Somewhere along the way, between South Africa and Guatemala perhaps, I think I lost sight of why I said yes to the World Race. Turns out, there’s a lot more to it than what social media prepared me for and even the things I was prepared for look entirely different now that I’ve walked alongside Jesus so closely.
Being a missionary hasn’t given me a supernatural peace. It hasn’t provided more answers or less questions. It hasn’t made my choices easier or decisions any clearer. As it turns out, having an eternal perspective simultaneously provides a simpler approach and a heavier responsibility. I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t really even know that was possible.
But here I am, 9 months into this thing and still struggling every single day to wake up and set my eyes on Jesus. To wake up and not have the first wandering of my mind be the scorching heat, the need for a shower or the choice of where to grab a coffee. Wasn’t this trip supposed to solve these issues?
Wasn’t 11 months on my life a fair exchange for a heart that was set solely on heaven and a mind that would no longer be tempted at every glimpse of sin?
No, not even close. The World Race in its simplest form, is an 11 month collective made up of 323 individual days. That’s all. Yes, they are lived in exotic and faraway places. Yes, they are filled with people and travel and ministries and experiences that I didn’t have before… but at the heart of it, the World Race is simply a means to experience what happens when we wake up each and every day and ask Jesus what He would have us do with the day that’s been given to us.
For the month of Thailand, my team wasn’t assigned to a host. We weren’t paired with a ministry. We weren’t given a place to stay. We were provided 2 basic pieces of information: Go to Thailand. Ask the Lord what He wants you to do there. Sounds simple enough, right? Except, where do we sleep? How do we get there? Who do we contact? What do we do if we ask and He doesn’t respond?
It’s humbling how quickly I realized that my World Race was totally, completely, entirely, 100% becoming a product of what was provided to me.
A set-up sheet that comes in my email at the beginning of each month. A beautiful form that provides a name, phone number, address and outline of what to do, where to do it, how to do it and who to do it with. I can definitely get down with that. Do what the set-up sheet says for how long it says to and bam- you’re a missionary.
Except, in 8 months of that, I don’t know if there was a single day when I woke up and the first thing on my mind was to ask Jesus what He wanted me to do… who He wanted me to talk to and where He had designed for me to go each day.
The quicker I realized this, the quicker I realized that this month… this messy, unplanned and unchartered month of ATL (ask the Lord) would be the most like “real life” that this World Race gets. Because once I return home, I won’t be getting set-up sheets. I won’t have a leadership team telling me where to go and how to get there and what to do once I arrive. I won’t have a budget, a host or a schedule.
What I will have is the chance to wake up each and every morning and ask Jesus what He would have me do.
What an incredibly simple and great privilege.
So as we close out month 9, I am faced once again with the incredible opportunity to ask the Lord. My squad is adding a 12th country to our itinerary and spending one week in El Salvador, solely with the intention of asking Jesus what He would have us accomplish there. I’m excited and expectant knowing that it’s in those times that Jesus shows up. He speaks clearly, answers prayers and ordains the most beautiful conversations.
It seems tricky, too good to be true; like there’s something needed or missing but it’s actually a very simple approach to life. ATL looks like this rare chance to see the rest and the peace that comes when we begin each day asking the Lord, but the beauty of a life with Jesus is that every single day holds the same promise and opportunity.
“The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and have, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else, would set our hearts at rest, and we would discover the simpler life, the greater peace.” – Elisabeth Elliot
