Bigger Than Can’t

I got back from training camp Tuesday evening and I’m so excited!  I can’t begin to describe all the crazy things that happened in just 9 short days, but the overwhelming presence of God has been almost tangible throughout.  I’ve already mentioned how God has given me a brand new family of committed fellow missionaries, but what I neglected to talk about was the changes God has made in my own life.

Before training camp I would have described myself as pretty introverted and antisocial.  I didn’t make friends easily and it was a challenge for me even then to find people I was comfortable being real with.  I’ve always thought that in order to be acceptable to people it was best to curtail my passions and present a ‘socially acceptable’ veneer that in reality was probably as boring as you can get.  I didn’t want to be the ‘weird guy’ so when in the company of people whose good opinion I thought I needed, I avoided staring up at the sky or watching an ant climb a rosebush.  I never shared the joy I found in the simple things of life because everyone else got their entertainment from music or movies.  Most of all though I didn’t share my passion for God.  I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a Christian, but I never brought it up either.  Loving God isn’t a concept most of my friends are even familiar with, and certainly many of them would be quite derisive if I mentioned it.  Until two weeks ago, I had almost no experience being real with people.  I never would have chosen something as crazy as the World Race and all the openness and honesty it requires without God pushing me into it.

God’s let me know in no uncertain terms that I’m done with all that now.  I might take a while to get used to the concept, but God has freed me from the fear of striking up conversations with strangers.  I’m done being worried of what other people think about me.  I was in the middle of Atlanta one afternoon waiting for the rest of the group to meet up with us.  You know that saying, “dance like nobody’s watching”?  I couldn’t do that in my own room with the door shut for fear someone would see me through a crack in my window shade and think I was just really weird.  I simply did not dance, ever.  But on that warm afternoon in Atlanta, with people I didn’t know all around me, I started to dance.  I don’t have any actual skill at dancing, and I have no idea how foolish I must have looked, but in that moment I just quit caring and let the music God put in my soul overflow.  Looking back on it that night as I journaled, I realized that I had done something I had believed I couldn’t.  I still can’t dance well, but that is no longer an obstacle.

So now, I am the guy who will talk to strangers.  I dance.  I’m through with living as though my God is a weak, hesitant little doormouse.  The God I serve is mighty and joyful, and he has not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power, and of love, and of self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)  I will no longer attempt to bind God with something as mundane as the word can’t.  He’s bigger than that.