So as Emily, Nicole, and I were heading home from grocery shopping we thought about all the things we and our squadmates have done so far that would be “patch-worthy” in the Girl Scout sense of the word. Patches might include silly things like “Beheading a Chicken”, “Sleeping in a Tent Even When You Have a Nice Cozy Bed”, “First Twenty Hour Busride”, “Wearing the Same Undawears for Multiple Days”, “Washing Out Your Nalgene”, “ and “Getting Through an Entire Month Without Diarrhea”(fairly certain no one has ever or will ever deserve this particular one…). More serious achievements would include “Yelling Things to Jesus in Public”, “Actually Writing Eight Blogs in a Month”, “Having Relevant and Insightful Feedback for Your Entire Team” and “First Time You Feedback Someone at Home via Skype”. If you have been keeping up with my blogs then you will know that some of these things have happened already and if you’ve read previous Racer blogs you know the rest will happen to me at some point.
But lets think about this, Girl Scouts is a works based system during which if you perform to certain standards you get little patches and at the end of the year you get to go to the big camp out and make smores…sounds like a pretty good deal, no? Unless you stink at selling Girl Scout cookies, or sewing, or whatever else it is that Girl Scouts do, then you don’t get the patches, and will probably give up and not make it to the end, because who wants to fight for something they don’t think they are good enough for? I think that this is how much of the world sees us as Christians, trying really hard to store up good deeds so at the end we get to go to heaven, while the rest of people don’t want to expend that much energy on something they know they will fail at. Some of you might be thinking that this is kind of a stretch and maybe it is, but a huge lesson the Lord is teaching me right now is that its not about what I do, what I’ve done, or even what I will do…its about Him. I can’t do or not do anything that will make me deserving of the grace, mercy, love, comfort, protection, and servitude that the Lord pours over me. I’m working on learning how to rest in that, not constantly being busy trying to serve the Lord, but allowing the Lord to serve me. Not constantly trying to make myself better, but spending time simply sitting in the presence of the Lord, listening to Him as I would anyone else I wanted to have a real relationship with. So today I challenge all of you to take a break, pour yourself a cup of coffee and have a date with the Lord, promise it will be worth it!
The World Race isn’t like Girl Scouts (thank goodness…who really wants to wear those vests?), and its not about proving that we are better than anyone else. This journey is about finding God in all that we are, and all that we do.
I’d love to hear about your God dates, so comment it up!
Lindsey
P.S. We are heading to Africa tomorrow, nbd. More info to come, but for now here is a sweet vid.
