Training camp for the World Race was crazy, challenging, entertaining, encouraging, and educational. Physically we were stretched, hiking 3 miles in 39 minutes with 31 pounds on my back. Spiritually we were broken, and then put together in a more perfect form. Emotionally we were on a roller coaster, feeling every single emotion every single day. Through it all, every single one of the almost 200 racers at that training camp walked through incredible growth.
1. Community is K E Y.
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging on toward love and good deeds”Hebrews 10:24-25
I had stopped looking for a community that would help me grow. I had stopped looking for a community I could openly talk with about God, or my doubts, or my spiritual walk. Training camp reminded me of what community can do. Giving me people I can verbally process my thoughts with. People who encourage me, speak life into me, call me out in feedback, and love me for who I am.
2. Worship – via song – is truly beautiful.
“Praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe” Psalm 150:4
I’m have been a hands in my pocket and maybe sway kind of worshipper. But that does not line up with my personality. My personality is wild, crazy, vibrant, and full of love. So when I would go to sing to the Father, I have only been half worshiping. Not only that, but I stopped seeking and participating in worship outside of Sunday service. There is a certain level of authentic praise that you can only get from ric-shaw campfire worship, using a camp plate as a drum with 58 voices singing loud and proud.
3. God’s word is LIVING.
“All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
I stopped seeing the Bible as a living, breathing love letter from my Savior. It became a book I had to read, and another box to check off of my never ending ToDo list. Training Camp brought me back to the basics, reminding me of the beauty in following the voice of the Lord to a special passage, and reading His written word while listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
4. We can survive on less than we think.
“He told them: ‘take nothing for the journey – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.’” Luke 9:3
In a culture of abundance, I still find myself wanting more. More hours at work, more friends, more insta likes, more time in the day. However, training camp told us to bring only what we needed, only what would fit in two bags. THEN, one night, they took away half of our gear. Right down the middle, half the tents (maybe more because of those married couples…) Half of the sleeping bags, half of the sleeping pads, but twice the fun, three times the cold, and four times the community. That night we opened up to strangers, accepting their generosity because we were in true need of something warm to sleep in. And we made it. Laying on the ground in a sleeping bag liner designed to extend the temperature of a sleeping bag and an ENO hammock, we shivered our way through the night until we ran for 30 minute to warm up the next morning.
5. Be Vulnerable.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecution, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
I have posted to social media as my highlight real, but at some point internalized it as my daily life. So I’ve been stuck in this circle of getting my daily life, and personality to match my social media highlights. When they don’t match, I don’t talk about it often. Struggles don’t make the highlight real, so they slipped out of conversations with my close friends. It’s okay to struggle, and it’s necessary to talk about it. It’s okay to cry in front of others (and not post it on social media). We talked a lot about bringing our shame, struggles, challenges, and fears to the light. Those things grow in the darkness, but once they are brought into the light with a friend and before Christ, freedom is found in abundance.
6. Fruits of the Spirit only come with cultivation.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Galatians 5:22-23
These things don’t just happen. I stopped praying for them, and cultivating them in my own life. But, to be somebody who produces these fruits we have to walk with the Lord in opportunities to bear them. Love those who are hard to love, be patience, walk with joy in the Lord. Knowing that these all come from Him, living in community with Him produces them in abundance.
7. Honor the Sabbath.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” Exodus 20:8
I think this is the most ignored commandment in American culture. I never honor the Sabbath. If I do take time to relax, I’m binge watching Netflix. In no way does this honor the Lord, or help me in my spiritual journey. At training camp we took a Sabbath. It wasn’t even a full day, it was a morning after we got back from a camp out. So basically we took a brunch break without food. But it was SO good for our community. Individually it was restful, and encouraging, as a community it gave us the break from the hectic nature of training camp that we all needed.
So there are 7 lessons I learned at training camp. While I learned a heck of a lot more, and saw God in dozens of ways, I think it’s important to recognize the lessons I learned and how they change my daily life. As I sit in my warm, comfortable bed back in Corvallis I can’t help but smile at the craziness that happened in the last two weeks. I slept in 6 different places, ate crickets – and then got so hungry we ate brownies out of a trashcan… We worshiped something like 16 hours in 5 days, we laughed, we cried, and we formed a bond within the squad. I remember looking around and thinking we were holding a little piece of heaven. But heaven will be much warmer, and have much far fewer tears!
