This past month has been one of reflection in my life. A new year has started, and with it came changes on the race. I am living life with a new team, with a new ministry, and in a new country (okay, that’s becoming fairly normal now). Things are different this month, and that’s a good thing, because through it God is teaching me more and more about the person He wants me to become.
One of the things the Lord has spoken to me about this month is self-control.
I often struggled coming home each year from Morocco, and finding people more and more entrenched in Facebook, Netflix, sports games, their smartphones, etc. Sure, I wasn’t living in a hut during my four years in Morocco. I had access to the Internet (usually) and occasionally downloaded movies or tv shows (always legally of course). I definitely spent more time scrolling Facebook than I needed to! But much of my time in Morocco was spent living! I was living in one of the most gorgeous countries (go there if you haven’t) in the world. The ocean was a 20 minute run from my apartment. There were friends to meet up with and lessons to plan (yes, I LOVE planning ridiculously fun lessons for my students). Have a long weekend? Why not travel and explore some of God’s amazing creation, meet people from another culture?
On the race, we have a lot of downtime. Months like Nepal are difficult. It gets dark at 6 PM and with the dark comes the COLD. Even in the daytime, if it’s dreary, we’d love to stay cuddled in our sleeping bags when we don’t have ministry. And what’s the easiest thing to do? Put on a movie. Scroll through Facebook (although this is somewhat limited due to frequent power outages). Binge eat chocolate and buy a honey latte from Himalayan Java (Nepal’s version of Starbucks).
This month, the Lord has been teaching me a lot about bringing Kingdom to earth, and why self-control is so necessary for that to happen. In Jesus’s ministry on earth, He did not lay around in his bed when it was cold. The Bible doesn’t talk about Him binge eating really good, comforting food when He was having a bad day. That’s because He didn’t! Don’t get me wrong though; Jesus knew how to have a good time. Heck, He turned water into wine and walked on water! He just did all of this WHILE bringing Kingdom to earth.
Jesus tells us to pick up our cross and follow Him. Carrying a cross doesn’t sound a whole lot like binge watching movies and posting the best Instagrams everyday to me. Instead, I think there are times when we need to check ourselves. On the race we are working with people living in poverty- all they know is life in the third world. And yet, we come in and work with them, and once ministry is over for the day, we go to the nearest Himalayan Java where we order a drink that costs more than a week’s worth of their entire income or sit back on our device that they will never know how to work.
As not only World Racers, but as Christians, dedicated to bringing Kingdom wherever we go, I believe God is asking more of us. I don’t think it’s a horrible thing to have some good coffee or buy that chocolate bar you’ve been craving. And I am all for a good movie once in a while! But as the new year has started, I want to challenge myself, fellow racers, and Christians around the world, to remember Jesus’s command to the disciples in Mark 6. He tells them to go out, preaching the gospel. And these were His instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt.” I think this can apply to so many areas, from Facebook to the indulgences we get on our off days. We don’t need ANY of these things to share the joy the Lord has given us with those around us.
So let’s live out this journey He has set for us! I know that at the end of 2016 I want some awesome stories of how He has used me to bring Kingdom, both on the race and after, and I know I’m not going to make those stories sitting on my computer or iPad all day. After all, as Bob Goff says, love does.
