"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these."
Something I've learned this past month is that my perspective of living in community has been flawed. Walking into the Race, even at Training Camp, I knew that I would have a difficult time living in community. Not in the surface things, like living in cramped quarters, or having meals together or even in having conversations and dying to self, but in making myself vulnerable to my team. I have been a self-reliant, loner spirit for such a long time. Through broken relationships, through feeling abandoned by friends, I have
learned to find my security in God. But the walls I built up kept me from truly knowing how to love others. Sure, I could give out of myself, and serve others, but that was always out of my flesh, not out of knowing how to receive God's love.
So, I was confronted with this a few weeks ago as a fellow Racer, Lizi, held me accountable to the walls that I was putting up between myself and others. "You can't just cut people out of your life." Now, while perception is reality, and she and others have been hurt by feeling that I have cut them out of my life, something entirely
opposite has been occurring in me. For too long, I have believed the lies, fostered by burned relationships, that I should cut MYSELF out of others' lives. I've believed that it would be better for them, that they would be happier if I were not part of their lives. As my attention was drawn to this, I realized that I had a major issue with self-worth in believing that others do not see me as worthy to be in relationship with me. And so, for the first time in my life, I am confronted by a community of people who actually care and who definitely commit to walk through stuff with me no matter what.
And I needed to learn to receive that commitment, and to trust them. The bold step in this is not in being vulnerable, it's in staying that way, and trusting others, believing that they love me and will stick by my side. It's about being honest and saying faithfully, "You are my brother/sister and I NEED you to commit to walking through this with me, because God wants you to grow into greater love and selflessness and because he didn't intend for me to be walled up, self-reliant, and unable to receive from others."
The Lord revealed this to me in a conversation with my teammate, Alison, over a mint chocolate Oreo milkshake one day: It is NEVER a burden to be Christ to someone else. And it is NEVER a burden to be
who God made you to be. This epiphany came out of us realizing that we don't receive from others well because we feel like we are being a burden to them, whether it's receiving their time, or their love, or
gifts. And so, consequently, it is difficult for us to give to others because we feel like they might feel a burden. But when confronted with this lie, and the Holy Spirit revealing what is TRUE, we found
such freedom.
Freedom to receive the love of the Father, because He sees us as worthy.
Freedom to give that love to others, and to receive others' love.
What are the implications of this? When we learn to live in this type of community, it DESTROYS our pride, humbling us and honoring us in receiving. It builds our faith in God and in our brothers and sisters, trusting them to be receiving from God as well, and trusting that they see us as worthy. Secondly, it holds others accountability to be Christ, to give selflessly, to be who God MADE them to be, and to die to self in obedience to Christ's commands.
As a team leader, I have learned that what I walk in, whether good or bad, it opens the door and that my team will walk in that as well. So when I began to walk in these new developments, this new trust and
faith in others, my teammates began to walk in it as well. And I can tell you, that the past few weeks have been ones of tremendous growth and love in our team. There has been such healing as my team has
followed in walking this stuff out.
I can confidently say that this team is a safe place, where we can be vulnerable, where we are preferring each other, serving and loving each other, and learning to receive love humbly, both from God and each other. I can tell you that is the first time in over a decade that I believe that I will not be abandoned by the people in my life.
And so, from this, I feel safe enough to be the gentle, tender-hearted Chip that God made me to be.
Because my team supports me.
Because they love me.
Because they will get up at any hour when I need help, and they will meet me at my love languages.
And I will do the same for them. It's a love for others that I've never known, one that makes my heart swell 10x its normal size in true Grinch fashion. What's the importance of this in missions? You can't truly love those you minister to until you can love your family, your brothers and sisters. Otherwise, it's hypocrisy. And now that we are walking in this, our team has become FULL of Christ's love, overflowing; powerful and mighty in God, and we walk into countries, changing environments, claiming them for Jesus, King.
