme trip that kept popping up in my life. That’s a story for another time, though. What I do want to talk about is how I’ve been feeling lately.
I know that God has called me to this. I know that His plan is good, and for my ultimate best. But what do we do when it doesn’t feel good and for our best? What do we do when we feel scared and unsure, and like we might just lose everything if we follow God when He asks big, scary things of us?
People don’t like to talk about struggle. We don’t like to talk about all the ways we fear we won’t measure up. We feel uncomfortable commenting if our opinions don’t match those of the people around us. We want to blend in and not stand out, so we hide. We hide our fears. We hide our struggles, and we hide our inadequacies.
I am no exception to this. I don’t like to spill my darkest fears and insecurities to every person on the internet. I don’t mind being vulnerable, but there are just some things I’m not super pumped to blab to the world. However, in an effort to be transparent and share the journey the Lord is taking me on, I’m going to divulge.
Lately, I have felt like maybe I misheard God…maybe I’m making a big mistake. Even scarier, what if God made a mistake? What if He called the wrong girl?
I feel uncertain; worried about my friends and family, and terrified for myself. What if life goes on without me? It will. What if I change while I’m gone. I will. What if God calls me into something even bigger and even scarier during my year serving the least of these? Maybe He will, maybe He won’t. Perhaps I’ll get to come back to Texas, and settle back into my family and friend group. On the contrary, maybe God will call me to work in a foreign country with one of the organizations I will partner with in the year to come, or with an organization in a state other than my homeland. I can’t possibly know what God will ask of me. I just know that I must say “yes.”
The thing is, Jesus loves us. He came to earth specifically to live a perfect, sinless life, and die as the worst sinner. He did that for us. He did that in spite and even because of our inadequacies, in spite and because of our fears and failures. Jesus beat death three days later to give us victory in Him. What kind of crazy love is that!? How much must He love us to do that?
Jesus has done everything He asks of us. He wouldn’t send us into something if He hadn’t first had the victory. Jesus had ultimate peace because He knew everything was going to be okay. I sometimes think that I’d do almost anything for that kind of assurance. Really, I DO have that assurance; I just might not always think or feel that I do. Jesus lived, died, and rose again to give me His blessed assurance in everything. In God’s word, He says:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Matthew 6:25-34
That is all the answer we need! God provides more than we could ever need or ask; He will provide for us when we struggle, feel inadequate, worry, or lose sight of what’s going on in our lives. God is sovereign and good to His core. He is the author and illustrator of everything, including our faith! When God has things in store for us, they aren’t only what’s best for us, they’re HIS best for us. If that isn’t enough to spur us on, I don’t know what is.
My focus in 2016 was abiding courageously in the Lord. Though God is capable and willing, I can’t say that I let Him finish my fight with fear. I can’t say I always chose to abide. In 2016, I chose to say “yes” when God plucked me out of my life and asked me to follow Him. I don’t know that I would have made the same choice in 2015, but I am so glad God got ahold of me. I am choosing to abide because of the work He’s doing in my heart. I know that when I surrender to Him when I feel fearful, He will give me more than I could ever ask.
So for 2017, I am choosing to walk not in fear, but in freedom. God created us to be wildly free, and that’s exactly what I’m going to strive to be. Adios 2016! You were fun, crazy, scary, and fulfilling. Here’s to hoping 2017 is all that and more.
