As many of you know, last week I was at Training Camp for the World Race.
again.
God works in mysterious ways…but man are they powerful.
The first time at training camp I heard the messages, I learned things…but it took being sent TWICE to really GET IT.
Training camp is meant to teach us a variety of things.
Patience, Love, Kindness, Community, Selflessness.
It can look like the staff taking away half our bags that we've carefully arranged and prepared to simulate what it can look like when airlines in a foreign country lose your luggage.
It can look like being forced to eat food you've never heard of at every meal that is in such small amounts it almost always leaves you wanting for more. The hunger we felt this week doesn't even begin to tap into the hunger people feel all over the world every day….many of whom this will be reality for the duration of their lives.
It can look like being asked to reach down in your heart and pull out your deepest darkest secrets and fears.
You know, the ones you don't think about let alone SPEAK about.
Well yep, Training Camp pulls those out so you can learn that it is okay to lean on those around you. To show us how people live in community every day and it doesn't include ipods, cell phones and computers.
It can look like being forced to cram over 50 grown adults on one of those yellow school busses and forcing them to sleep there all.night.long. On the floor, on each other, across seats, against windows, standing, sitting, crouching, you name it. Because lets face it, sometimes we will be trying to cross borders and they will be closed and the only safe travel we will have is the bus we ride on.
It can look like hiking the terrain with 50lbs on your back and 20lbs on your front in bags at 7am to your next location because lets face it- most people don't have the privilege of dumping their stuff in the trunk and driving to work.
It can look like using the "bathroom" wherever you can whether it's a tree, the woods, or a dirty dirty facility to just barely tap into the idea that privacy is an absolute luxury and very few souls in this world have it.
Training Camp is a time to teach that whether we have thousands of dollars in our bank account or even just one dollar, we are more privileged than we ever imagined.
But there is one thing about training camp that cannot be taught. It's something you must choose to tap into.
That if you reach down and examine your own heart, you know you simply cannot do it alone. That maybe at some point in time you felt a whisper or a call or a longing that said
"Is this it? This can't be it."
God is a kind, compassionate and loving Father who sent His baby Son so that all in the world whether rich or poor, housed or homeless, full or hungry, we can all know we are LOVED.
Loved in a way that is somewhat unfathomable. No matter your past or present or what you have done there is a God who loves you and is waiting to do amazing things with your life.
I have barely begun to tap into this.
So I leave you with one thought.
If you are someone who has stood in line at the store, layed in bed awake at night, or looked at your life whether good or bad and wondered…
"Is this it?"
You've had that gut feeling that says there has to, HAS TO, be something more…
It's because THERE IS.
There is a whole big world out there with real people who have never felt love. Never felt kindness.
People who carry around guilt and shame and self-loathing with no release.
They are everywhere. Kenya, Thailand, Greece, China, Ireland, Honduras…MICHIGAN.
You have one life.
ONE.
You can choose to ignore the calling many of you have felt.
or you can choose to run with it and find yourselves in places and experiences you have only dreamed of.
