This month in Ecuador, we partnered with an organization called CRU. They primarily partner with universities stateside and internationally building relationships and disciplining students. This month we helped pass out nearly 4,000 New Testament bibles and helped out with CRU’s short film festival they had at one of the local universities.
At the end of this month our team came to a small mountain town called Baños, here in Ecuador. It’s surrounded by the beautiful Andes mountains and the outdoor adventures are endless. Basically a mountain oasis that I would never pass up the opportunity to visit.
One of the things we did was go to the “Swing at the End of the World.” It’s pretty much just that, you sit of a wooden board, get very loosely strapped in, and this guy pushes you for a minute or two off the edge of a mountain, getting higher and higher with each push. It was much more of a adrenaline rush than I initially anticipated.
As you soar higher and higher with each push, the gentleman doing the pushing yelled, “Let Go!” As I was grabbing the rope extremely tight on each side, I thought to myself, “yeah right, easy for you to say.”
But did I listen to my initial instinct? Absolutely not! I let go and even turned upside down while feeling the cool, crisp mountain air rush against my face.
As we were walking back down and all talking about how much fun we just had, I started to think, “how often does the Lord want us to let go.” Let go, so He can guide and direct us. Let go, so we can trust Him in new ways. Often times letting go can be the hardest thing to do. It takes faith and courage to let go because it means we are no longer trying to take control, but we’re putting our trust and control in somebody else’s hands. It’s completely countercultural.
I knew this man who was pushing me for a total of ten minutes, and after a moment of contemplation, I did and trusted what he told me to do: let go!
This left me feeling convicted because I know their has been countless times I’ve wanted to stay in control and therefore not let go. But one of the many foundational tools that come with being on the race is learning and applying what it looks like to- let go. On the race a main one is letting go of comforts. You really have no choice, but you still get to choose to let go and operate in freedom.
But if we choose to start letting go of the little things, we continue to build on a foundation that can never be broken and start letting go of that control in other areas of our life as well. A foundation that’s lead, guided, and directed by the Lord.
When I first started the race, I was definitely grabbing onto that swing as much and as hard as possible. So hard that my palms were sweating. But the race has opened my eyes and heart in more ways than I could’ve ever anticipated. I without a doubt still have times and areas in my life where I find myself trying to hold onto things and stay in control, but I’m excited for month twelve and on…
To continue trusting in the Lord, to continue building obedience, & to continue learning new ways to let go and depend on the Lord more and more each day throughout this journey of life.
