When I opened one of my Christmas presents up and saw that it was a new Bible all I could think was, “Oh, great.”
I have this thing with my Bible, I know it. I have highlighted, circled and sticky-noted so many pages and there are letters, notes and questions that have been written to and by me scattered throughout. Things that some of my professors said were scribbled along the binding. Pages have long fallen out, but I have carefully left them folded in their original places.
With this new, fancy bilingual Bible all I could think was that my parents were going to want me to take it with me and that I was going to have to take it on the Race. Great, I thought, two Bibles.
As I packed for the Race I put both Bibles in my day pack and lifted it up, obviously I was going to need to take one out. My first thought was, “well, they’d understand that I tried” and started to take the new Bible out. I ended up taking both out and sitting them on the bed side by side. Staring at both of them I told myself that my Bible would still be here when I got back, that it wouldn’t be lost and it was only 11 months.
Flash forward to last night, the first night of launch and ultimately the Race, I was beginning my quiet time and stared at the new Bible sitting before me, “what do I do with it” I asked myself. One of my team mates had gotten a new Bible for the Race too and had decided to start with her favorite book so I decided that I would do the same thing. I opened to Romans and you know what? The words were exactly the same. Only in this one it was clean, it was ready for fresh eyes to go through it. Not looking only to the things that might have encouraged in the past but allowing for room to move forward with my new adventure.
I feel like the Race is a little like that too, taking me and the life that I have always had and clearing those things to leave me only with searching for and loving God and of new adventure.
Squads Y(me)ZABC are leaving Atlanta in less than two days to go out into the world to share and experience the Kingdom of God. It’s scary because it is new. The “comfort” of my life is being pulled away but part of me wants that. Especially if that is what it takes for me to experience God more fully and if this is where God wants me to be used best right now to further His kingdom.
I’m excited to see what is going to happen this year with both me and my new Bible.
