A week ago today I was running around an empty house (semi-hysterically) after hanging up from the “We would like to officially invite you to join us in January!” conversation. I left that phone call elated and nervous and mostly just shocked that this was actually going to happen. The World Race – or really more God’s world in it’s entirety – has been on my heart so heavily and this lady somewhere in Georgia just said that I could go. I can go! Eleven months. Eleven countries. Me and a backpack and a pair of Chacos.
Best. Phone call. Ever.
Ok. So that was day one. About 2 days later I started making lists. Lists of stuff I want to get, stuff I want to do, stuff I need to say, stuff I need to plan. Lists are typically my go-to when I want to think ahead. Let me just tell you, leaving for a year and raising upwards of $16,000 to do so is not something that my little list system was ready for. I felt my anxiety levels preparing to make a run for it. “No worries, we got this!” I told those pesky feelings. I’ll get on Pinterest and read previous racers’ blogs and subscribe to “Backpacking World” and custom design my Chacos. That’s what an independent, well-prepared, adventurer should do…right?
And then God began to calm my mind and lassoed me back in, like He tends to do.
“I have not called you to be independent. In fact, I created you for just the opposite. I long for your dependence on me, and you cannot truly live without it,” He reminded,” I am not sending you out to prove your preparedness, or your sense of adventure (which I love). I am sending you on a Kingdom journey to see and feel and taste more of Me. I am sending you to share that with my sons and daughters all over the world. I am sending you to cultivate and bring you into authentic community. Your Pinterest boards and your universal charger and your vaccination list are not what I have called you to. I have called you to be wrecked and broken and dependent. Guess what. You can’t do this alone, and that is what is so beautiful. So, dear adventurer, let’s do this.”
Thank you, Father God, for jumping into my doubting, list-making frenzy. From here on out, I quit.
I quit trying to make things happen in my timing.
I quit obsessing over gear and vaccinations and all-terrain footwear.
I quit relinquishing control to anxiety and worry.
One week after officially beginning this journey, I quit.
I commit to follow Your leading.
I commit to be in Your Word.
I commit to combat my desire for control with prayer and fasting.
Friends, isn’t this what this crazy lifelong adventure is all about? Learning to quit, to die to ourselves, in order that we could be more fully a part of the incredible plan that God has? Quit. It is in that helpless, dependent place that God brings His freedom and perfect Kingdom plan.
Let’s do this.
