It's Month 11! I have exactly 15 more days until the end of the race.
Mentally, I have already started to prepare for what's going to happen post-race.
I planned as far as end of August, what's going to happen after that? I have no idea.
Physically tho', I am still in the midst of Month 11 of the Race, with my team, in my ministry and that makes an awkward mid-transition Jackie. I still gotta be fully present every moment until the last day comes yet be diligent in planning for logistics of all things post race.
Boy it seems that Satan knows the vulnerable position I'm in, and he has been throwing several curve balls at me to dodge, challenges in the following names:
1st World Materialism
Being in Cape Town this month is part awesome and part aggravating. It's my first experience on the race being assigned to a big city for an entire month of ministry(all other months have been in smaller towns or rural villages), in Mitchelle's Plains, near the very hip, modern and urban city of Cape Town, it looks much like another city by the bay, San Francisco, my hometown. The materialism that I'm being surrounded with this month shakes me at my core. My eye sight blurred by the fancy malls, beautiful bling blings, flashy outfits, latest gadgets and technology. Even Hillsong Cape Town's church services look like a rock concert with lights, cameras, and fog machines; a stark contrast to the simple church services we've been to in previous months done in the country's native tongue. Part of me just wants to medicate by shopping for all the things I've missed out on in the last 11 months and soaking myself with first world comforts, but the other much stronger part is sickened by it all – as Johnny Cash sings in his famous song "Hurt", it's all just an "empire of dirt" that I can gather now but wouldn't be able to take with me when I leave this world.
Low Point
In the last week, I've been feeling like someone slammed a "humble pie" onto my face. It came fast and furious and hit me by surprise. For crying out loud, it's Month 11 and with 14 days to go on the Race, isn't it too late for hitting a low point of the race?
I didn't think I'd be here again, so late in the game.
It's a miserable place to be, to be enduring intense feedback and journaling onto tear-stained pages, while others are celebrating and rejoicing their upcoming homecoming, I'm crying and agonizing over this untimely lesson of humility served by a teammate. But in order for me to increase my intimacy with others and with God, to see my own flaws from outside perspective and not be offended by feedback, to be more like Jesus, to know what Jesus went through on the cross, I must walk down this road of humility and shame, of not being afraid to come undone yet again, in front of people I don't want to come undone with.
It's not too late.
It looks messy, tear-strickenly painful, ugly even, out of control, but in the heavenly realms, I can only imagine angels are circling above me, cheering, clapping and tending to me as I began to shed yet another layer of unforgiveness, fear of rejection, resentment from lack of love and every other insecurity.
Even now, I feel the weight of my sins on me. It makes me breathless, it suffocates me, it makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide in the corner, it makes me retrieve and not wanting to initiate with anyone, it gives me victim mentality of "Why isn't anyone talking to me, why am I the only one left out?" It's the same stuff that's been keeping me voiceless and invisible in the team. And through feedback my teammate helped me to recognize it's the tools that Satan uses to break down community and unity.
With newfound hope and taking on His humility, I lay my sins at His feet. He takes on all my burdens, erasing every detail of my sins, leaving me with total and complete freedom. Utterly and finally weightless. Then replacing the now emptiness with His unconditional love, unconditional love.
But our God is good, He's using this "not too late" break down point to continue to draw me close to Him. Even having just 2 weeks left on the race is not too late for God to do work in me and through me, I'm learning this Truth. Even if I still have 2 days left on the race, God can still use those two days to bring me down to a low point just to pick me up again with His redemptive righteousness.
Come away with me, Come away with me
It's never too late, it's not too late
It's not too late for you
I have a plan for you
I have a plan for you
It's gonna be wild
It's gonna be great
It's gonna be full of me
Open up your heart and let me in
– Come Away with Me, by Jesus Culture
