I am sitting in a roadside restaurant right inside the border of Romania. We just walked across the border from Serbia into Romania and are waiting for our ministry hosts to bring the rest of our squad across the border so we can continue our journey to our next location. I don’t actually know what the name of the city we are going to today, I know that we’re working with a local church, but I don’t know what exactly we’ll be doing for them, I’m not sure how all 44 of us are going to physically fit in the one house we’re sharing this month or how living with 43 other people is going to go. I don’t know how we’re getting to wherever we’re going.
A year ago, or honestly even a month ago, I would have been paralyzed with anxiety at the thought of all of these unknowns. But right now I feel complete peace. I’m perfectly content to be sitting in a room with my community, not knowing what exactly is happening, but trusting that God knows what is happening. He knows what kingdom impact is going to happen in this next month and every detail about the rest of this month, of the next 10 months, and of the rest of my life.
For the past 4 days we were in Belgrade, Serbia for debrief. The purpose of debrief is to remind the squad of our kingdom purpose, to help align us as a church body, and to ignite our gifts and calling into the mission field. One of the things that we talked about these past few days is called here, there, path. It is a tool that we can use to help us see where we are currently with the Lord (here), where we want to be by the end of the race (there), and the steps that we are going to take to get there (path). It is a way for us to make sure that we are learning and growing during our race. If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do. I want to be a person who has a vision for who she wants to be in Christ and is intentional with taking the steps to get there.
When they first started talking about here, there, path, I knew where I wanted to be, but I didn’t know where I was, or how to get to where I wanted to be. This past month on the World Race has been one of the best, but most challenging months of my life. I learned a lot about myself and that there are things that I need to improve in, but up until yesterday, I didn’t know how to do that. After spending time in prayer and in conversation with some of my teammates, I realized the reason that I was struggling so much and getting tired so quickly was because I was trying to do the World Race on my own. I was trying to do it on my strength and it was leaving me tired, frustrated and ashamed. Things weren’t turning out the way I wanted them to, I didn’t have perfect relationships with my teammates, I wasn’t the perfect missionary, I was tired and not sure why things weren’t working the way I wanted them to. I can’t do the World Race, but Jesus in me can.
Yesterday, I decided to completely give up control. I decided to wake up everyday and say “Ok Jesus, I need you to take the control, I don’t want it anymore”. Because I can’t control my life and I can’t pretend to be able to do this on my own strength. I need to rely completely and fully on the Lord and allow Him to work through me. I am finally free from feeling like I have to take care of everything. In Galatians 5:1 it says “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Its unconditional, all we have to do is decide to accept it. So I’m choosing freedom. I’m choosing freedom from feeling like I have to live up to a standard, from feeling like I have to call the shots in my life, from worrying about the future, from emotions that are far from the truth, from shame, from everything.
I still have a long way to go to reach my “there” of becoming a woman of God who knows her identity in Christ, who is at peace, having surrendered the control completely to Jesus. But I know how to get there—by waking up every day and giving the control to Jesus, allowing Him to mold me into the person He already sees.
