Here’s the truth about the World Race. You’re gonna get over it. And a lot faster than you think you will. A lot faster than you want to. The magic will die off sooner than you thought it would, and you’ll get frustrated more than you want.
You’ll leave home with the intentions of changing the world, holding a ton of African babies, making old Asian women in nursing homes smile, feeding the orphans, loving those without homes. You’ll want to see God in your squad mates, in the sunset over the plains, and through the tears brought on by legitimately hard times. You’ll want to make some sort of difference, and maybe when you return home, you’ll still believe you can.
Not all of these things will happen. Maybe not any of them. Because, like the Rolling Stones sang so long ago, “You can’t always get what you want…But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.”
And then you’ll realize it’s not only the World Race you’re over, but it’s just life. Traveling on the race actually becomes a little mundane. Routine, actually. Which will be weird to realize, because isn’t this what you’ve wanted your whole life? To go on this huge adventure with God, and you’re actually living it out? But you catch yourself complaining more often than not about the life you dreamt of, and wondering what the heck happened to yourself.
I mean, what is it that we really want? Marriage, kids, to see the world, a good paying job, wonderful friends to laugh with and be honest with, a dog, and a house with land to run around on?
The truth to that is this: it doesn’t matter what we want. Because we’re human. And we’re never in the entirety of our possibly 80+ years on this earth going to be satisfied. The good times we have that quench our thirst will end. The hard times we think we are exempt from will try to overcome us. And maybe succeed. Loved ones will move on with their lives. They’ll pass away. You’ll grow older. You know those memories you long to hold on to because they’re your only link to what you want to hold on to? You’ll lose those.
People will fail me. They will fail you. YOU will fail you.
The crazy thing is that the Word of God is our only link to any kind of sanity. To cling to what is unseen and not seen. To be crazy is our sanity. To be literally out of our minds for the sake of Christ. To make seemingly irrational decisions based on faith and not finances. Or even common sense. To dwell in the presence of an unseen God because He’s the only One who truly deeply knows us entirely.
He’s the only One that does not fail. And the only One that satisfies.
So know that. Know that whatever it is you do, you first need to know the Lord through it or else it will drive you mad with the hunger for satisfaction that you’ll never find without Him. Travel the world with a cross on your back. Live below your means so that you can enable all the homeless of Los Angeles to live beyond theirs. Go to the Middle East for the sake of knowing God there. Move to an African country, learn the language, and feed the street kids.
Let people call you crazy. Call yourself crazy.
You are.
And it’s good.
Let it go.
Live free.
Live wild.
