The Art of Dying

   I woke up this morning like any other; a pillow between my legs, my body curled up in a ball with my floral patterned sheets tightly covering me, my Netflix still on from passing out watching Mad Men, my church bells ringtone going off on my phone, yelling out me in an elegant way to get up and start the day. I had bits and pieces of my dream still lodged within the cracks of my imagination. I can never remember what I dreamt about the night before. As I hopped out of my bed and turned my swag on, the reality of the moment fell on me like a dead weight: I’m another day closer to leaving.

I stumbled to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror; gel hair from yesterday completely a mess from not taking a shower, my eyes still half-way shut (whether by tiredness or those weird, icky eye boogies.) I stared in the mirror for the longest time. Just looked into my reflection. I told myself that I’m still dreaming. That I’ll wake up one day from all of this World Race mumbo-jumbo and realize I’m not actually doing this. I didn’t sell all of my stuff, I didn’t just put ¾ of my 50hr-a-week paycheck in this missions fund, I’m not leaving in 2 weeks around the world to completely throw away my life to serve strangers. Nope. I’m going to wake up and go back to a routine life where I work for a paycheck and consume myself until I reach that nightmare called The American Dream.

But this isn’t a dream. The more I stare at the mirror, the more I am aware that it’s not even a mirror I stare at, but reality. The mirror is just an agent that portrays what I’m literally standing in; I’m on the brink of one of the most incredible, life changing moments in my life. I’m about to embark on the biggest calling God has laid before me. And only a few more strokes from the hands of the clock and I’ll be on my way on the World Race.

I think this is the first time I’ve began to freak out. And by freak out, I don’t mean cry and write out a list of what I need and what I don’t have and begin to text my friends of how scared I am and eat ice cream and watch Twilight (that’s just an average day for me.) When I mean freak out, I mean I’ve had doubts. For a moment I didn’t think I would go. Financially, spiritually, emotionally, I was kind of second guessing. I can’t say I was super Paul and just did it. How the heck did that guy do it? Gets beat up, ship wrecked, bitten by a snake, and still keeps running. Me: I was like “Crap, what am I getting myself into?”

But when we follow Jesus, do we really know what we’re getting ourselves into? I mean, sure we get the calling. I was called into missions; you were called into what you were called into. But we really don’t know how deep this dive is until we are thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool and all of a sudden we can’t feel the bottom of the pool with our tippy toes and all we know is we are plunging into the depths of the unknown.

I think sometimes the intimidation of  this unknown frightens us to the point that we bail out on so much that God has for us. Jonah, for example, just doesn’t want to listen to God and flees from his calling. Peter runs away from Jesus as he denies knowing Him. And isn’t it ironic that once we’re called by God, there’s no way in leaving? I mean, surely you can try to run away or possibly delay it. But God’s purpose and plan is completely fulfilled, whether you like it or not. Peter was identified as one of the followers of Jesus, even though he denied it. He couldn’t get away from it. Jonah had to be swallowed by a fish so God could get His attention. God was so sovereign that He literally did something seemingly impossible in every sense so that Jonah would do what God called him to.

You and I were called to do extraordinary things; we were called to step into who we were made to be. Don’t run, don’t doubt. Go. Whatever God has put on your heart, go and do it. It’ll take you everything (you’ll come to find out that God gives you everything you’ll need.) But I think most of the time people don’t succeed in what they want to achieve not because they were lacking the things they needed, but because they simply didn’t want to go the distance it required for them to run. But keep running. Run the race God has laid out for you. Do whatever it takes. Remember Who you’re running for. This is for Christ! Violently, relentlessly, furiously, run. Soon you’ll realize that even the very process of getting where you’re called to go is a beautiful thing. It’s scary, but gorgeous.
It’s the art of dying.

You and I are learning what it means to die to ourselves. It’s a brush stroke of discomfort, of pain, but as the Artist continues to create a masterpiece in and through us, little by little we recognize and encounter the great beauty of what God has called us to and what God is making. And that’s the joy we find, you and I. It’s not sitting put and running away. It never was our joy and it never will be. Our joy is Jesus and following Him to the ends of the earth and to the end of ourselves.

So go. Just go. Don’t doubt. Don’t look back. The gun has gone off, the race has begun. Run.  Learn how to die, and smile with every moment of it. Fix your eyes on the prize of Christ, and leave.

 

 
-Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts