Last December of 2005, I returned from three months of working in Mexico. My grandma unexpectedly passed away not long after I got home. We had to quickly fly to Montreal for the funeral. I never really had a chance to unpack from Mexico. I came home from Canada and decided to just stay packed. I was leaving for the World Race in a few short days. Those three weeks at “home” were a complete whirlwind.
People were constantly asking me what I was doing next. I had no answers for them. All I knew was that I had a one-way ticket back to Mexico for January 6. I didn’t know what I needed to bring. I didn’t know how long I would be gone. I didn’t even know if anyone would be at the airport to pick me up when I got there.
The Sunday before I left, I was scheduled to speak at church to let everyone know where I was heading to next. On the way to church, I was reading
My Utmost For His Highest. The devotion for that day was entitled “Will You Go Out Without Knowing?” I almost cried as I read it. The Bible verse that accompanied it was “He went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).
I decided that I would just read this devotion to my church because it expressed exactly what I wanted to say. I stood before the congregation, read the devotion, and told them that I had no idea what I was stepping into. I just knew that I had to go. That day after church, at least five people walked up to me and handed me checks. They thanked me for being so willing to follow God.
Was I prepared? Not at all. But how prepared was Abraham when he “went out without knowing where he was going?” As I’m getting ready for the
World Race 2007, I’m not sure that I’m much more prepared than I was at this time last year. I am not taking emergency trips to Canada, and I at least know what countries I’m headed to. But being prepared? I don’t know if I will ever be.
Am I prepared to have my heart broken month after month for God’s children all over the world? Am I willing to give it all up and lay it all down again? Am I prepared for more tearful good-byes? Am I prepared for a possible new calling or new season in my life? Am I prepared to live this crazy “what-are-you-thinking” lifestyle that some only dream about? Am I prepared to step into the unknown yet again?
That same devotion I read the Sunday morning before I left, said this:
“One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, ‘What do you expect to do?’ You don’t know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing.”
In knowing this one, single truth; I am ready for what is to come.
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.” Hebrews 11:8-9
