There are about to be a whole lot of ‘you’ statements here, so bear with me.
You are about to embark on the most incredible year of your life. It is up to you whether it is incredibly wonderful, incredibly awful, or incredibly mediocre. Only you are in control of that.
Your attitude and how you respond in each situation will determine your outlook on the month, your team, your ministry, the country, and your Race as a whole. You are in charge of your attitude and choosing to say ‘YES’ to whatever is put in front of you.
It took me too long to come to terms with that or understand how I had a choice in the matter. I always let my environment dictate my emotions. And on the Race, your environment is always, and usually is, subject to be less than your ideal standards.
So I tell you now, throw out your ideal standards like the last week’s leftovers they are. You signed up for this thing, no matter how difficult it is going to get, you agreed to the uncomfortability of each new country and the 24/7 community that might make you begin to wish you were anywhere else but in the presence of another human.
But it is your choice.
This year, you will have the most incredible community around you, all that is needed from you is to choose it, say yes to the people around you. Yes to a newly discovered concept in my life – vulnerability – which will bring freedom, sweet, SWEET, freedom with it.
My community has been the friends willing to stay up with me until 4 AM to cheer me on as finished and posted a blog I had been struggling to finish for weeks because the subject was none other than – vulnerability.
However, sometimes all you need is to talk to one of your people back home, and know that that is ok. They know you, and love you, and it is in our nature to want to be understood, so seek them out.
But know you chose this year and signed up to be away from them. Know God placed you in this community with these people who all have unique gifts different from yours. And that is what community is – everyone’s gifts collaborating to lift each other up in love and challenge us to become our best selves.
This year, your emotions will feel like they are running rampant with the amount of rapid growth happening in your soul. You will feel everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Some days you will be doing backflips on mountaintops and others will be spent in an emotional tornado of tears, which you just need to let happen.
Which brings me to the best piece of advice I have ever received on the Race:
It is ok to be where you are. Give grace to yourself, and just be there. Don’t expect yourself to be anywhere else but exactly there.
Let the Lord grow you from there, not from a place where you think you need to get to in order for God to use you or do a work in you.
Do not compare your story and struggles to those on your team or squad. Do not diminish your abilities the Lord wants to refine and show you your capabilities in by you saying you are not as good as them. This stopped me from writing, drawing, reading, and multiple other things as much as I wish I would have on the Race.
Your story is yours, no one else’s. And that is the book Jesus wants to write in with you.
The Lord designed us to love and be loved, and there are times when you are not lovable or feel capable of love. Give yourself some space and let the Lord romance you in the unique way only He is capable of. Seek Him first in the subject of love.
Adventures in Missions does a great job of advertising the adventuring side of the Race, but I was talking with one of my squadmates yesterday about how they play that side up so much, the side of how it is a discipleship program gets diminished.
This year is so much more than seeing the world and experiencing different cultures, and if that is all of what you are looking for out of the Race and think it is, then it is not for you.
When you sign up for the Race, you are signing up to go through what I felt like was 5 years of spiritual growth in 11 months. You are signing up to be completely broken alongside 45 other sweaty, smelly millennials who have a heart to be used by Jesus.
You will experience new cultures and people, but in most months I found the ministry I was working with was not my main reason for being in the country. The Lord wanted to teach me something new in every month, apart from the ministry, I just had to be open and obedient to it. So ask and listen at the beginning of each month as to why you are there outside of serving and honoring your host.
You will do things this year that before now, you would have never thought yourself capable of.
So before you embark on the most incredible 11 months of your life, or if you have already launched and are out in the field, ask yourself continually – Why did you sign up for the Race?
My answer surprised me as it changed slightly each month, and now I am facing how my expectations before the Race for where I would be month 11 do not meet my reality. But I know it is exactly where I am supposed to be in trusting Him.
Be expectant the Lord will answer in His time and choose to say yes to it everyday.
