| The greatest call of surrender |
11.23.16 — November 23, 2016
This is the day I fly from Laguna Beach, CA to Memphis, TN. After 11 months of traveling the world, I’m coming home.
Not only am I coming home, I’m moving home.
At the beginning of this journey, I told the Lord “anywhere in the world, I’ll go for you. Call me anywhere Abba, and I’ll follow. Where you go, I’ll go. Where you stay, I’ll stay: trendy Cape Town, South Africa; the bush of Mozambique; heart held Haiti; the busy streets of Asia. Full time ministry, a non-profit organization, long term missions. Call me. Call me anywhere but home. Home, I will not go.”
You see, I come from a rural town in Mississippi – a perfect pit stop between two major cities north and south of us. But that’s all it’s been to me all of these years, a pit stop – a place that no one hoped to see in their rearview mirror more than me. In my mind, to be successful is to escape this small town trap of complacency and simplicity.
“I got dreams that keep me up in the dead of night telling me I wasn’t made for the simple life.” – Happiness: Need to Breathe
My greatest fear: to never achieve greatness.
To settle for less than excellent. To be stuck in the same town for the rest of my meaningless life. To follow a church that is afraid of or unwilling to be led by the Spirit. To work a 9-5 job for 50 years until reaching retirement where an unlikely social security check waits for me. To have 2.5 kids and a 3 car garage like every American dreams of.
As abrasive as it sounds, this has been my mentality for many years after receiving the call to missions and not understanding what to do with it. Instead of my eyes opening to the need of all people for Jesus, my eyes turned towards those in the most visible need. My heart bled red for the orphaned, oppressed, poverty-stricken while hardening towards my own people. It harbored anger towards their lack of transparency in the church and resentment towards their lack of apparent zeal for our God.
Be careful what you tell the Lord what you won’t do.
In month 6, Lesotho, God started stirring in my heart a huge passion for discipleship. My heart was pryed open for the youth in my home town. A desire burned inside of me to see them follow a different path than mine. A desire for them to learn how to pursue a relationship with the Lord like they pursue their best friend. A desire for them to learn how to feed themselves with the Word, long before their junior year of college. A desire to see them be mentored and to mentor others. A desire to see them thrive in community. A desire to see them love those different than themselves.
I thought this was solely a spark of passion in my heart for discipleship. I was wrong. It was the Lord’s gentle spark of passion for my hometown. A gentle spark that over months of fighting, ignoring, running, resenting, rejecting, and fearing – has transformed into an engulfing flame of passion for a revival among my own people. A revival among His people.
“Are their lives worth any less?” He asked.
The past 9 months of the World Race have been strategically to build me up in my spiritual gifts and callings, to show me that anything is possible. My greatest dreams and passions are achievable.
Start a ministry. Travel the world. Attend a leadership school in Spain. Work for AIM. Be mentored. Lead Passport mission trips. Take photography classes. Work with jewelry/clothes for a purpose. Rehabilitate victims of sex trafficking.
“Now you want me to give them all up?”
“I want you to give them to Me and trust Me to give them back to you in My perfect timing.”
He’s asking me to hand Him everything I desire and Trust Him: to take care of me – not to forget me – to have good planned for me, to know me better than I know myself.
This journey has been one of total surrender. I’m noticing it doesn’t end when I get home. Now, the greatest call of surrender.
I’m coming home.
– See you soon,
KP
