Early last week I was asked to join my squad mates in writing a blog titled “Why I’m Going On The Race.” For whatever reason, this made me nervous. Maybe I felt my reasons wouldn’t hold adequacy standing amongst my squad mates, or that people wouldn’t feel my passion and excitement in a written statement. I’ve jumbled up and stumbled over words for a week now but in my best effort to convey my heart, I’ve pieced something together.
In my very first blog I touched on when I first felt the Lord tugging on my heart, I talked about how I had realized I’d been stuck in comfort and complacency and that I knew God was calling me to something bigger than myself but I think there’s a valuable lesson found in the words God was speaking to me.
The story of Ruth has always amazed me but in this season I’ve gained a heightened appreciation of the lessons God equipped her to teach. Ruth, a Moabite, a woman foreign to the Jews, was left without her husband. I can’t imagine the pain this woman must have felt, a man she loved taken from her before she was ready. I picture her feeling empty and alone but instead of wallowing in her mourning or focusing on her own needs, she turned her eyes to those around her, to Naomi, the woman she shared no blood with and owed nothing to. Law at the time would have easily let Ruth return to her family, to her familiar, in-fact Naomi’s other daughter-in-law, Orpah, did just that. And honestly I can’t say I blame her. I think Orpah is who I’ve been. I think like myself, she found relief in a known comfort, and was doing her best to get through something so very uncomfortable, but I don’t think God is calling me or us to be Orpah’s.
After Orpah left Naomi, Naomi spoke to Ruth saying “See your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth was quick and confident to respond saying “Do not press me to leave you, or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die – there I will be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” (Ruth 1:15-17) Ruth was willing and ready to abandon her comforts, all of them, her family, her beliefs, her home, she held to nothing safe and put the duty of serving Naomi above anything she wanted or needed. She was willing to empty her already depleted cup, to run on low fuels, and she trusted God’s grace to fill her.
It’s easy to serve when my cup is full and when I know my cup will be replenished. It’s easy to serve others when I’m rewarded or recognized… But it’s not as easy to serve if it comes at the cost of abandoning my comforts. It’s not as easy to serve if I’m already depleted. But God’s call for us to go and to serve HAS NO CLAUSE. He doesn’t say go and serve when it’s convenient, He doesn’t say go and serve when it’s easy, He doesn’t say go and serve when it’s comfortable. He says “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20) As my mom would say, “no if’s, and’s, or but’s.”
So I’m journeying towards abandoning my comforts, I’m journeying towards serving more like Ruth, and ultimately serving more like Jesus. I’m going on the race because God’s call to me and to us all HAS NO CLAUSE.
