I wrote the following about a week ago. I love you guys so much, thank you for participating and supporting me. It has been such a wonderful blessing to me.
It is a joy to be able to share with my family and friends the things that I have learned from my time journeying around the world.
Every day is something new.
Everyday is an experience.
Before the World Race, most of my faith in God was based on knowledge I had heard about, read about, or thought about.
Very little of my Christianity was based on personal experience.
Much of that may have been due to my age.
In my opinion, God was just preparing me for what was to come.
I have passed through my childhood; and my teenage and college years were filled with much learning.
But this is a whole new level.
I knew that it would be, I just was not exactly sure how.
Here I am in Peru, ending my third month of life on the road.
I have three months under my belt.
Three months of hard-core experiences that have molded me and shaped me into what I believe is a completely different man.
I have jumped off the boat.
I have run after Jesus as He called me to leave everything behind.
I left my fishing boat to come and follow Jesus.
There comes a point in every Christian’s life when he receives that call.
Sometimes the call is louder than other times, sometimes it is more urgent, but the call is always there.
I thank God that I was in a place in life where I could listen to Jesus without letting a mortgage or car payments get in the way. I had decided earlier in life that I wanted to follow Jesus wherever He sent me.
This was not a step of salvation, I had received salvation long ago, but thank God He has so much more in store for our lives than salvation.
This should not take anything away from the mystery and the amazing gift that God’s grace is to us to receive salvation.
But God intends, and wants, for His children to have abundant lives.
Yes our Father wants to rescue us from hell, but He wants so much more for us too.
He is my Father, and as my father, He wants to raise me up into all that He has for me.
And God has a mighty big kingdom that He intends for me to be a part of and as His child, to inherit.
As part of this abundant life that He has set apart for me, is this period of time called the World Race.
This is the best training ground I could possibly have.
I believe I have learned more in my three months traveling the world than most people probably learn during a full education at seminary.
But what is more, is that my knowledge that I now contain did not come from books, but from life.
I have experienced firsthand salvations, spiritual gifts, tongues, prophecy, and healing, spiritual warfare, facing demons, rebuking demons, intercession, the power of prayer, the Holy Spirit manifesting itself, being drunk in the Holy Spirit, miracles, God opening doors (both literal and figurative) food multiplying, divine appointments, becoming Jesus to people, and more than I can possibly even think of at this time.
In all this I can now plant my feet firmly and declare beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is MY GOD who has done this work in me.
My confidence rests in the Lord through the experiences He has set apart for me.
This leads me to conclude something very simple, but I feel like an idiot for not realizing it beforehand.
Our God, the God of the universe, is a God that is to be EXPERIENCED!
He is not to be limited to books, although that can help, He intends for us to experience Him.
He designed us to experience Him.
He longs and desires for us to experience Him.
That is the way in which we can grow intimate with the God of the universe.
He placed that hole in our hearts that can only be filled by Him.
How many of us, even after salvation, still feel this deeper sense that there is more.
Not that we needed to look for it in the things of the world.
But that somehow there just has to be more to God than just church on Sundays, nice sermons, and being friendly.
I think many of us would at least claim that we believe God is bigger than that.
But most of us do not live like God is bigger than Sunday school.
