I have learned that The World Race is definitely a mission trip where participants can serve the world and bring Christ to the nations, but it is also a time where you and God can have a relationship like never before. This past month my team has been in Valga, Estonia, opening and running a little coffee/tea cafe. Which in reality is just a place for people to come hang out and practice their English. The cafe has been so much fun. We get to meet different people and invest in their lives, but this month has been a time where I have invested in God and gotten to know him more as well. While getting to know God more and more he invests in me right back. He is showing and revealing in me the areas of my life where He wants to come in. One thought God keeps putting into my head is to “Stop being a Martha.” Which for me is easier said than done. In the Bible story of Martha and Mary, Martha is busy cooking and serving while Mary is at Jesus’s feet just being with Him. And Jesus says to Martha, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” I do not think that serving is bad, I think God calls us to service and wants us to love others in that way, because even the Son of Man came to serve. But its when service becomes our identity and we serve because we think we have to please Jesus or others.
For me and for Martha it’s when we let service come before spending time with Jesus. I know that God has given me a heart of service and that service is a big way that I show love, but this month God showed me that sometimes I let service stand in the way of just begin with Him. I can fill my mind with what needs to be done what I should be doing instead of just sitting in God’s presence and soaking Him in. We get mornings in our apartment to really have quiet time and time to ourselves. I have found it so easy to just neglect spending meaningful time with God and go find dishes that need to be washed or plan something that needs to be scheduled. All the while God is saying, “Lauren Lauren you are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is necessary… Me!” God wants me to come back to Him and his sweet presence. Before I am a server before I am to serve God I am first his daughter. And as his daughter he wants me to spend time with Him as my Daddy!! To really live in His presence, and how we do that is change our mind about living life and take a Mary attitude. That it’s not being busy with service but to soak God up in everything I do. And the cool thing is that I can worship in his presence and be in his presence while I serve. Service can be an act of worship. But first I must have my heart right, my identity and who I am comes from Christ and who I am in Him, not how I serve. Now its learning how my every moment is spent in his presence and seeking him even in the simplest. That God wants me to wash dishes WITH Him not just for Him.
