Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

| by archiveworldraceblogs

I am now four months into my world race journey. God is teaching me a LOT. He is refining me. He is speaking to me. He is putting desires in my heart. I have been wrestling with a lot of different things so far this year and I’m to the point where I feel like things are beginning to come together. Some things I’ve really been thinking about are:
-Character.
-Dreaming BIGGER.
-Loving better. Like Jesus.
-Wisdom. More understanding of God and how He chooses to work.
-Holy Spirit. What it’s like to really live by the Spirit.

You’d think that because most of my quiet times turn into me wrestling with one of these issues and asking a million questions and telling God over and over that I want to know more, you’d think I’d be excited when God begins to reveal some things. Honestly though, I’ve been surprised at my reaction. Asking God for more character, more dreams, more love, and more of the Holy Spirit is good and all, but then He answers and you realize how much responsibility goes along with those things. I feel like God is saying that it’s time to grow up. I am not a teenager anymore, I am an adult, whether I’m 21 or 61.

For example, I pray for character so God shows me what it’s like to be a person of character and how you act if you are. Apparently, it doesn’t mean that it becomes easy to be that person in every situation. It means that you CHOOSE to be that person, no matter how difficult it is, even when you really don’t want to. And for some reason, that surprises me. But I asked God what it is to be a person of character and He showed me. And now I am responsible for that knowledge.

I pray for bigger dreams and the second I get a glimpse at some of the bigger dreams God is asking me to dream, I kind of want to take my prayer back. If God gives me bigger dreams, I have a responsibility to take bigger risks. I have a responsibility to believe that those dreams are going to become reality, without necessarily knowing how it’s going to happen. I have a responsibility to be willing to work for them and to make sacrifices for them.

I pray for more love and God shows me that that doesn’t mean supernaturally walking around with warm fuzzies for everyone. It means dying to yourself so you can put other people first. It means forgiving over and over and over again. It means choosing to be unoffendable. It means claiming your “wrongs” in every situation, laying down your pride and asking for forgiveness, and leaving everyone else’s “wrongs” between them and God. And seriously, I think that sucks at the moment. But if I want to love like Jesus, don’t I need to be willing to do what Jesus did? He literally DIED for me. I’ve been whining to God about why it’s so hard to love people the way I want to and the only thing He said to me is “It hurts to die“. Hmmm….
 

I feel like the kid that kept asking her parents for a puppy and they kept saying to the kid, “Are you sure”? And I’m the little kid with the big eyes nodding my head and saying, “Yes!” And so the kid gets the puppy only to realize how much work it is to have a pet. How much responsibility it takes to keep it fed, cleaned up after and healthy. Having the puppy is definitely worth it, it’s just not what the kid was picturing when she asked for one.  

Honestly, this world race thing is not turning out how I expected it to. It’s a lot harder than I imagined. But it’s also a lot better than I imagined. I am learning more than I expected to. I am growing more than I expected to. I am getting to know God in ways that I didn’t even think were possible four months ago. I am learning who I am in ways that I couldn’t even have glimpsed at before.
It’s quite a journey…