I’ve been surfing through World Race blogs for four years now. Think of how many different squads have come and gone in that time, how many different countries have been visited, the many different ministries that have been worked with since I was seventeen years old.
After four years of unashamed blog-stalking, I’ve made in my mind the perfect race route, the perfect squad, and the perfect teammates. I’ve whittled my expectations down to a “t”.
Already the Lord is taking those expectations and lovingly smashing them to bits.
I’d always planned to apply for my Race about a year in advance so that I’d have ample time to fundraise and mentally prepare. For a second, it looked like that was going to happen. But for one reason or another, I didn’t end up applying for the January ’13 Race until July – about five months before launch.
I was in Turkey at the time I applied, and while I was confident that I was in fact supposed to go in January, I struggled to understand why God didn’t inform me of this six months ago. I was emailing my roommates and one of them responded with this:
“God is good and has good plans for you. His timing is always perfect. His timing is perfect. I say it twice because it's true and easy to forget.”
(A Turkish sunset – just one example of His faithfulness)
Sometimes it’s the simplest truths that slip my mind. Phrases like, “God is good” or “The Lord’s will is the Lord’s bill!” – they’re annoyingly catchy and seem to end up on an endless amount of bumper stickers and coffee mugs. But the fact is, they’re true.
What God is doing is taking my expectations about the World Race, and letting me know that His timing, His plans, His ideas are far better than whatever I can contrive on my own.
I know that this process of reworking my expectations (about the Race, about ministry, about the Trinity) will continue for many months to come. I also know from experience, that it’s a terrible idea to go on a mission trip with a bag full of expectations. Things don’t work out as you thought they would, and it’s always for the better (whether you realize it at the time or not).
So, here I am – expectations already unmet. And it’s a beautiful thing.
