Hi everyone. Full disclosure: I’m supposed to be blogging weekly. I get zero gold stars so far for my blogging, and I’m sorry to not keep you updated.
So let me update you now: I am now home in Puyallup, Washington again, and having a great time with my family, such as eating ridiculously late, delicious dinners and planning for our upcoming vacation next week to Italy and Croatia! I’ve been busy not blogging, hanging out with friends, doing a lot of reading, weaning myself off my college student coffee habit, and working at a cucumber farm, which is currently selling no cucumbers (“cukes,” as we who are in the know like to say) but plenty of berries. My brother David took me to a climbing gym last week, where I managed to do some bouldering and top roping routes almost as difficult as the ones a group of grade school kids were working on before my arms gave out. Now that the pain is mostly gone, I can’t wait to go again. Last week, my dad, his three sisters (my aunts), and I flew to Atlanta, Georgia to be contestants on Family Feud. My contract keeps me from revealing if we won or not, but I will tell you it was a crazy, strange, fun time. And they give you free snacks backstage.
So, here’s something that I have noticed about this whole World Race thing. There are some people I can’t wait to tell about the World Race because I think it will impress them. These include my old high school friends and teachers, pastors, baristas in coffee shops frequented by Bible studies, my family, and cool hipster social justice warrior acquaintances. When I’m with these people I can’t wait for the question, “What’s next for you?” I tell them I’ll be a missionary, I’ll travel everywhere in a raw community of believers, I’ll get to serve people, I’ll know God and make God known… I tell them this freely and boldly, assuming I’ll win some kind of approval.
And then there are some people I’d rather not tell. These include college professors, non-Christians, people who take issue with mission work, and those who tell me I need a real job. (And I haven’t even met anyone who tells me to get a real job!) I get uneasy about World Race, or I gloss over glaring details, like saying “I’ll be traveling” instead of “I’ll be a missionary.” I steer the talk to what kind of tent I should have instead of what God's been doing in my heart. I haven’t even encountered any feelings of judgment from anybody; those fears more often just reveal areas where I’m insecure, and where truth, not approval, are needed.
So now, I’m trying to lean into the fact that as I spread the word about my World Race plans and the bigger, scandalous Word of what Jesus has done for us, people will be impressed, scared, offended, confused, and indifferent… and that is all right, because the goal is not to be liked or impressive or any of that rubbish, but to be found in Christ. People change, and they don't agree, and it's hard and pointless to impress everyone. I'd rather hear a "well done!" from my Heavenly Dad.
This is all a blessedly and painfully concrete opportunity to apply that retort of Jesus’ followers way back in Jerusalem when the high priest reminded them that they weren’t supposed to talk about this Jesus guy: “We must obey God rather than men!”
