Step Through the Gateway

After we spent our month in Thailand, we traveled to debrief where our whole squad of 60 came together. We were gathered for a time so that we could go through something called “team changes”. As new leaders were being brought up and old leaders were given a time of rest, the whole squad was going through a time of growth.
 
As the night approached for us to hear our new teams, I remember sitting in that room ready and waiting. Now don’t get me wrong I wasn’t awaiting it because I hated the people on my team, I was awaiting it so that I could get to know more people, and well honestly, run away from the uncomfortableness or the challenges that my current team brought in front of me.
 
Isn’t that what we always do? We want to run from the challenges in life. We want to run to where it is comfortable, or run to those people who tell us what we want to hear not what we need to hear.
 
I sure have had this lesson drilled into my head over the course of 4 months. There are moments that I wish to be home in the comforts of my own bed, using my own western toilet, hugging my parents, driving my car, drinking real coffee, eating food I like, and well, hear what I want to hear from people around me not what I need to hear. I want to run away from the challenges that are brought up, not just on the race but in life.
 
There have been many days that what I want to hear is definitely not what I need to hear. My team has been so faithful to see me in the way the Lord desires, which allows me to be pushed and shaped into the woman that God so desires me to become. Now this sounds like such a pleasing process of easy steps and delightful conversations between two people where one calls out the areas in which you can grow or glorify the Lord, but oh, we are so easily deceived.
 
These conversations are some of the hardest I have had to date. These moments of shaping, growing and challenging bring about the deepest sadness and the most abundant joy. Now do you see why I might have sat in that room awaiting team changes with an anxious heart?
 
The human in me was thinking, “Yes, an opportunity to run from all of this growth, a chance to get out of these hard situations where these people are pushing me to places I don’t think I can go. This is my chance to get on a team of people who don’t challenge me and who just well ‘love’ me (my thinking of love was also a little off).”
 
I thought I could run from my team of 6 others to another group of people who will “love” me. Well, my thinking about how a team would love me must have hopped in my bag from the states and waited for me to unpack it at that very debrief. My idea of love was this people pleasing, everyone likes everything about me, there is nothing that you need to point out in me that needs to grow, lets laugh together but no crying type of love. But what was I kidding myself? That isn’t even the love that I receive from home that I so long to be with so often on the race. No.
 
This “love” that I was waiting to receive from a new team sure did come. But exactly the way that God wanted it to come.
 
Team change announcements came.
(My first team through the DR, Haiti and Thailand was Justin and Hannah, Jaclyn, Ken, Joey and Alyssa.)

 
A gulp was sent from my throat to the pits of my stomach. My hands tighten, my head fell, my eyes shut to hold the tears back. What was happening?
 
I was on a team will ALL of the same people as the first 3 months. Hadn’t I already expressed that I was excited to change? I was excited to meet new people. Right? Wasn’t I convincing everyone else that this was the only reason I wanted to change teams, or were they seeing through my disguise? I wanted to run from this team of people who challenged me every day.
 
To say that God knew what was best for us would be an understatement. But before we would learn that little lesson, we were given the assignment to create a new team name. For the first three months, we called ourselves “Team Ahava” which is Hebrew for love. Since we were now a “new” team we would need a new name. Out of my anger towards God for not mixing up my team, I remember sitting on my bed trying to pray for what he wanted our team to be called. I flipped open my Bible to where I was already reading for my quiet times and a word jumped of the page.
 

 
I took a moment to look through the concordance for the word and all the verses that have to do with it. Here is where I read John 10:9-10.
 

“I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life; and have it to the fullest.”

 
There it was. Gateway. Christ is our gate and we are given the choice to step through the gateway to life abundant. We needed this as a team to chose to step through the gate into our “new” team with a step of faith. We wouldn’t be able to do this on our own and we needed Christ to be that strength. We needed him to be the gate.
 
I wrote in my journal these words, “This gateway will lead to freedom, rest, truth, humility and Christ. Our gate was rooted in love from our 3 months as Ahava and now we are Gateway.”
 
Above I wrote that God would show me love from a team in a way that was unexpected. Well, he did this month through this team called Gateway. I realized that this “love” that was I was hoping to find on a new team wasn’t a true love. I wanted a love that was surface-y so that these people wouldn’t see for all the goods, bads, uglys and everything in between. I wanted a “love” that was more Hollywood than life.
 
God brought me to see that this team of people I have served with for 4 months now really do love me. They love me in a real and raw way. They push me in the areas I need to be pushed, they challenge me in the areas I am too afraid of, they speak out the areas in which I have let lies grow, they encourage the areas that I have hidden from the world, and they love me through it all.
 
Team Gateway challenges me, shapes me, grows me, loves me, and lives life with me.
 
The funny thing is, I can even look back to before I came on the race when the Lord was trying to teach me this lesson. He was trying to teach me to step through the gateway.  I need to step through the gateway into the presence of the Lord and those who see me through His eyes. I need to stop running from the people who love me in a real and raw way.
 
I need to stop running from my brother who speaks truth and life into the areas I can grow in. I need to stop hiding from my Dad’s words when he wants to shape my perspectives to see a greater purpose. I need to step through the gateway to life abundant where I can call out the goodness and life in my friends and loved ones who need someone to tell them what they need to hear not what they want to hear.
 
It took me awhile to even see this gateway. Now I begin my journey of daily stepping through it to life abundant with the strength of the Lord. Do you see a gateway in your life to step through? Is there life abundant that is waiting for you just to take a step of faith?
 
There was for me. We are Gateway.