How did I end up here (part II)
WARNING: If you don’t already believe that God speaks to people, you will finish this post either believing it, or believing I’m crazy. I’m hoping for the first.
The first week of January 2012 started like this: I had come up with this really great plan for how my life was going to play out, and I was praying really hard for God to just make it happen. (If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans!) I had just come out of the Passion Conference** for the first time, and while I was deeply affected by what I learned there, I still had a very tight grip on my own desires for my life. So as I’m praying for God to set into motion the first steps of this dream life I’ve planned, I keep hearing a very clear “wait.” I don’t like waiting. I thought, I know that God’s timing is better than mine, and I know that He knows better than me, but this plan I’ve concocted is really good! There’s no way He’s planning something that can top this! (hindsight: this is really stupid thinking.) Anyway, one night I’m praying and I get this picture in my head of me standing on a beach barefoot, wanting to walk out and put my feet in the tide, but God says “Wait. Don’t walk out. Stand, let the tide come to you,” which really frustrates me. So I share this with God, and I’m like “Why can’t I just walk to it?! What’s the harm in me walking to the water? It could take all day for the tide to make its way to me!” Then God showed me a new picture. In this one, I was waiting in line with thousands of people outside of this arena, trying to get in for this concert. Everyone was really excited, and we could feel the bass already, and hear this muted music from inside, but the doors hadn’t been opened yet. God said I wasn’t on the beach, I was here, waiting for the show. What does that mean? I thought on that, and prayed about it, and eventually God said that I was on the brink of something really special, something so far beyond what I could write for myself, but I wasn’t there yet. So when, God? When will I be there? God said “a year from now, you’ll look back and be amazed at where I’ve brought you. You couldn’t write this for yourself.”
So the year starts with the Lord really working on my heart, challenging me on my selfishness. He began really driving in that my life is not about me. (What?!) Seriously though, this is one of those things that, as Christians, we throw around a lot, this idea that our lives are meant to glorify God, and to love others, not to serve our own desires. But how well do most of us really get that? I realized that, even my relationship with God isn’t about me. It’s about, yes, serving God, but also letting others in on the love story. If my relationship with God is private, and my focus is to always know God more, to be closer to Him, to be more intimate, but that’s it, then I’m missing the point. God wants to be always closer and closer to me, and that’s awesome, but He also wants to be closer to everyone, and He wants to be known to and loved by those who have never known Him. (This seems really simple, but this was seriously revolutionary to me last year!)
Next He starts calling me out on my sense of entitlement. What gives me the right to the luxuries that I enjoy? I’m pretty middle-class by American standards, but in relation to many countries, my standard of living is really high. And it’s not like I did anything to earn that—I couldn’t help the situation that I was born into, any more than those born into poverty had any control over that. I’ve had the opportunities that I’ve had to be successful largely because people before me and around me made those opportunities. I like to think that I deserve the life I have, but truthfully, I’ve been more fortunate than hard-working.
And then suddenly, God says “Are you ok with this?” As in, I now know that there are so many people with so much less than I have; people who don’t have access to the resources or opportunities to better themselves; people who are trapped in human-trafficking, poverty, sickness, and despair; people who never have heard and may never hear that God hears them, loves them, and wants to offer them freedom and life. Am I ok with that? Maybe I can’t save the whole world, but am I ok with not trying? With just making the best way for myself as I go on living until I die?
Throughout 2012, while the Lord was speaking to me about these things, I was wrestling through what to do with my life. I had a college degree, but I was waiting tables in my hometown and trying to figure out when and where my “real job” would be. I felt like I had a responsibility to my family and myself to get a grown-up job and justify the time and money spent earning my degree, but I also felt like everything in me was resisting that. I kept coming back to what I’d heard from God in January—that in a year, I would look back and be amazed at where He’d brought me. Sometime in October I heard God very clearly say that He was preparing me to “go,” but I had no idea what that meant for me. I knew about the World Race because two of my roommates had gone on it, but I honestly didn’t think that was for me. (And I didn’t let myself think about it too much, because I was scared of support-raising, and scared that my parents would freak out.)
In January, I went back to the Passion Conference**. This time, I went expecting to hear from God. It was the first week of January, a year from the time that God had told me that in a year, I would be amazed at where He had brought me. I went through the first two days of the conference, expecting to have an “aha!” moment, but it wasn’t coming. Then on the last night, in our small group, someone made this off-hand comment from the microphone: “Identity comes before action.” That was it, and that wasn’t even the point that the discussion leader was teaching, but when I heard that, I knew that was the moment that the Lord was preparing me for. Suddenly the last year made sense to me; I had been hearing all of these things from God and having my heart checked in every way, because He was preparing me for action. Here’s your identity, kid, now it’s not about you. Go.
I couldn’t live for me anymore. To answer your question, God, no, I’m not ok with this. I’m not willing to just survive and live happily ever after. I need to do something for someone, I need to live my life like I prefer others over myself, I need to change someone’s life for the better. I started seriously checking into the World Race, looking at the September 2013 launch routes, but something didn’t feel right still. Then in February when AIM announced the all-Spanish route, I knew that was it. The rest is history (in the making).
[**If you’re reading this and you don’t know what Passion is, basically it’s a weekend conference that brings thousands of 20somethings together, draws their attention of modern-day slavery and social injustice all over the world today, and calls them to change-making action.]
