It was a little over a year ago and I'll never forget the day. It was almost spring, snow was melting and it was a happy time as my college career was coming to a close.
The phone rang.
It was my mom (Obviously. I don't even need caller ID). We chatted for a while like we usually did and then she started telling me about the sermon at church that day. This kid had come to speak, she's pretty sure I graduated with him, and he just got back from this crazy awesome year long missions trip. My ears perked up… (her palm is probably slapping her forhead as she reads this, realizing that had she never called me that day she may not be reading this…
)
Let me rewind for a second. I left a little piece of my heart in India a while back. I had traveled there for a missions trip with a group from my school and have wanted to go back ever since. Despite the rancid smell, weird squatty potty things (my thighs got really strong there for a while), and wild roaming cows on every street (that will charge at you when you least expect it), I saw something really beautiful there. A great need for God. And I think it's really cool to see a great need for God. Because I know that need, I have that need, and sometimes I try and bury that need in a huge ugly pile of pride.
So my ears perked up. A year long missions trip?
Being stealth, casual, and nonchalant I blurted, "So like, can I do that too!?"
I spent the next seven days glued to the World Race website. Blog after blog, video after video…I knew the race like the back of my hand. Eventually I mustered up the courage to fill out an application. And there it sat, for an entire year.
Surely I couldn't let it sit there all alone though, with no one to look after it! That would be so cruel. Like any good human would do, I made sure to frequently check up on it. Just to see how it was doing, if it was comfortable, if it needed any water or anything…Okay, now I'm just rambling.
To make my long story even longer, I'll keep going 🙂 But I'm trying to bring it full circle!
Every time that I push the world race out of my mind, my heart goes ahead and reels it right back in. It's been a cycle. And for a while it was a prayer-less and fear-full cycle; my application sat complete but right where I could see it. Then I invited prayer into the process, and asked God what He'd truly have me do. What I found is that although he didn't shout in my ear "just go!", the more and more time I spent in prayer about it, the more and more I felt the nudge that just maybe this is my chance to take a giant leap of faith.
"Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis— only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God."
So thank you friends, for reading a short and sloppy story about me. But the reason why I'm here is because I no longer want this to be about me. God is faithful. I'm certain of His character in that He will never leave me nor forsake me. And I recognize that this may go totally against any natural common sense (I have a job, beautiful family, loans
, oh my!!). But now I'm completely out of control, out of my comfort zone, and 100 % reliant on the Lord. And I've never felt better 🙂 Please pray for me as I continue on this journey, that God would continue to overwhelm me with His love and teach me how to selflessly pour this love onto all my new friends I will meet along the way.
Thank you, Jesus!
