And here we are again. The end of another month – one full of adventure, memories, struggles, and new life.
Month Five was a wild one – a new country, new continent, new team, and a totally new lifestyle unlike anything I’ve had on the Race thus far. Looking back, I can say that Month Five was both my favorite and least favorite month on the World Race.
But how could that be? How could I love and loathe something at the same time?
Let me assure you: while this month was filled with fun things, beautiful pictures, and more blessings than I could count, it was also filled with struggle, frustration, and questions, which brought me to realize the one thing God was trying to teach me this month.
In Malaysia, God taught me about hunger.
I expected this month to look SO MUCH different than what I got. I imagined life in Malaysia would be that we live in a rough part of town, in a hostel with no air conditioning, and we would be struggling to get around and communicate due to the language barrier and religious conflictions. I had been so blessed by God with amazing host homes and ministries the last four months, I thought for sure that God was ready to challenge me by taking away all the comforts I had gotten used to. I thought that Latin America was simply the “warm-up” countries in order to prepare me for the battle zones that would be the countries ahead of us.
But no. God blessed me and my team over abundantly this month. Our ministry was to do Unsung Heroes, a ministry I did last month in Belize, where we are assigned to a certain area to connect with local missionaries and determine whether they would be good future hosts for World Race teams. We very quickly made connections through a local church, and were able to serve at a Refugee school for a couple of days, visit an orphanage just outside the city, and participate in an outreach program for non-believers at HTBB, our home church. And living in midtown Kuala Lumpur provided us with SO MANY incredible opportunities to have fun and grow together as a new team during our off time, like go bowling, see movies, explore the mall, and even ride a roller coaster!
But the craziest surprise came right at the beginning. Within the first couple of days, my teammate Maria got connected with some family friends in Kuala Lumpur, a missionary couple who were tenants for a rental apartment in a nearby high rise condominium. Because we had no host this month, they offered to let us stay in the apartment for the same price as our very cheap hostel! To say we were flabbergasted by this would be an understatement. On the World Race, we are used to showing up to a host home to be told we would be sleeping on air mattresses on the floor in an empty, hot stuffy room. But this month, God gave us a three bedroom, four bathroom apartment with a balcony overlooking the city, a beautiful living room and kitchen, washer/dryer, and plenty of other services in the building like a pool, gym, sauna, and even a small cinema room! Never in a million years would I have expected to live in this kind of place for a month, ESPECIALLY on the World Race – I never would’ve even thought I could pray for this kind of thing!
God overwhelmed me this month. But with all of these blessings, you know how I responded?
I was upset. Confused. Frustrated. Mad.
When we first moved into the new apartment, I stood out on the balcony, staring at the city scape, and I had a fight with God.
“Lord, I did not sign up for this. I know you’ve given us this blessing without any of us ever asking for it, but why? I signed up for abandonment, for sacrifice, and to learn how to live a life not dependent on comforts. So why the heck am I here??”
I assure you, I was thrilled when we heard the news that we would get to move into this place. But when we got there, and I realized just how nice everything was, confusion started to bubble inside me.
“Lord, I don’t want to get complacent by this. I want to be here to serve you, and to serve the people here. I don’t want to get distracted.”
I didn’t hear anything back during that fight. I just told Him how I felt, thanked Him for the blessings anyway, and hopped into the pool for an afternoon dip.
I thought through how this month could play out. Maybe God had me staying here so that I could learn how to love Him even though I still had these comforts? Maybe this was a month of spiritual Rest and Refreshment, in preparation for the months ahead? Maybe God just wanted to teach me that His blessings aren’t always rewards for our good deeds, but simply come out of the goodness of His heart?
I knew going into this month that God was going to be doing a lot of heart work, digging out the lies I believed about His love for me. So, I determined I would use my free time this month (Unsung Heroes ministry means A LOT of free time) to spend with Him, and to work through those heart issues so I could love the Lord better going into Month 6.
Well, we got busy. Between meetings with hosts, serving in various ministries, and venturing all over town on our off-time, I realized towards the end of the month that I still didn’t know why God let us stay in this apartment. At the beginning of the month, I felt like God was going to bring some really amazing transformation to my relationship with Him, and I wanted to prioritize that growth as my goal for the month. And yet, as the weeks went by, I realized that I felt even colder and more frustrated with the Lord than how I had felt at the beginning of the month.
It wasn’t just about the apartment. I loved the apartment actually. It was the fact that I felt like the Lord was treating me like a rich businessman would treat his children – giving me everything I wanted, telling me “I love you” on occasion, but never really seeing me much because he was off doing more important things. I tried spending time with the Lord, and truly just letting myself relax and enjoy His presence, but after a little bit I felt like there wasn’t any presence there to enjoy. I felt like I was talking talking talking, and our conversation went nowhere. And every time I tried to listen for what He had to say, I felt like my brain was too overwhelmed to hear Him say anything coherent. My peaceful time with Him turned into fights more often than not. I felt like I was pulling my own weight, and I was waiting on Him to follow through.
It wasn’t until late in the Month that God shifted my perspective. One Sunday, I went to church alone after our team returned from a trip away for a contact visit. I walked there with my thoughts circling around in my mind, wondering if I would ever find the kind of breakthrough I needed from God this month, or if it would take longer before I ever found it. And so, I sat in worship, trying to calm my mind and let the Lord speak to me. My mind started to wander through my experience on the Race, and soon I realized He was trying to say something.
He brought me back to the night before I left for the Race. Our Squad had gathered in the ballroom at the Holiday Inn near the Atlanta airport, and we had a small block of time set out to worship together. As we sang, I felt the Spirit fill me with joy, and out of nowhere I suddenly realized that I felt a certain feeling stronger than I ever had before.
It was hunger.
Images began to flood my mind. Of people in churches worshipping, crying, and encountering the Lord. Of miracles abounding on the streets, healings and blind eyes opened and lame people walking. Of worshipping together as a squad with a deep cry in our hearts for the Lord to move powerfully. And it was like the bottom dropped off and I suddenly saw there was an infinite depth to the Lord that I never even realized. And for the first time, I WANTED Him more than anything else. I NEEDED Him. I began worshipping and praying and crying out to the Lord to move powerfully in this next year, but it felt like my feeble words only scratched the surface of the depth to which I wanted Him. It felt like I could‘ve prayed for a thousand years and still never seen the bottom.
I was feeling a deeper desire for Him than I had felt in months. Probably more than I had ever felt for Him. And then He spoke.
“Remember that hunger.”
And that was it. That was the most important thing God told me in the moment right before the Race began.
And so, I’m sitting in a church service in Malaysia, it’s Month 5 on the World Race, I’ve traveled through six countries already, seen some of the most beautiful places on earth and had some adventures I never thought I would ever get to have, and God brought me back this memory.
I was astounded. I realized that the Spirit-inspired hunger that I felt at this pivotal moment before launching on the Race was not about adventure, or traveling the world, or experiencing all kinds of cool things. The Spirit made me hungry for God. And I realized in that moment that I had lost that hunger.
God helped me see that while I had always wanted to encounter God on the Race, my desire for Him started to fall away the more the Race had progressed. Sure, my hunger for adventure was always satisfied, but that was because I consistently pursued those opportunities, and sacrificed precious rest time to fill up on activities. But what if I did the same for my relationship with the Lord? How is it possible that in doing a missions trip around the world, I’m still no closer to God? Could it be that maybe my relationship with Jesus wasn’t in the activities I did for the Lord, but in the ways I pursued His heart?
I got to thinking about that hunger, and I wondered why I still desired to grow deeper with the Lord, but I wasn’t hungry for Him. And so I thought about hunger as a concept. How do I stir hunger? I realized that in order to provoke hunger, I would need to starve myself. In order to hunger for what I really need, I would need to cut off the things that I’ve been using to feed myself. And it’s amazing to me how even on the World Race, the comforts of the world are still around me. Especially this past month, living in such a luxurious apartment in a glamorous city, I was surrounded by distractions. And so, in realizing this, I repented and had a long chat with the Lord, honoring the fact that I was grateful for His blessings but that I wanted Him more than I wanted anything else on this Race. If this means He puts me in the hardest ministry in the hottest country, so be it. I decided that I was not about to squander this Race on seeking out ways to feed my flesh, but I would consciously choose to fight for my relationship with Jesus – even if it means getting up earlier than I want to.
As the month came to a conclusion, our team said goodbye to Kuala Lumpur, and headed north to Penang for Leadership Development Weekend (or LDW), a bi-monthly session where our squad meets together to listen to a few teachings from highlighted people in the squad. I was ready for God to do some amazing things, and I could feel Him bringing some refreshment and encouragement. Two of my squad mates shared some things that helped me breakthrough the funk I was in. And from their lessons, I learned two things that totally shut down the way I had been looking at God.
1) God doesn’t need to prove Himself to me before I trust Him. He has proven Himself faithful COUNTLESSLY in the Bible, and He promises to do the same for every one of His people!
2) God values joy. Jesus was a joyful person. Joy is actually a fruit of the Spirit. God is joyful, and He wants me to be joyful. And seriousness is NOT a fruit of the Spirit!
It’s the simple Gospel that brought me back. How often have I believed that God was not faithful to me, or that He was keeping Himself from me! What’s funny about this relationship is that God has already pursued me relentlessly as evidenced by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection on Earth! God actually loves me SO much, that before I ever even knew Him, or loved Him, He loved me. He, in fact, loves me so much, that He offers infinite and unlimited grace to me no matter what! God delights in me, and wants me to delight in Him, because He is a GOOD God. He’s not sitting in Heaven, arms crossed, stern faced, waiting for me to screw up so He can condemn me. And yet, even on the World Race, where I’ve chosen to spend a year of my life sharing the Gospel around the World, I still believed that horrible lie from the enemy that I wasn’t loved by God, nor was I even liked by God.
It’s the simple Gospel that God wanted to use to draw me back to Him. To change my perspective on the Race ahead. To get me hungry again.
I feel so much more alive now coming out of this month, knowing that God’s radical, unbelievable grace is ALWAYS with me. Month 5 was a tough one to pull through, but I realized that amidst all of my complaining, frustration, and confusion, the Lord was looking on me with eyes of love. I don’t know why it’s so easy to continually fall into the lie that this isn’t true, but I’m grateful that the Lord has brought me out of it, and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
In the last five months, I’ve come to learn that the World Race as a program is not responsible for making you grow in your relationship with the Lord. It’s a program that attempts to facilitate growth through serving in various types of ministries around the world. And as I’m learning this more and more, I realize how growing with the Lord and falling in love with Him is a choice that I consistently have to make. Hunger demands a choice over what I will choose to seek for satisfaction; I realize now that if I’m really going to make this Race experience count, I will need to choose the Lord over everything else.
But what about the apartment? Why, in the end, do I think God put my team in that ivory tower? To be honest, I still don’t really know. It was an amazing blessing from the Lord, one that I was increasingly grateful for. But honestly, I can say that as nice as it was, living the high-class life was never going to fully satisfy me. And I can say that while I was grateful for the blessings that God gave me this month, I’m more grateful for the fact that He taught me to find true satisfaction in Him.
Lord, I choose you. Even when I don’t want to, I choose you. There’s nothing else in this world that is going to satisfy me like you.
And now, I’m hungry.
“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.'” John 6:35
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Check out highlight photos from this past month, including pictures from our three-day adventure in Krabi, Thailand! And scroll to the bottom for a video montage of our month in Malaysia!
