This is part two of a two part blog, the last blog I’ll write overseas on the World Race.
Thank you for being a part of my journey.
“Expect great things from God: attempt great things for God.”
This was a quote by William Carey that I opened up with in my goodbye letter to you when I began this journey nearly a year ago. And now that I’m at the end of my trip around the world, I can look back and see how God did way beyond what I had ever expected Him to do, and I attempted things way beyond what I thought I could or would ever do.
I’m done. Just the comprehension of that is enough to put a man whose mission is ministry in utmost admiration. I can’t seem to grasp the legitimacy of that reality. Here I am at the brink of the sunrise, waiting for her light shine forth a new chapter in my life. This World Race is over. I have finished the Race.
Finished.
Accomplished.
Completed.
Done.
The last night we were with our contacts here in South Africa and for the rest of the Race, the wife, Josalyn, said two things that jostled my heart and brought tears to my eyes as I lay in bed. The first thing she said was
“Don’t have regrets. Don’t let the enemy tell you that you didn’t end well. You ended well. You ended the best way you could. God couldn’t have pick a better team to be here.”
To end well.
That’s what my life wants. And that’s what I can shockingly say and confidently proclaim:
I ran the Race well.
I finished the Race.
All throughout my life I’ve felt like a bag full of disappointments and incompletes. Whether I didn’t accomplish college or didn’t complete my academic career or didn’t accomplish being able to walk in high school or didn’t complete my promises to family, friends, God, and myself. I felt like a disappointment, someone who was incomplete. And I found out that I was, and would always be, disappointed and incomplete, whether that was in my education or relationships or community or career. It doesn’t matter how many diplomas I can get, how many friends I have on Facebook, how many employees I have underneath my corporate umbrella, or whether I have health insurance or not. My completion, my apposition, didn’t come from anything the world could give me. It came from Christ…
And now all that mattered and matters to me is His approval and work He has for me to complete. I just want to hear those words “Well done.” I want to know that I did all that I could do when I was on earth when I face my Maker. “Well done.” I dream of the day when I can read those words off the lips of the King.
In Philippians, Paul, after testifying of the magnitude of Christ’s humility to the Church, how He served, bled, and died for His people, declares that we, the Church, the Disciples of Christ, must follow His example and share the love of God to the world. Paul goes on to say that he is so willing to do all that he can for the Philippians to know and share in this example he states:
“Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.”
Paul so desires to do the Lord’s will, to make disciples, that he is willing to lay down his life.
And he would do so.
In the second letter to Timothy, the last letter he would pen, Paul says,
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth here is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only me but also to all who have loved His appearing. “
He finished, and finished well. He was confident that, as he waited for the Roman government to place his weak, fragile neck on the cold, concrete beheading beam and severe his head from his body, he ran the race well.
And now as his brother in the faith, here I am at the end of my World Race. And despite all the sins I committed, all the times where I found myself too weak to endure, all the times I felt like giving up, all the times where there was hostility, evil, poverty, chaos, sickness, or danger, despite it all, I ran the Race. And I feel, like the warm embers of a close fire in the midst of a wretched storm, the embrace of my Maker, and I hear, like a sonnet to a lover, the words of my Friend, echoing through my soul; “Well done.”
My contact looked at my team, all of us in the small South African home, and said “In every race there is a finish line, and the runners receive their medal. I pray that as you go home, whatever it is you need, God will give it to you. Receive your medal.”
Here I am, walking to the podium. I’ve dreamt of this moment this whole journey. I pass the finish line, the white, chalked line drawn on the mission field floor, feeling the vibration of the sounds of ceremonial cheering as the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and all of heavens choir echo celebration. I look back and see all that God has done through and in me on the long track; restoration, redemption, reconciliation, cities of God planted and grown throughout the world. Stepping onto the platform, this place where I’ve trained to be for so long, I look up into the sky. To think that no matter where I went, this blue cosmos that covers the surface of the world was always there. And that despite clouds and storms that tried to cover it, the truth that it was always there, hovering like a sweet aroma in the air despite the appearances of storm clouds of trials, was always an encouragement my soul. This was the metaphor God gave me to take heart and endure through the Race. No matter what circumstances that tried to block Him out, like the storm clouds in the sky, the reality was that, like the sky, God was, and will always, be there for me.
And here I am. I bow my head and receive my reward. And more.
For I didn’t just receive my reward.
I received my identity. For the first time in my life I didn’t try and make it, didn’t try and seek it, but simply received it. God gave me my identity; In Christ.
I received restoration. Countless nightmares of my past vanquished and vanished like the evaporation of the rain, by the beauty and majesty of God’s grace.
I received purpose. No more possibilities or plausibility or ponderings or potentialities, but purpose. God gave me a reason, a destiny, a purpose of why I am here on this earth.
I received adventure. Allowing my soul to be Spirit-led and not Spirit-leading, I followed a God who had a life for me to fulfill. And unlike any other remedial task I reluctantly did before, this journey that God imparted me with brought me around the world, encountering realities that others could only dream of, discovering infinities in places uncharted, overseas, overland, and gave me an adventure unlike anything I’ve ever done or will ever do again. “Once-in-a-lifetime”; a term that I now realize is easier said then done. But I, by Christ, have done.
I received love. Throwing away blueprints and master plans to develop schemes to make others like me, I embraced the Master’s plan, which counteracts any and everything that the magazines and round-table conversations on TV say: be yourself. Be who God created you to be. Just so happens that when you embrace yourself, others embrace you too. Genuine, no-strings-attached, pure love. I used to tirelessly try. But now I simply receive and have a community of love. They call us L-Squad. They call us Kingdom Unleashed. They call us Sweet Aroma. But I call it family.
But most of all, I received the reward. The most incomparable, indescribable, incomprehensible, undeniable, unimaginable, unprecedented, unparallel, unbelievable, most beautiful, enormous, infinite, and eternal reward. I received the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like a man who stumbles upon a field and when entering the field finds a treasure and selling everything he buys the field to obtain the treasure. I found that treasure. The kingdom of God. It’s not so much a physical place as it is a spiritual sanctuary. I found it in the eyes of man dying from HIV in Swaziland. I found it in the embrace of a slum kid in the ugliness of the poverty of the Philippines. I found it in the emptiness of the mosque in Malaysia. I found it in the kindness of a woman who was enslaved to sell her body to foreign men in Thailand. I found it in the laughs of the orphan child in Kenya. I found it in a small village of Nicaragua, whose desire to help one another continued their determination to have faith in the midst of such terrible turmoil. I found it in the washing of the feet of prisoners in Guatemala, whose heart gave way to Love. I found it in the rotten teeth of children in Cambodia. I found it in the dead body of a man in Uganda. But most of all, I found the kingdom of God in myself. I saw God work not only through me, but in me. Me, who was broken, defeated, guilty, and dead; now whole, victorious, innocent, and alive, all by the grace, love, and mercy of Jesus Christ. That was my World Race.
And now, the World Race is over.
I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the Race.
I have kept the faith.
And now, I receive my reward.
