Last night, I was driving home from the airport with my parents because I actually only signed up for a 3 month World Race, not 11.
I was devastated.
What about Ukraine? Romania? Thailand?
I haven’t even really tapped into much of anything in my process. I haven’t experienced miracles, or learned to have my own relationship with God outside of borrowed faith.
I’m not ready for it to be over.
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As all of this was happening, I found myself hoping it was a dream—but apparently laying in a tent on a blown up sleeping pad wasn’t enough to confirm the illusion in my brain as I slept.
It felt unbelievably real.
I woke up grateful to still be in Peru, and not on my way to Auburn, Georgia. But I also woke up shaken.
Historically, God talks to me in my dreams. I’m not saying I see his face, or hear his voice, but I get the message.
I tend to believe the reason He talks to me in my sleep is because it’s the only time I’m not controlling my thoughts (or talking). It’s also the only time I’m not intentionally avoiding talking or listening to Him.
So this dream begged the question, “Why am I here?”
…A question my friend Julie asked me yesterday as we walked to Mercado De Abastos in Chincha Peru, inviting people in the community to attend church at Iglesia Adonai, and to attend English classes with the gringos (i.e. white people).
As I climbed out of my tent and headed to start making Peruvian coffee with my travel french press tumbler from World Market, I remembered a document I wrote prior to launching for the World Race titled, “Why I want to go on the World Race.”
Here’s what I found…
I want my identity to be completely formed through Christ as my savior. I want to know myself as his beloved. I want to be freed from conformity of those who I am surrounded by. I want renewed joy.
I want to see miracles. I want to be a part of things I know God can do, but that we don’t get the opportunity to witness in America because of our self-sufficiency.
I want to grow in my character. I want to be forced to deal with my own vices of self-deception, manipulation, selfishness, and entitlement.
I want to live in community, grow in community, and serve the “least of these” in the name of Jesus, in community.
I want to see the world. I want to expand my worldview. I want to walk next to those who are fatherless, impoverished, broken, abused, and abandoned. I want to feel the weight of the Lord’s love for his children.
I want to grow in faith and hope and love.
I want to be alive.
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Finding this document was like finding buried treasure. This adventure I’m on sometimes feels like an altered universe, and as a moment-to-moment kind of person, I need reminders of vision for my life.
One of my squad leaders, Tiffany, talks a lot about vision. She says, “If you focus on what you don’t want, or who you don’t want to be, that’s exactly where you will end up, because you are focusing on it.”
After the high of the new setting and new community calmed down (month 2), my true, cynical self emerged, and the vision for my World Race again became a list of things I did not want to be.
Vision of Not’s:
- a perfect version of the American Christian
- neat and put together
- legalistic
People who fit into these categories cause me to feel shameful and not enough—like a messy, selfish, bad person. And so then, in turn, I hate their perfection—or their perception that they are perfect. I want to look messy just so I don’t have to look like that.
I don’t desire to live a blatant messed up life, I just don’t care to expend energy on looking neat and tidy, because to me, neat and tidy isn’t real anyways, and I’d prefer to have my outside be congruent with what’s on the inside.
Although, truth be told, I think sometimes I pretend to be messier on the outside than I am on the inside—which is straight crazy.
It’s like I want people to be able to relate to me so badly, that I willingly regress my external behaviors, rather than walk in the maturity I know I have.
I fear making others feel the way I feel around the neat and perfect people.
But really, it’s no more my responsibility to help others feel good than it is for the neat looking people to make sure I feel good. I mean it would be bad if they were purposefully shaming me, but ultimately, it’s not their job to make sure I don’t feel shamed.
Honestly, by lowering my maturity level to help others feel at the same level as me, or at least unashamed, I am
- Trying to play the role of God through my own control and
- Blocking others personal growth and therefore, their potential.
Why?
Because I don’t want to see my own blind spots.
Eventually, I will have to stop living my life for who/what I don’t want to be. I will have to face my blind spots head on. Then, I will be able to replace my “Visions of Not’s” for real vision.
Vision for what I do want. Vision for who I want to be.
I’m curious to see how all this unfolds. Curious to see what happens if I can live life with real vision—life on the offense. In all honesty, I’m a bit exhausted, jaded, and hopeless from playing a life of defense.
