Are you serious?
Like the Amazing Race?
You just quit your job?
What did your principal say?
What do your parents think?
What are you going to do with all your stuff?
Why are you doing this?
What are you going to do when you get home?
These are just a few of the questions I have gotten since I made the decision to fully commit to The World Race.
Truth is, I can’t answer these questions very well. In all honesty, I have no clue what I am doing, what will happen when I get home, or anything in between.
Here’s what I do know.
I know that in the past two years, I have wrestled with the feeling of restlessness. A feeling of not doing enough, not being enough, not using my gifts enough. I have always had a restless spirit that has pushed me to do things far outside of my comfort zone. However, this type of restlessness that I was feeling was something that I couldn’t push aside- or cure with a trip to somewhere different. This restless feeling came in the form of a small whisper laid right down in the middle of my heart.
In January, at the start of the new year- I had made my new years resolution from the book of Psalm.
Be still and know that I am God;I will be exalted among the nations,I will be exalted in the earth.
Psalm 46:10
With this as my new years resolution, I prayed a prayer of complete surrender: Lord, whatever it is have your way with me. Use me for Your Kingdom.
To be completely honest, I only really rested in the first part of this verse: Be still and know that I am God. I spoke this blessing each and every morning, however that isn’t the end of the verse- which is where God showed me His sense of humor. He placed that small whisper of “Go” on my heart and as I was wrestling, arguing, and telling God there is no way I could go do something that would completely uproot my life. He humbly reminded me that He will be exalted among the nations- not just my nation. He will be exalted in all the earth- not just my small bubble of earth.
So with that, I called my mom- prefacing the conversation with “I think I may be crazy…” and proceeded to tell her that God was calling me and He was calling me to go do things- big things, bigger things that I could do. I told her how unqualified I was, I’m not a professional Christian- I am probably the complete opposite. I have no clue how to evangelize or make followers of Christ. I only speak English and Latin- which does me zero good in all the places I would be going to. At that moment, my mom pretty much stopped my entire conversation and told me: “Haley, if He is calling you to go. God will provide for you. You need only listen and follow Him. He already has the rest figured out. You are just meant to be His hands and feet.”
And that was it, the moment I knew that I was going to quit my job, leave my friends, family, town, small group girls, everything I have right now to follow Him. He has called me to be His hands and feet.
Am I quialified? No.
Do I know what I’m doing? No.
Am I scared? Absolutely.
Do I trust Him to provide for my shortcomings? You bet.
So that’s the why. That’s why I am going on the World Race. That’s why I am deciding to drop everything and go. I am running toward Him and I am running full force. In Jeannie Allen’s book Restless, she talks about surrender to our God. It’s not about us, it’s about us bringing people with us on our race to Jesus.
“Great people do not do great things; God does great things through surrendered people.”
Jeannie Allen’s Restless
So that is why I am going. I am completely surrendered and He has completely wrecked my life. But let’s be honest, it never was my life– it has always been His.
