There have been a lot of days lately where I have felt inadequate and not good enough to be going on the World Race. I felt as if from the moment I landed in Fort Lauderdale coming home from training camp that it wasn’t my parents at the bottom of the escalator waiting in baggage claim but rather the enemy with his arms open wide screaming “welcome home Jessica, I missed you”. As days passed and training camp felt further away the feelings grew in size, to the point where I was blocking myself from writing and wanting to share the amazing breakthroughs, lessons, relationships, and all the other things God cultivated during those 11 days.
If I am being completely honest though the enemy came with me to training camp, planting lies and uncertainties in my head; I showed up doubting if I was even qualified to go.
Failing to realize Satan wanted me to believe I was unworthy because then I wouldn’t do anything for God. The devil knew what those 11 days would do for me and how God was just waiting to burst out of the box I had placed him in.
Prayer after prayer came to pass.
I witnessed healing for the first time; I experienced healing for the first time.
God spoke to me through His word, through journaling, through my squad-mates, through worship sessions; He was so alive and loud in a way I had craved and prayed for going into camp.
He broke me down and told me to forgive myself, that I was made new in Him.
Somehow He opened my heart to fall madly in love with 58 complete strangers who I will forever call my family.
Squashed my fears – the only child who never had roommates – of living in community to the point where I didn’t want it to end. We had created a safe bubble and now I had to leave and go back to where I was vulnerable to the enemy again.
The fear started to seep back in, “if you can only manage to have this deep of a relationship with God when you’re not doing normal life, how are you worthy enough to be a missionary and spread His name to the nations?”. By the time I was going down the escalator in the Fort Lauderdale airport the same doubt I left with crept its way back in.
Then God asked me . . . “am I a liar?”
What??? Of course not!
By believing yourself to be unworthy is to call Me a liar, for My word confirms you are worthy.
“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7
“He who did not spare His own son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
“Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence.” Psalm 139:16
The truth is God called me to this mission, to this route, to these people. My relationship with Him may look different than someone else’s; it may even look different than it did when I was at training camp . . . the enemy was trying to keep me from seeing that God purposefully showed up differently those two weeks. He wanted to break me and heal me in new ways so I was prepared for His field next year. He wanted to show me I already had the relationship with Him I was praying for, that if I just slowed down enough and blocked out the noise I would hear Him reminding me that He doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called and all I need to do is trust in Him and He will take care of the rest.
