This is a blog about what the Lord is walking me in…
Back in Romania I had one heck of a time. I don’t mean a good time either. My first month was difficult. A lot of difficult things happened and I felt stretched to say the least. At one point last month I remember myself asking for a break. I said “Lord if this is what the rest of my race will look like I don’t know that I’ll make it” now that’s a bit sad and I’m sure I tried to follow it up with something about how I could handle it or I’m ok with it, but the father knew my heart so he gave me a break.
Don’t get me wrong breaks are good. It gave me some good time to rest up and really have an opportunity to server and not be too worried about much else. I only had a problem with this time off going into the end of last month. During one of my last days of ministry in Ukraine I was asked by my Squad Leader, Mason, to do a devotional during LDW (Leadership Development Weekend). I felt honored to be chosen and soon accepted the offer. Eventually though I found myself in a bit of a rut. You see prior to Mason asking me to do this devotional my Squad Mentor, Casey, sent out an email to the whole squad about the details of LDW. In part of it she wrote that there would be sessions that would be lead by my fellow squad-mates. She assured us that these people were not special, but simply were walking in something that the whole squad needed to hear.
This got my thinking “what is it that I’m walking in?” This question bother me because I didn’t have an answer. Those of you who have played sports might understand it this way: That moment in practice when you are working really hard and you look over to the sidelines and you see one of your teammates sitting out. He’s injured and can’t practice and you envy him. You envy him because he is relaxing and sitting out while you are sweaty, sore, and all around mad. Then the next week you get injured and it’s your turn to sit out. As you sit there on the sidelines you think that you be able to relax, but instead you’re antsy and envious of those who are practicing because what you couldn’t see from being on the field, but is clear now is that everyone who is practicing is getting better. they are growing while you remain stagnant on the sidelines.
This is what I felt like coming into LDW. I didn’t necessarily envy my squad-mates but I was frustrated that I myself was not growing. My month in Ukraine was a break that God had given me. What I know now that I never want to sit out again. The race is my opportunity to start making lasting change in my life and I don’t want to waste this opportunity.
I honestly would be ok with leaving this blog post as this, but a lot happened after this so let me tell you about what God is beginning to walk me through right now.
God had been dropping little hints into my mind about things that I personally needed to work on. Things that I would not have notice on my own. Ever since Romania He has been pushing me to dive deep into this one particular thing and that is vulnerability.
My realization of vulnerability being the thing that I push into started in Romania and came to a peak during LDW this last weekend. Everything that happened at LDW though seemed to come together in one day.
First I had a long conversation with one of my squadmates about why it is that men of the church seem to have such a lack of emotion (writing this I can see now that God decide to first use a baseball bat to get my attention and then, thankfully, got more gentle). We talked for a while but in general I just felt ignorant, and unintentionally tried to justify my ignorance.
Later that night Mason gave a talk on emotions that really resonated with me, in particular his point on jealousy. There had been many things in my life, that I had decided to keep away not only from people, but from God as well. What I’ve come to realize is that love has been one of these things.
I can’t tell you why this is the way that it is. That’s what I’m trying to figure out now. I do know however that it is a problem I have. Just looking at the relationships I had in high school and how I approached my team at the start of this race, I can see that love was not something I was willing to give. This has also been a burden on my relationship with the father. Rather than being willing to love God I questioned to love the father has for me. I can understand God’s love theologically, but there seems to be something severed between my head and my heart.
To this day I have a performance mentality. I feel like I need to work to please God. Although I know this isn’t true I can’t help but feel unlovable when I fail. This happened in Romania and it happened before LDW when I thought I wasn’t walking in anything. I have given myself little grace and counting to learn what it means to do that.
This whole process although a bit sad makes me happy. Happy because I can see the awareness that I’m walking in and see it as the first step toward actual change. The last thing I want to do is watch from the sidelines.
