“What will you pack?” they said. “How do you pack for 11 months?” some asked. “Aren’t you scared to get sick, or hurt?” “Where will you sleep?” “How will you communicate with people back home?”
One of the biggest lessons I think going on The World Race teaches, is simplicity. I learned this by seeing the look on people’s faces when I told them I was going away for 11 months with only a pack under 50 pounds and a small day pack.
These are just some of the common questions asked when I told people what I would be doing this year.Really, they are all fair questions.
If I were to answer by saying, “The Lord tells us in the Bible multiple times, “I AM WITH YOU.” Did you also know it says, “FEAR NOT” or “DO NOT BE AFRAID” 365 times, one for every day of the year. Also, the words “fear not” are usually along side the words “because I am with you.” Giving this answer, I’m sure the conversation would almost immediately end.
This information was given in the farewell letter given to us the night before leaving. From our ministry host John, whom we stayed with and worked along side with in Churachandpur, Manipur, India. In this letter he spoke many words of encouragement that we are right where the Lord wants us and we should not fear, but remember what the Lord has promised us.
I was faced with these questions from the moment I started thinking about going on the race. Myself, I didn’t actually think about what I was going to pack until it was time to do so. I thought I had been doing pretty well with not worrying about what to take, knowing that you can’t pack for 11 months, that you find things along the way. It wasn’t until I actually put things into my pack for the first time that I realized how little I could actually take. Half the clothes I bought for this trip are still at home because I over estimated what could fit in my bag. The struggle of letting go began even before leaving my house.
When I first got accepted for the trip, I thought “This is great! I get to backpack around the world and grow closer to God in a community with people going through the same things I am.” I knew God was about to rock my world, but I hadn’t quite realized how it starts out with a little rocking of myself first. Leaving family and friends that I have known for forever and jumping into the “great unknown” gives you every emotion in the book. Then you’ve got all your sentimental items that bring you comfort when your family can’t. Well, that stays too. You join a community where in order to work together correctly you must rid yourself and first serve them.
The Lord immediately started teaching me about abandonment from the beginning of this journey. I read the book Radical and am currently in the middle of Kingdom Journeys by Seth Barnes. Abandoning comfort and the ideal lifestyle is the best way to truly experience God’s calling in our lives. It is not the only way, but I am finding it is the best. I know as time goes, the Lord will call me to abandon more and more. Just when I think I have given everything, He will ask me to just give a little more. He wants me to be in COMPLETE need of Him. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to have these things. However, He is the one that gave them to us. But it becomes a problem when you are so reliant on material things that you miss out on what God can bring to your life, and miss His calling for you to bring Him to someone else’s life.
“The Bible says that when Jesus told the rich young man to sell everything he had and give it to the poor “the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.” Jesus was uncovering a blind spot in his life, and he didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to see the extent of His sin. The depth of His bondage to His possessions, or the gravity of the need among the poor. He walked away with full hands but an empty heart. Tragically, he was leaving behind the only one who could bring him the life and joy he so desperately desired.
I don’t want to be blind to these things in my own life. And I don’t want to leave Christ behind. I don’t want to pursue stuff – even stuff in the name of Christianity or stuff in the name of the church – and in the process miss Christ and the pleasures he alone gives in a life free from bondage to the possessions of this world. Ultimately, I don’t want to miss eternal treasure because I settle for earthly trinkets. “Where your tresure is,” Jesus says, “there your heart wil be also.” The way we use our money is a barometer of our present spiritual condition. Our neglect of the poor illustrates much about where our hearts lie. But even more than that, the way we use our money is an indicator of our eternal destination. The mark of Christ followers is that their hearts are in heaven and their treasures are spent there.” (Radical, David Platte.)
For God to truly become our comfort we must first abandon our comfort. You don’t have to go across the world to do this!
-
Think of 3 things that would be difficult to leave behind if Jesus came to you like He did to His disciples and asked you to drop everything and follow Him.
-
Now think of 3 things that would be difficult to leave if Jesus asked you to give them to the poor, bless a friend in need, OR just simply live without.
Was it easier to answer these when you thought about Jesus coming to you in person? If you are honest with yourself, you may find that the second 3 items were different from the first. We would leave our homes, closets, even family and friends if Jesus appeared to us in person.
THE TRUTH IS there is NO DIFFERENCE between the two.
Before Jesus ascended into Heaven He told His people that He would ask the Lord to send one greater. A helper, a guide to get us through this life, not alone but walking along side with Jesus every day just as they had been. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to help us see Him, experience His love, and hear His voice. To directly hear from a God that we have fallen so short, that we can’t be in His presence. The spirit of our Savior who left the comfort of His place in Heaven to come and lay down His life for you and me. Jesus comes to us everyday, asking us to leave behind what we hold on to so tight. To get up and live radically listening to His purpose for our lives.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to completely grasp this until I got all the way across the world to India. I hear about and experience amazing things God can do every day. However, coming to India isn’t what has allowed this. It was abandoning what I love at home and choosing Christ instead.
At home I ignored the blind spot God was revealing to me. I kept choosing to find comfort in the friends and materialistic things around me instead of Him. We are called to live as disciples of Christ. The way God called out the 12 disciples was by going to them, having them drop everything in that moment and follow Him. They dropped EVERYTHING! They didn’t even take an extra piece of clothing. By doing this you fall into a deep dependency on God.
My encouragement to you and daily to myself, is to drop anything and everything that might be a comfort or become a comfort over God. It is my daily prayer that I rid of myself and only live by lining my spirit with His. When I truly step into this I find that my desires are no longer what they used to be. But rather, I want to hear His calling for my place in His Kingdom. That I am His hands, feet, mouth, ears, and eyes!
