You know, I’d like to say that the World Race has been a walk in the park thus far—but it hasn’t been.
I came into this thing thinking…”What an opportunity! I get to spend the next 11 months traveling the world; telling others about Jesus. How can this possibly go wrong? I’m going to change the world! Feed the hungry! Love the orphans and widows! Preach the gospel! It’s going to be great!”
But if I’m completely honest…my first couple of months didn’t go as planned. I felt ineffective. I wasn’t even making a dent. All of the sudden doubts started to fill my head concerning my own purpose in all of this. What do I have to offer these people? I’m trying to get my own life straight, how can I help someone else if I can’t get myself straight first…
One of the biggest underlying factors in all of it was this sad truth: I was letting my failures and shortcomings of the past hold me down. I was believing I could keep it all bottled up inside and just deal with it alone but that wasn’t working out for me. For 3 months I let it cripple me.
But one day, as I was sitting in Jamaica reading, I came across these words:
“Do not let any of the things of the world or past mistakes paralyze your hearts. I believe there are Christians who have allowed some of their past mistakes to paralyze them. You were so bright and cheerful in your spiritual life once, and then you made some tragic mistake or let something happen to you. You got out of it somehow, and prayed and wept your way out of it, but it did something to you, and now you cannot lick it. Past wrongs that have been done to you, past failures, times you thought you were going to win and did not, or present sins or discouragement—these things are not mental at all. They are deeper than that; they are subconscious, and they prevent us from believing.” (A.W. Tozer)
The Bible says “If anyone is in Christ he is a new Creation. The old has gone—the new has come!”
Because of what Jesus has done for me, I don’t have to be crippled by my failure. God’s grace is sufficient and He sees me as a NEW CREATION each day. And that’s a beautiful thing!!
This year I get to meet SO MANY new people that don’t often hear the name of Jesus, and I get to tell them about His love and His grace. How they don’t have to work to earn salvation, and that if they come to Christ they can be made new and not be held down by their failure or circumstances like I was.
This month in India my team was blessed with the opportunity to visit a local girls home managed by a ministry called Love in Action. This home houses girls (and 2 young boys) that come from incredibly difficult backgrounds.
PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO BEFORE READING FURTHER:
(it will you a better understanding of the Love in Action home and put the rest of the blog into context)
If there’s one thing my time at the Love in Action home has shown me, it’s that all of these children have found an unspeakable joy in the most difficult circumstances. If there is anyone with a past that ought to keep them down, it’s them. But they don’t let it stop them! They are some of the most joyful, bright, God-honoring people I have had the privilege of meeting.
I will never forget the first day we went to the Love in Action home and encountered all of those wonderful children. It’s a day that will forever be engrained in my memory. My favorite day of the World Race so far. I didn’t feel ineffective that day. My past failures didn’t hold me back. God’s Love and grace is just as available to you and me as it is to those little girls.
To label a day as “My favorite day of the World Race” isn’t meant to put a cap on how good my days in the future can be, but instead to show how influential that day was for me this year. I reflect on it often, hoping that even better days are yet to come!
***Please keep us in your prayers as we are now in Nepal, working with our new teams to share the Gospel and leave a legacy that points to Jesus!
