As people continue to ask me what I plan to do after I graduate, I continue to get the same reaction … ‘sounds like the trip of a life time!’ From many perspectives this is true. Yes, this trip is considered a ‘cool trip’ and ‘awesome experience,’ after all I’ll get to see the world. BUT that is not why this trip is worth leaving my home for a year. WithOUT Christ that’s all this next year is, a great travel experience; WITH Christ the World Race a POWERFUL trip, it is life changing. But not just for me, this year isn’t about me; it is about the people who will experience the Lord through this calling He has given. That is what makes me most excited every time I think about the upcoming year.
It’s important, however, not to think that we have to travel all over the place for any experience to be powerful or life changing. We would have so many more of these experiences if we would forget ourselves and live our lives for Christ. The authority, which we have been given through Him, is what gives each day, no matter where we are, the potential to be a crazy experience of a lifetime.
Just read through the Gospel/Acts and we see the way that Jesus and His disciples lived. Jesus wasn’t boring; He was healing and praying and praising and making people question their lives everyday (His disciples were too!) So why have Christians, who have been called to ‘be in the image of Christ’ become so boring? What if Christians started finding more of our excitement in fellowship, discipleship, and salvation rather than seeking joy only in self-success and self-happiness? This excitement and power that the Lord has for each of us we so often forget (myself included). Do you know that we have been given the power by the Holy Spirit to heal and cast out demons? It’s all too often that I ask someone how their day was and not truly care about the answer; let alone the idea Christ could be using me to win lives for Him, yet I go about my normal day. We are choosing to be ‘normal’ instead of accepting the adventure offered daily by being bold in living the Gospel.
HOW can I do this everyday, in a simple way right here at home: being BOLD!
offering to pray for someone even when it’s awkward,
buy someone on the street a meal,
sacrificing some luxuries so that others may have necessities
leave someone a sincere note of encouragement,
be joyful when my patience is being tested,
conversing with people about what they believe and value,
offer my time or skills with out complaint,
financially supporting missions and giving to those in need,
caring for those who are broken or forgotten (outcasts, ‘mean people’, orphans, sick people, prisoners, etc)
and so much more that I let slip away in the busyness of my day. And in all of this recognizing that FREELY I HAVE RECEIVED, SO FREELY I SHOULD GIVE with the joy of Christ’s love in my heart.
I wasn’t intended on updating this blog til my trip started up, or atleast until after training camp. And I’m also hoping my tone doesn’t come off as preachy as I am speaking blatantly to my own shortcomings, BUT all of that has been on my heart and needed to be said. THIS is what could make each day ‘a trip of a lifetime’…:
Isaiah 61
1The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed ME!
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair. ………
10 I delight greatly in the LORD;
my soul rejoices in my God. 

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation 

and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, 

as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, 

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 

11For as the soil makes the sprout come up 

and a garden causes seeds to grow, 

so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness

and praise spring up before all nations.
AMEN!
