The past 6 months of my life and my walk of faith has been absolutely crazy. Allow me to tell you about it.
My name is Nathan Chandler and I am more excited than I ever have been about anything in my life that God has called me to the World Race, Gap Year. I am not here by accident; I believe this is exactly what He wants from me for nine months beginning in September, and I’m saying “yes” to Him.
My entire life I have grown up in the church, in a Christian household, grown up learning about God and Jesus and all of the things that come with being a Christian. The thing though is that most of my middle and high school years I have just been going through the motions and checking the box. I gave my life to Christ and accepted his gift of salvation at a young age, but I was never really following Jesus, I just stated that I believed in him. For a long time there was never a change of heart in me that takes place in true followers of Christ.
About the end of the school year last year, I saw some heart changes in some friends of mine and wondered why that wasn’t happening with me. Well, it’s because I had a worldly desire for things and objects that seemed to promise satisfaction and happiness, so I chased those things. All along I kept up the image of a “good” Christian, but I was living a lie. The more I chased after the worldly things in life, the further away from God I grew. To get to the point, I chose to turn my back on God and I ran from him, I chased after things I thought I could find fulfillment in and acceptance by people. I found out, however, that all those things have nothing to offer but emptiness. I was in a place of brokenness and guilt; I was weak and lost and that is where I found God, and it was in that moment of my life when I knew how much God really loved me and how much I needed him.
The craziest thing about all of that is that God kept pursuing me when I had no desire for him, when I wanted to do my own thing and run from what I believed in. What’s even crazier is that I am forgiven and born again and alive in the fact that get to live for him now and walk with him for all eternity. In all of this, I have been exploring what it means to really follow after Christ and surrender to him. In walking through that, I felt God calling me to the World Race. Lately, in reading and finding out more about God and what it means to actually follow him and how he calls us as followers to spread his word throughout the world, I have found this urgency to tell people about him and the love that he has for everyone. So that is what taking part in the World Race is for me: it’s an opportunity to spread his word to the corners of the earth and be shown in the process how incredible is love his for me and for others.
When I first began this process of going on the World Race I was often asked why I was doing it. To be honest, other than saying I felt called by God to go, I didn’t have much else to say until I came upon Acts, chapter 20. In verses 22-24 it says “And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don’t know what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus, the work of telling others the good news about the wonderful grace of God.” I love that because it reminds me of what it means to really follow Jesus.
So that is why I am joining World Race, and I couldn’t be more excited to be going for 9 months to 3 different countries: Costa Rica, Cambodia, and Swaziland! And I have a lot of work and preparation to do to get there. Throughout this whole process I will be fundraising to a goal of $16,600. That’s quite a lot, but not in God’s economy; I trust he will provide. Please follow this blog if you want to keep up with what I will be doing next year and all the stories that I will be sharing and all the incredible things that God has in store for me and my team.
There’s gonna be some hard stuff about World Race; I know this. The hardest thing might be writing blogs. I’m not so much a writer; I’m a thinker, a talker, and a dreamer, but God has done some big things in my life lately, so if the best way to share that with people is to type it out, then that is what I’ll be doing.
I know God has things that I can’t even imagine coming my way next year. The next year of my life is going to show and teach me what it’s like to deny myself and follow Christ; to be honest, that is what I cannot wait to see. I can’t wait to see the work that God is going to do in me and the work that he will do through me using the gifts he’s given me to reach others.
So I hope my story, where I’ve come from and where I’m going, encourages you to seek God with all your heart as well. What is he calling you to next? Where can you say ‘yes’ to him?
~ Nathan
