When I think about what I’ve learned this year I sometimes think I keep learning the same thing over and over. That’s when I start hearing the lies. You haven’t learned ANYTHING, have you? You JUST now figured this out? You can’t write that blog because that’s the same thing you wrote 3 months ago and 3 months before that. But I don’t care. I know who I am in Christ, and that I was not created with a spirit of fear. I’m God’s mouthpiece and his chosen vessel. I will write with the same message every day if that’s what He tells me to do. So here we go…
This year has been a time of discovering who I am and most importantly who I’m not. I’m not a quitter, a slave to sin, or a silent selfish husband. I’m a chosen man of God, freed from the bondage of sin and depression, passionately leading my wife to wherever our Savior leads. If you would have asked me 2 days ago who I was, I wouldn’t have given you the same answer. I would have given you a weak, unconfident answer, hoping you wouldn’t ask who I really am. So where did the confidence come from? I’m so glad you asked.
I’ve learned that many people live by a system that is structured on what is perceived to be right or wrong or good or evil. I’ve been doing the same thing, but how I describe it is easy or hard. I’m not sure exactly when this habit started, but these 2 small words have become a huge part of my vocabulary. What this has led to is me not doing things that are hard and settling for doing easy things. Part of the reason I was excited to be a part of The World Race is because I was tired of doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. I heard this quote when I was 16 years old, and I’ve never been able to get it out of my head. It says, If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. Seems pretty logical right? Well I’ve been reminding myself of that quote for 9 years, and I’ve finally decided to put it into practice.
There’s something else you should know about me. I normally don’t have long hair. If you’ve kept up with our blogs and watched our videos this year, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t cut my hair. It’s actually been about 1 whole year since my last haircut. I decided before we left that I was going to grow my hair out as long as I could while we were traveling, because I wanted to cut it off and donate it to an organization that makes wigs for cancer patients. As you can imagine having long hair has been quite an adjustment. You have to do something with it, or wear a hat. Not to mention I shed more hair than any pet I’ve ever owned. I tell you all that because it has been very tempting to cut it all off, especially when it was so hot in Asia and Africa. I just keep telling myself, I’ve made it this far, so I can keep going. Let’s press pause here, and we’ll come back to the hair in a little bit.
The past few days have been some of the hardest of the whole year for me. I’ve just felt so miserable and defeated with no hope. I know that God has rescued me from depression, and I believe that I have the opportunity to choose the joy that only comes from Him. I feel like God was saying all I had to do was step out and trust him, and He would give me peace and joy. The only thing I could say was, but that step is so far and it’s too hard. Saturday night I decided that I was going to step out in faith and trust Him. I asked a few friends to pray for me, and I immediately began to feel peace and comfort from the Spirit. I was excited to be free and be different.
Sunday afternoon the enemy hit me with a wrecking ball of I’m not even sure what. I felt lower and worse than I have felt in as long as I can remember. I told Erin how I was feeling and that I wanted to get rid of those feelings. I wanted peace and joy. I wanted to be confident and be willing to try hard things. After Erin spoke a little life into me and told me who I was, she suggested that at dinner I should let every one know what was going on. We’ve been living with 2 other teams this month, and I really didn’t want to call everyone together and tell them what I was feeling. I thought they would turn it in to some kind of pep rally and make me scream who I was and crazy stuff like that. Erin knew how not excited I was to go through with this so she said she would do whatever she could to help me. She said she would even call everyone together and all I had to do was tell them what was on my heart. I jumped on her offer.
So I’m a new man. I’ve been free for awhile, but I’ve been carrying around these shackles like a security blanket. So who am I? I’m a confident son of God! I’m a new creation! I’m bold! I’m brave! I’M FREE!
