“Robert McKee says humans naturally seek comfort and stability. Without an inciting incident that disrupts their comfort, they won’t enter into a story. They have to get fired from their job or be forced to sign up for a marathon. A ring has to be purchased. A home has to be sold. The character has to jump into the story, into the discomfort and the fear, otherwise the story will never happen.” – Donald Miller (A Million Miles In A Thousand Years)
As cool as it would've been to have God shoot me a text and say, "Kent, this is God. Get up. I want you to go apply for the World Race!" It didn't happen that way. In fact, I didn't even know about this opportunity until a few weeks ago. Did I ever think I'd be doing something like this? Nope. Not one bit.
When I stumbled across this website, I didn't really think about it too much before applying. I simply saw "Apply now", clicked it and well, the rest is history. Jesus was probably bummed I didn't spend any time with Him in deep and thoughtful prayer beforehand. One second I was watching SportsCenter and the next I was jumping off the corporate ladder to a world unknown.
Unlike a lot of people who have done this before me and will do so along side me, I never got a wake up call from God telling me to do the World Race specifically. I probably would've peed my pants had that actually happened. I didn't let it be known that I wanted to be a missionary. I definitely didn't have a vision and I never felt God push me towards the World Race or anything similar in all actuality.
Over the past week or so getting to know my wonderful squad and hearing them talk about why they are doing the World Race, I've noticed a common theme between all of them…
God seemed to be telling them to partake in it.
I wish that was me. I really do. I just see things in a different shade of grey I suppose. I love hearing their crazy awesome stories of how they came to be a part of this journey. I just took the road less traveled to get to this point.
So, how did I end up here? I had a lot of inciting incidents…
For starters, God wrecked the life I was living in every way possible. Every thing I wanted to accomplish, He said no. Slammed all the doors of different opportunities shut and in the process completely tore down the walls surrounding my heart and broke it into a thousand pieces. Each and every time I tried to get up, He knocked me back down.
It was in that low point of my life that I decided to give everything to Him. Whatever my future was going to be and hold, all the things I've done in the past, the selfish choices I've made, the huge amounts of pride and stubbornness that built insurmountable walls around my heart blocking all of the love trying to be given by others, the sins that I repeated time after time, EVERYTHING.
About that same time, God gave me the text I was looking for. Not anything in particular, but to do like Donald Miller writes about, live a story worth living. Not being afraid of the consequences or the way people will look at me, but living a story that He would be proud of and calls me to live. A story where 'loving like Jesus' isn't a catchy cliche', but a mindset. A story to let go of all the crap standing in the way and pick up my cross daily.
I can't begin to put into words how truly blessed I am to be able to spend nearly every day next year serving God and showing people the love He's shown me. I've been absolutely floored at the mercy and grace that He has shown me over the past couple months and living the story He desires is a million times better than living the life that I thought I needed to be living.
As I put it in the beginning of this blog, God never let me know that the World Race was meant for me. Simply put, He showed me that He was all I needed to be after and He would take care of the rest…
So here I am, standing at the starting line of living a great story and God just fired the gun to go.
