Well y’all, I’m here!
Where is here?
Right where God wants me.
“Well, where’s that?” you might ask? Well let me tell you!
I was living quite simply a year ago in a small city called Manhattan.
“Daniel, Manhattan is not a small city.”
Well, if you’re thinking of the Manhattan in New York, then you’d be correct. But I’m talking about the Manhattan in Kansas. That’s right! Kansas. It really exists, look it up!
Anyways, I grew to love it there. It, of all places, became home. And I’ve been to lots of places far bigger and better. Places such as: Yokosuka Japan, Denver Colorado, Southern California, China, South Korea, and all over the U.S. Kansas was different though. Kansas is where God probably did the most work in me than anywhere else I’ve been! Until I had moved to Kansas my faith wasn’t quite my own. I was on spiritual milk so to speak. But God rolled up His sleeves and said, “Alright Daniel! New home, new beginnings, and new friends. I’ve got a lot in store for you. So let’s get started!”
God was stretching me and growing me in my relationship with Him left and right. After a while I got complacent and started to spiritually settle into a routine-like faith. It was slowly falling out of a relationship with God and more into an understanding with God. “I’ll live like a Christian, if You keep life going the way it is for me!” I had no clue what God was about to do next. One day before summer had officially begun, my dad, myself, and a friend of ours decided to go sailing on my dad’s three-man sailboat. No one was on the lake that day and we had miles and miles of open lake all to ourselves. Without thinking twice we unloaded the boat and started sailing our hearts out! After a while we caught a huge wind and we had a blast hiking out on our boat, speeding along, until our rudder snapped in half and we cut through the water like a knife through warm butter. The boat capsized and we found out right then and there just how cold the water still was from the winter snow/ice. After a useless effort to redeem the boat and paddle it back to shore, we started swimming for it. By this point hypothermia had started settling in and we were slowing way down. We knew that that unless something happened we weren’t going to make it back to shore. Folks, staring death in the face is an indescribable feeling. As a Christian, I knew where I was going and was at peace about that. But while I was in that lake, I knew that I was not satisfied with the life I’d lived and the absence of glorifying God’s name and pointing those around me towards Christ. God is good. He brought a single fisherman out of nowhere to come upon the three of us and pluck us out of that giant lake. I had never experienced that kind of cold in my entire life, I hope to never have to! We found out later that had the water been a few degrees colder our bodies would have slowly shut down and we would’ve drowned.
I knew that what happened that day was no accident. God was showing me how fragile life is and that He holds life in His hands. If it is His will, He will take mine whenever He pleases. I knew then, that I needed to live life with a greater priority on what calls me to as a Christian. To keep a long story from growing longer, God would end up throwing a few (less life-threatening) reminders like that my way in the years to come. My heart didn’t turn towards missions overseas until much later though!
One evening, at a bible study I was a part of, my dad was teaching on when Jesus was anointed by Mary at Bethany. The whole study really encouraged me, but one thing my dad said stuck with me and became pivotal in me pursuing missions and ultimately the World Race.
Mark 14:3-9 is where we were. As we read through that passage and got to verse 8, my dad said,
“Now stop here for a minute. We have a tendency to blow right over this small sentence. But let’s stop for a minute and think about this. After Jesus’ Disciples were rebuking Mary for pouring this expensive flask of pure Nard all over Jesus before He goes to the cross, He stops them and says, “Leave her alone…” “… She has done what she could;” Now Mary knew that something was about to happen. She didn’t know what, but she knew that based off of what Jesus had been saying all throughout His ministry on earth that something big was going to happen soon. She knew that her response was to do something. And though she didn’t have all the details she didn’t let that stop her. She did this extravagant thing for Jesus at the expense of her pride before all the other disciples. So we need to take note of this and then ask this of ourselves. Have I done what I can for the Kingdom of God?”
These words were on repeat and I knew the answer for myself was not the right one. I may have looked like a good Christian, but when the rubber met the road, I was not doing what I could. Just what I wanted and what I was comfortable with. After that night I felt God constantly asking me:
“Daniel. Have you done what you can?”
I knew that I hadn’t been doing what I could, so that was when I knew it was time for my entire lifestyle to change and thus, Missions became my heart’s desire! It wasn’t some guilt trip into missions though. Please don’t hear that out of all of this. It was heart change! Spiritual revival in my heart towards what I knew God has asked of me from the very beginning!
And that brings us to now! Right here! Right where God wants me! It’s amazing that it took all of that to get me to where I am today. I have since moved back to Colorado and I’m pursuing this Race with everything I have in me! I can’t explain how excited and nervous I am for this trip! Excited for the opportunities I have to serve and seek the lost, and nervous for the heartbreak I will feel in each country I have to leave. God is going to stretch me in some crazy ways while I’m on this Race. Both the World Race with my teammates and the Good Race that the Lord has set before me to run until I see His face in eternity!
If you are reading this and have made it this far, then I encourage you to ask yourself the same question. Are you doing what you can right now for the Kingdom of God? Don’t wait. God holds each and every one of our lives in His hand and we need to live like it for our own sake and for the rest of the world to see! Thanks for being apart of this mission with me!
God bless!
