As training camp kicked off, Justin and I both realized that we had spent a lot of time preparing for The World Race in a much different way then what was coming at us. A trip of this magnitude requires constant work from the moment you are accepted. As a slightly obsessive detail person, I began immediately checking tasks off the list, and with much success. However, as we sat in worship with two hundred other peers, we realized that we hadn’t taken a second to look inside ourselves and figure out what it was that was calling us towards such a journey as The World Race.
Let me clarify. Justin and I both pride ourselves on being the oldest child, who by nature is the over-achiever. Also, we both would describe ourselves as rational, logical people. In fact, when we argue or have marital disagreements, we hardly ever resort to immediate anger or lashing out. On the opposite end, we both formulate the best plan of attack that will “obviously” show that our side of the story is correct and we both work very hard at articulating the point until the other gives in. Ahh, it is truly exhausting, but it is how we work. We are both thinkers…over thinkers. So, when we translate this into our relationship with God, we both rely on a God “that makes sense.”
We are both graduates of a private Christian university, and of course, God is easily explained through textbooks, textual criticisms, theological debates, and the best scholars $20,000 a year can buy. At least this is our skewed perception of God. So as you can imagine, training camp immediately rubbed us wrong. We started hearing about how God works in miraculous ways and it didn’t “make sense.” For example, we heard countless stories of racers “casting out demons” in the name of Jesus. Immediately, we rely on what we think to be true and can only explain demonic forces as an untreated mental illness. “Of course someone in the bush of Africa acts like they are demon possessed because they have a chemical imbalance in their head and they have not ever had the chance to visit a doctor so they can give them pills to fix themselves.” This was our train of thought, repeatedly. Training camp had a way of continually asking you to let go of what you think you know and rely on God to shape what is truth. So, reluctantly so, we began to let our guard down and trust God, in the sincere hope that He could meet us where we were and show up in a big way. God, please save us from the fiery furnace that is our logical brains and self-contrived truth.
So back to the question of, “Why pick a journey like The World Race? My answer might come as a desperate plea to God, but I have to believe, with all my heart, that the God I have experienced in the 23 years of my life, and in the small Texas town I am from, and the small group of “Christian” friends I always had, is bigger than I can see right now. I have to believe that what I’ve experienced as religion is a mere shadow of what the God of the universe is capable of. If I don’t open myself up to the possibilities of being blown away by God, then what is the point of being a different Christian than the millions who sit around looking out only for themselves? I refuse to believe that because I was born in America, speak English, and have been taught about Jesus since childhood, that I am just somehow luckier than all the other people who have to wait around and hope that someone comes to “save” them.
