I am going to share one of the most uncomfortable moments I have experienced thus far on The World Race, and also what God showed me about stepping into what is uncomfortable in order to jump into everything God has planned out for my life. It all started as a normal day. We had a few meetings with local pastors lined up but some of us got selected to do home visits!
Home visits are great! I love to meet people along with understanding where they come from. It is a unique opportunity to see families and individuals in the very place they call home and we as missionaries get the chance to pray for them. This particular day my teammates Kristen, Louise, and I started walking with a pastor named Alex and another man named Bryan.
I love physical touch. It is my favorite of the love languages and it is how I receive love the best. From a fist-bump to hugging and everything in between, I enjoy touch. Pastor Alex, I am assuming, is the same way. We started out on the way to house number one walking in very close proximity to each other. Our arms touching but no hand holding. Not yet. I was comfortable. I remember thinking “This is good. I like being close to people. Why don’t people do this more often?”
We finish at the first home and we leave to go to the second. Alex and I start talking again about life and the people we are meeting. Again we are close. And then all of a sudden it happened. He grabbed my hand. Without taking a breath or even giving me a warning, I found myself holding hands with a pastor casually strolling down the streets of Africa! I will admit that it was pretty outside of my comfort zone. It was unexpected but I held on. In a way I knew if I held on something good would come out of it. Okay, I was hoping something good would come out of it. More than anything I wanted to show him respect.
About ten minutes into this wonderful experience, my teammates turned around and noticed what was happening. At first I was concerned as to what they were thinking. More than that, I wondered what all the people we were passing on the streets were thinking. I gave the girls the face that says “I’m-not-really-sure-what’s-happening-but-don’t-make-a-big-deal-about-it” kind of face. In the last few minutes it hit me. This is uncomfortable on many levels but choosing to buy into the culture makes a difference.
I enjoyed this experience and that is because I chose to not fight something as simple as holding a man’s hand in order to show him love the same way he is trying to reach out to other people. For all I know I could have made his day like he made mine. We were warned at training camp that this is a very hands on culture and I am super pumped that God taught me this lesson hands on. Get it.. Holding hands.. Hands on…
What does it look like to truly step out into what is uncomfortable? How do I align what I am doing with what God is doing all of the time? The Bible clearly says “do not love the world or anything in the world” (1 John 2:15). Is that not where comfort comes from!? Something The Race is teaching me is when we truly follow Jesus with everything we have and everything we are, sometimes we do things that are not always “normal”.
I learned a lot about myself in that moment. I really do want to see Jesus change people and I am asking Him to use me. Simply put, I am learning to wake up with the attitude to say “yes” to whatever, no matter how big or small, God asks me to do. Just imagine the endless possibilities to reach people in the name of Jesus Christ if all the time we tried our absolute best and gave God the rest!
