Hello everyone! I hope you all have been doing well. I am currently in month 10 of the World Race— crazy isn’t it? This past month has been such a beautiful month for me and my team as we get to experience what it looks like to depend on the Lord and ask him what he wants from us.
Since we have been in Serbia, my team has lived in two places this month: Belgrade (the capital city) and Zlatibor (a rural farming town in the mountains). Since the beginning of this month, I have been resting in what it looks like to have a mind like Christ’s.
The mind is a powerful thing and it’s quite surprising how much our mindset influences how we live and think. In previous blogs I wrote, I talked a bit about my battle and struggle with anxiety. And I want to take the time in this blog to talk about how the Lord has helped me to have a mind more like His.
So let’s backtrack to the debrief I had in Sofia, Bulgaria (which was the beginning of last month.) Our squad mentor, Grace, gave a talk to us about what it’s going to look like as we begin preparing to go home. At the time, I’m pretty sure most people on the squad felt an immediate drop in their stomachs at the phrase “going home.” It occurred to us that we knew the time was coming when we would have to face the reality of this, but somewhere in the back of our minds, we still wanted to avoid talking about it.
Grace gave us a wonderful teaching about how to turn our perspective back towards God. She was talking about putting our mindset on the Lord instead of worldly things that could easily grab our attention, and the biggest one at the time was going home.
I was reflecting on some of the tips she mentioned and one of them stuck out to me: start renewing your mind on His word.
The Word of God is a gift from God, but to me the Word has become such a blessing and means much more to me now than it did at the beginning of the race. I have the ability to own a Bible that I can freely read from and carry around. I have the freedom to be able to understand, write in, highlight in, and keep with me. And I didn’t feel this much appreciation for the Word until I met people in Asia and parts of Europe where less than 0.2% of the population are believers or have the right to own a Bible.
In other parts of the world, the Bible is what people will die for or face jail time for because they want to know what the Lord has to say. That’s when it dawned on me that I want my mind to be renewed like His.
Since then, I have mediated on these verses:
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James 4:8
“Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by resting you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
I know this blog post is already really long, but sharing this with you all is so important to me because it changed my relationship with God when I began thinking more like him.
Every day we are at war with our flesh and the enemy, so we much pick up our Bible, which is our sword of the spirit, to fight off the enemy’s worldly thoughts and desires. To keep our focus on God, who renews our minds when we spend more time in the Word. Because then we are able to fight with a pure heart, clear conscience, and genuine faith (1 Timothy 1:5)
God bless!
