Pardon me for this
being nothing profound about the work that we’re doing here. I apologize again for not quite filling you
all in yet. I know that my other
teammates are doing a phenomenal job of that.
However, I think I’m presenting a different perspective of the world
race that, well, I just felt like showing you.
This is me rambling. This is my ‘reflection’
on the past week. So bear with me and if
you don’t like it… um… okay.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have my heart and my eyes
opened to a lot in the last week. I wish
that I was capable of presenting to you this incredible reflection, one that
brings a lot of life, one that makes you think, and one that challenges who you
are to the core of your being.
But I’m not ready.
I thought that I would be okay. I thought that I would be able to write
without there being any pressure whatsoever.
I lied to myself. My mind isn’t
as great as I thought it was and I’m incapable of fooling myself into being in
a state of mind that I’m not.
The last few days have served me a giant helping of
intimidation. Unfortunately, the
intimidation has come in the form of responsibility to this community in Peru,
to the anointing that God has laid over us, to the things that the Lord is
teaching, pressing on our hearts, and instructing us to do. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ready and then I remember
that I never will be.
I wasn’t ready for this trip, so how can I ever be ready for
the Lord’s work? I think if I had been
ready for this, I really wouldn’t have been ready for it in the first
place. The fact that I was more or less
caught off guard departing freed the Lord up to do His work in and through my
life. I say I wasn’t ready because,
well, I brought a lot of garbage along with me on this race. And while I would love to say that it’s too
much luggage, I can say that it isn’t that.
I brought a lot of emotional baggage with me here.
Thank God for redemption.
The Lord’s peeling away these layers and allowing me the
freedom to move here. I’m starting to
find my pace although it’s been a challenge to find my place on this team. I feel like in a lot of ways we’re all still
searching, we’re all still trying to find our groove with each other, let alone
ourselves. This has proven itself in the
lack of confidence we all face but we all deny in an attempt to appear stronger
than what we really are. And I say all
of us, but some of my squad understand humility better than me and can admit
their insecurities better than myself.
So we have a lot of hurdles to overcome. We’re just a rag-tag bunch of 20-somethings
(or older) trying to figure this Jesus character out, trying to figure out how
to be more like him, trying to understand what it really means to follow
him. And it’s not that all of our
friends and family back home have it all wrong – it’s that we just don’t know
how to find the Jesus in us while living there.
At least this is true for me.
And now I continue. I
continue to minister to these people that have something I don’t, yet I still
have something they need. I would say
that they need Jesus, but I think that basis is covered. They need to understand how tangible God is
through Him meeting their needs through us.
What a responsibility we have!
This is no different back home… we all had the same responsibility
there.
It’s fun to watch God equip us. My only regret: not knowing my teammates
better before we leave a little over a week ago. I usually say I live a life of no regrets,
but I’m only lying if I do. But the
transformation that’s going to occur in their lives, well, I’m missing out on
some of it. I don’t know exactly who all
of these people were before. I know who
they are now. I know who they’re
becoming. And praise the Lord that I’ll
be able to see them at the end for who they are then.
It amazes me at how our environment shapes us. My wise friend read to me this morning from Ravenhill that we can see ourselves
three ways: who others say we are, who we say we are, or who God says we
are. I think we all desire to be who God
says we are, but there’s the temptation to be something else. I, personally, put too much stock in what
others think. Unfortunately, I’ve found
that others put too much stock in what I think.
And I’m my own worst critic, so why shouldn’t I become what God desires
of me?
And so we journey on – a ragamuffin bunch of vagabonds
traversing the globe in an attempt to find our home in who we are in
Christ. The funny part is: we know who
we are, so why are we afraid to live it?
