I feel like my first three blog posts have maintained such a serious tone that I’m only half represented. And like, I’m a pretty goofy guy, so I don’t know what THAT’s about….
But seriously.
I stumbled across this picture yesterday 🙂
Just a baby I found…
And I just wanted to share this side of me, a side that’s less about overly dramatic writing (although I must say, I’m rather good at it, and everything I’ve said is all very very true) and more kind of like this picture.
This is what I do, I search for pictures like this day in and day out.
Actually wait that’s not entiiiiiirely true, I do a lot of things with my free time when I'm not eagerly slaving away at my studies dutifully getting ready to graduate (love you Mom), whether that’s watch old Gymnastics World Championships late into the evenings (my commentary gets louder and more sarcastic the later it gets, just ask Trent), watch repeat seasons of Survivor (gosh I’ve seen em all multiple times now… just ask Trent), or look up trip reports of amusement parks and roller coaster POVs (or write trip reports of amusement parks and edit coaster POVs).
But proooooobably what’s been consuming the majority of my attention these last months, has been the world. The whoooooole world. And gosh I don’t know what to say, I just love it so much! I mean look at that picture. Look how much beauty there is in that little girl’s smile, and how the horizon just goes on forever and ever. I can just hear the noise that camel is making, kind of like the noises I tend to make when I’m especially hungry or moderately goofy or both, like ET mixed with Chewbacca mixed with a constipated dinosaur, and I imagine that little girl making the exact same noise.
So I’ve had this phrase rattling around in my brain for a while now. I’ve said it a lot and I’ll say it again: “God put the whole world on my heart.” And for I while I don’t think I really understood what I was saying, and then for another while I was almost ashamed of it. I had this voice in my head saying “How many missionaries do you know who get to see all of it? How effective can you really be if you’re never staying in one place?” And to be honest, I don’t really know yet, but I’ve come more and more to realize that staying put somewhere just might not be something I’m designed to do. So to make like the only way to serve God is by rooting somewhere longterm, is imposing limits where they shouldn’t be any.
Plus look what Paul did.
I see a list of places, especially a list of how much these places are in need, and as I read every single one, my mind jumps to “Oooh I wanna go there – oh wait first I wanna go ther – Oh wait no – oooh there – ooooh I should go there.” I mean I’ve got lists of places I want to go, people groups I want to share the Gospel with, tribes I want to reach, languages I want to learn, paths I want to walk, so many lists I have a folder of lists of places God’s put on my heart. And that’s separate from the folder of folders of pictures I’ve collected over the years. I mean, this picture has a Mongolian child with a camel in it on a steppe, and they’re both laughing. I’ve got hundreds more like this. Ok well I mean, not exAAActly like this, but sharing similar… traits of exoticism and outlandishness.
And it just makes everything feel so right, thinking of a God big enough and good and loving enough to reconcile the WHOLE WORLD, every living breathing beautiful thing to himself, out of Glory to His Son and to Himself and for our own good and the good of all things. I mean, God made that.. He made ALLLLLL that. And I guess I just want to be a part of it. All of it. I want to serve that God.
So count me all in and send me packin’, there’s a lot to see, a lot of people to reach, a lot of God’s glory to be taken in and a whole lot more to bring about.
The Road goes ever on and on 

Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the Road has gone, 

And I must follow, if I can 

Pursuing it with eager feet, 

Until it joins some larger way 

Where many paths and errands meet. 

And whither then? I cannot say.
-Bilbo Baggins
One Way
Love,
Danny
