When I was little, whenever my mom would tell me something I didn’t like, I would stick out my lower lip, cross my arms, and get this angry little scowl on my face. Over the next few minutes, I would slowly stick my pouty lip out farther and farther so I could show the world just how angry I was. My mom would look over and say, “If you stick that lip out any farther, a little birdy is going to come poop on it.” Then she would proceed to pretend her finger was a bird, and it would fly over and leave a little “boop” on my lip. Sometimes this little act would make me laugh and immediately reset my attitude. Most of the time, I remember hating the pooping birdy routine. and I would turn away quickly and then give my mom one of my famous angry glares.
Lately, this pouting child image is exactly what I imagine I have looked like during my quiet times with God this past month. You see, it all started back in August before we even started the Race. I was in Atlanta for Launch and we had been through two long days of leadership training. My brain was exhausted, overloaded with information, and in anxious anticipation to start traveling. It was the first night that everyone from the whole squad was there, and 45 people were running around hugging everybody and joyously chatting with each other. I sat down in a seat in the middle of everyone and remember telling Jesus almost in tears, “I don’t know if you know this God, but I’m an introvert. Shocking, I know. And there is absolutely no way that I am going to survive this whole year with all these people and no alone time. This is going to be terrible.” Before I could say anything else, I had this rush of peace wash over me, and as I looked around I started to notice how beautiful all the interactions around me were. I felt God telling me, “You can still spend alone time with me even in the middle of a large crowd of people.” So, for the next several minutes, I sat alone with God in the middle of a crowd of noisy people and we just observed together how beautiful all His children were.
After that night, I felt God asking me to give up my understanding of introvert time on the Race because He had something to teach me. I often have two extremes when it comes to spending my time: I spend all my time alone doing something mindless or for myself or I spend all my time with people expending all my energy with activity after activity. After two months of practicing each extreme on the Race, I noticed two problems: I either didn’t make any meaningful connections with anyone or I was so exhausted that I couldn’t speak gently and I cried a lot for no reason. Coming into month 3 in Bulgaria, I sat down with God and asked, “What am I doing wrong because this just isn’t going to work for me?”
“Are you dying to yourself?”
That was it. That was the answer I got. Not really an answer that immediately makes a whole lot of sense or an answer that sounds very appealing. In the days to come, I hesitantly continued to ask God what exactly that meant for me, but really, I already knew the answer. In the ways I have been spending my time, I have been entirely selfish. I brought this all to my team, and they challenged me to only take two hours a day for alone time – and that alone time included spending my quiet time with Jesus. On the days I felt like I needed more time alone, I couldn’t take more. On the days I felt like being around people more, I had to go take my time. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong.
Two hours really fly by fast, and pretty quickly I learned a couple of valuable things the hard way:
– Laying on your bed, staring at the ceiling, and drawing things in the air with your finger really isn’t the best way to recharge yourself.
– Reading your Bible, journaling, reading a good book, or listening to podcast sermon will recharge you for longer.
– But, when you spend enough time with Jesus, you become increasingly aware of how unlike Jesus you are.
– Making all these realizations about how selfish, prideful, and vain you are is good and all, but it leaves a really bad taste in your mouth.
– This is all a recipe for how an adult can grow a pouty lip better than a three year old.
I realized the motive behind everything I did was ultimately for myself – I’m going to complete this task for the team with the least amount of effort required, so I can go back to sitting in my warm bed. I’m going to finish spackling this wall quickly, so I can go home and fill my grumbling tummy. I’m going to pass off that responsibility to someone else, so I don’t have to make the decision that people won’t like. From the outside, my actions looked rather servant-like, but my heart behind everything was to do only the things I was supposed to in a way that not only made me look good but also made me feel good.
I wish I could tell you a whole handful of examples of ways I consciously changed my motives and saw all the fruit of serving others before myself, and now my life is completely changed, and everything is just perfect again. However, for every positive effort I made, there seemed to 10,000 ugly, negative thoughts that came flooding in afterwards, “well, no one even noticed. No one said thank you. No one else serves the way I serve.” With each passing day, it’s a battle of feeling frustrated with myself and forcing myself to accept God’s grace in the learning process.
That’s the key, it’s all a learning process, and I will definitely be walking through this particular learning process for the rest of my life. For right now, there have been three things I have found helpful in processing this lesson:
- A sermon series called Some Assembly Required by Levi Lusko at Fresh Life church. This series is all about different tools to help any kind of relationship you have in your life. I’ve gotten so many good nuggets that are useful for living in community such as, “You can’t be a victor and a victim,” or “Hurt people hurt people, but healed people heal people.” Not to mention so many good pieces of wisdom about always starting with God and what humility really looks like. You should definitely go look him up and have a listen to that series!
- Being inspired by my teammates’ serving each other. It’s so easy to always look at myself, but when I started to notice how beautifully the ladies on my team serve each other I couldn’t help but be encouraged and want to join in. They will sand walls for days and days without making complaints, they offer to walk in the cold so everyone else can ride in the warm car, they offer to cook dinner for each other without expecting the favor to be returned, they wash dishes for each other, and share delicious breads and desserts they made for themselves. I live with some really beautiful souls.
- Being grateful for every small step I take in the right direction. I’m going to continue making mistakes, and there will be many days I think of myself more than I think of others, but in those times there will be moments that I allowed Jesus to shine through me instead of my flesh. I have to celebrate even those smallest moments because those matter too!
I’ve got a lot more processing to do, but thank goodness God is right there through it all! Much love!
