I wrote this blog a while ago…I just found it again. Here ya go.
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When I was a kid, I dreamed of being Garth Brooks, Michael Jordan, and Deion Sanders everyday for my entire life. It sounded so great, and I never doubted for a second that I would not be able to achieve the glory of all of these 3 heroes combined. I dream big. As life got the best of me, I realized there was this thing called “ability”, and mine wasn’t worth the NFL, or the NBA’s time.
The dreams followed me into college, though the scale changed. I now dreamed of having a life that was totally safe, but constantly changing. That everyday I knew that I wouldn’t have to be anxious about anything, yet everyday would be full of new and unpredictable adventures. Life taught me to fear, yet I realized my heart needed constant change and partial risk, and a typical 9 to 5 , though safe, would kill me.
Unfortunately, there are very few majors that guarantee that lifestyle right out of the gates of college. So I became a very confused general studies major for two years until I finally found Sport Management as a major with a Recreation, Parks, and Toursim minor. I like to say that I majored in sports and minored in fun. This is my heart, and I refused to let life tell me I had to settle into a set groove. Call it youthful optimism.
So, right out of college I got a job at Lutherhill Ministries. Perfect. It was a perfect balance of play, getting paid, adventure, nature, and people. Outdoor Ministry still has a special place in my heart if I’m honest. Still, the dreams remained. Actually, they were escalated.
That is when God started talking.
Though I didn’t see what was happening at the time, God began the process of showing me that my dreams were an outward projection of a desperate situation on the inside:
I wanted to live.
It’s a desire that plagues the human race. We all want life. And we will do anything we can to get it. And God, who came to give life in its fullest sense, dropped the World Race in my lap, and I said…nope. Not it. (remember the part where I wanted to be safe?) But the desire to live, which God wove within me when I was being made, stirred powerfully within me, and eventually I was sitting down with my family telling them I applied…Yep.
Then, I was in Chicago…then on a plane…then in an airport in Hong Kong having panic attacks…then in Malaysia…then Australia…and suddenly I’m in Africa. WHAT IS GOING ON??? You can get malaria here?!? There was a genocide here?!? This isn’t safe!!
But it is.
Let’s be real…Is there anywhere more safe than the inside the Lords will? No. Boom. My desire for safety and security fulfilled, fear is dying daily, and love flowing forth like living water. Everyday is unpredictable, and every month a new adventure! My desire to live still follows me like it did when I was younger. In fact, it is so much deeper and more powerful than ever before as I taste and see life in Christ. It’s like my heart was walled up with concrete and barbed wire, and now it is out of control with desire, love, and longing that I can only name as eternal life. Even when life sucks, my heart burns for the author of life.
I AM AWAKENED!
I AM ALIVE!
Not because I’m traveling around the world, though that desire for adventure and travel has been awakened, but because I know the Father. I know Him. He knows me. And he wired me for this life. He came that I might have life, and Jesus is so awesome because he doesn’t just leave us searching…he tells us about life:
“And this is eternal life, that they know you…”
True life is in a relationship. Whaaaatt?? It is a relationship where we are overcome by an outstanding, outrageous LOVE. Life is good. God has awakened me to this, and finally I am realizing that the life of love and adventure he calls me to is the only real life to live. And it is beautiful. I’m in AFRICA people!!
Everyday is ridiculous.
One day we show up unannounced at a local school and get ransacked by hundreds of African children who just want to hug us and smile and touch my beard, and the next day we show up to a church expecting to give a small lesson to 20 or so youth, and we end up getting applauded and screamed at like celebrities when we walk into a church filled with 500 African youth! I got to tell them all about the amazing life Jesus came to give us! We dance in church…we dance everywhere! We preach the gospel everyday! I get to play soccer with African children, which is something I had hoped the World Race would bring about. As a community, we pour into each other daily. We struggle…alot, but we bear each others burdens, or at least try. Most importantly, in this lifestyle, we love because we are in love with the Father.
In John 17 Jesus says this prayer for us:
“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Jesus came that I might know how deep, how wide, how strong, is the Fathers love for us. I mean it’s ridiculous.
And it is life.
God is an infinite source of life that we get to explore for eternity, and is the only thing that could satisfy my newfound desires. I hate that I have fears, that I struggle, that I lose hope, that I get dry, that I sin, but His love eclipses all of that. I struggle now because I’m alive and I know it. I live because I know God. I know God because all my life, he knew me and pursued me with these crazy things called…dreams.
