This past week or so has been as close to a whirlwind as I think a person can get. From home in St. Louis to Chicago for training camp, then Chicago to New York for a 12 hour layover, then New York to Atlanta, then finally Atlanta to Johannesburg, South Africa (16 hour flight) followed by an hour bus ride to our first ministry contact.
As you might be able to understand, for a brief period of time I literally could not remember where I was or have been. For example, just before taking off on one of our flights, I looked out the window and told my squadmate, Raychel, "Maybe we will be able to see the Manhattan skyline when we get airborne." To my chagrin, Raychel needed to inform me that this would be very unlikely, as we were actually in Atlanta, NOT New York. I thought it best just to go to sleep…
During these crazy travel days, there was a lot of time to reflect not only where I was physically or geographically, but also spiritually. At launch, we were taught a lot about having the choice, while on the race, to love our teammates and squadmates in any given situation. Sometimes it will be hard, but we learned that to have a culture of unity and Christ-likeness, the main key is to live selflessly.
Throughout this week, I have thought a lot about my motives. My motives of my daily actions, my motives of wanting to go on this trip, and even my motives of why I love people. It's a challenging issue if you can really sit back and reflect on it, but this type of "spiritual inventory" can reveal a lot about yourself and where you are in your walk with the Lord. As for me, I realized that some of my motives weren't exactly pure, and I needed to let God deal with that in me. I noticed that without even thinking about it, I was competing with other squadmates. We all have different strengths, gifts to be used in our squad, but I was foolishly stacking myself against others to "see where I was," as if this is supposed to be some competition.
God really convicted me as I read Galatians 5 the other day. Verse 15 says: "But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another." Satan loves to use divisive tactics, and I know he was attempting this in me. He wants us to compete with each other instead of competing with him. But during launch, we talked about how our strength IS in how diverse we are. We all have things we can learn from each other, and instead of competing, our squad has done an amazing job of encouraging, loving, and teaching each other in our faith.
So the question is, where are you? Where is your motivation coming from? What are you competing with? Who is your REAL opposition?
