One thing that I love about my relationship with Jesus is that we are honest with one another about how we feel. Even at the expense of being wrong, I come to Him as honestly and humbly as I can with what I’m thinking and feeling, and then He comes to me in the exact same fashion. I actually hate being wrong, but when Jesus corrects me or shows me where my thinking is not aligned with His, it doesn’t seem so bad. This past week, God has been faithful in showing me where my opinion about what this season should look like didn’t align with His truth about what He wanted for me.
A couple days ago I sat down and wrote in my journal about how I hate waiting. (I don’t know anyone who likes it). I was reading about John the Baptist and thought about how sucky it must have been for him to know exactly who he was waiting for, but not know for how long. He was told to just baptize people until Jesus, the Messiah, showed up. The instructions that he was given were clear, and the calling upon his life great, but still… it had to have been a little frustrating. And then there is David, oh let’s not forget about David! David was annointed as king when he was a 12 year old boy, but he spent over 20 years running and hiding in caves. Seriously, how sucky would that have been??! And then there is me. God told me to leave everything that made me comfortable, that He has great plans for my life, and that The World Race is only the beginning. So now that I’m here on the race, why haven’t I experienced more climactic events?
As I mentioned before, I really hate waiting. I’ve always considered The World Race to be my “moment in time” where the Lord makes things clear and all my questions are answered. This could very well be true; but after venting about how things aren’t making sense to me or coming together as I’d hoped, my squad mentor, prompted by God, told me that He really just wants to enjoy my presence and let me finally enjoy His, uninterrupted. I heard everything that she had to say, and while I agreed in my head, the truth of what she was trying to tell me hadn’t fully settled in my heart.
The next morning, our squad coaches led a session for the entire squad. One of the coaches spoke on “Guarding Your Race” and he admitted to us that this was not the message that he’d originally planned to give us. However, the Lord kept him up all night and gave him a new message because this was specifically what we needed to hear. Phil let us know that we need to guard our race the same way that the bible tells us to guard our hearts in Proverbs. This is something that life is sure to flow from if we do it right, by enjoying the process and letting God do the work in us that He wants to do. He told us that although we want things microwaved, God likes to cook things up in a slow cooker. Slow cooked food tastes so much better than microwaved food, and our God is a God of perfection. He then mentioned bible characters such as David and Moses who had to allow God’s process to work in them before getting to the place that God promised them.
After this message, I realized that this race doesn’t need to have an agenda and I don’t need to put a bunch of puzzle pieces together. God has already taken care of that for me. This race isn’t about proving to other people that I made the right choice. Jesus was gently showing me where my opinions and expectations didn’t align with His truth. I can’t bee afraid of failing or falling short at the end of these 11 months. My fears and attempts to make things happen on my own is actually just evidence of a lack of faith in my creator. Ephesians 6 tells me that faith is actually the shield to protect myself from the devil’s fiery darts, so without it I open myself and my race up to atttacks from the enemy. It’s time for me to guard my race with faith, enjoy this process, and stew in the slow cooker for a little while longer. It’s time for me to rest in God’s presence and bask in the fact that He just wants to chill with me. He wants to talk with me daily; and while He may not be giving me any instructions or divine revelations, He is perfecting me with His perfect love and telling me who I am in His eyes. This is what Jesus has sitting in the crockpot: rest, love, joy, and peace. The sooner I accept it and jump on in, the more of this process that I get to enjoy.
