Did I come to the World Race to serve myself?
I’ve been dreaming about traveling the world since I was 11 years old or younger. So this whole adventure called the World Race has been a dream come true, even though it’s not exactly the dream I had in mind. My dream was to dance with gypsy kids in Europe, visit churches in Asia and hold babies in Africa, but above all share the gospel with the people every second in every country. To my surprise so far it hasn’t been what I wanted.
Two months ago, I found myself craving a ministry with more contact with people. I wanted to share the gospel. I was feeling that what I was doing wasn’t worth it. I was wasting time and money. I was on the other side of the world doing a job I could have done in my own town for a lot less. One day in our last month, part of our ministry was being at a conference held in the church. The first day of the conference a teammate got really sick, she couldn’t stay at the conference. The pastor offered for her to go and rest at his house and I agreed to go with her. In the end we ended up staying the whole night at his house. The next morning I was ready to go back to the conference and also I wanted to participate in the prayer they were going to have in the afternoon. They were going to give food to different families and pray for them. I was ready for this. Finally I was going to have the opportunity to do what I really wanted to do.
I was so excited, and tired of doing nothing in the house that when the pastor asked, “girls do you want to go back to the conference or do you want to stay and rest?” My heart was screaming, “take me back to the conference!” but my friend wasn’t feeling well yet. She was still weak and she need it time to rest. My heart fell, I had to stay with her. I don’t have to tell you how jealous I was when I heard all the testimonies of the things that happened in the conference. My heart was frustrated and hungry for something like that.
Then at the end of the month we had a nice debrief in a beautiful city in Romania called Brasov. That was a time to rest, process, grow and be ready for our next ministry. At the end of that week a group of people including one of my teammates need it to go to the capital to deal with their Indian visas. That group was going to stay in the capital meanwhile the rest of the team was going straight to ministry. My teammate need it someone to stay with her and then travel to our ministry site, and who do you think was the one for that task? Yep… Me. Again I saw myself in a place I didn’t want to be. There God showed me my heart, I was being so selfish, I was mad because I wasn’t serving in the way I wanted. I wanted to serve the strangers on the streets rather than my brothers and sisters.
So God has brought me to a hard and good place. A place where I have to check every thought, every intention of my heart before I act. In the book To Live is Christ and to Die is Gain, the author explains what Paul meant when he says “Live a life worthy of the gospel”. Which means putting your desires and your own concern aside, and putting the needs of others before yours.
I know very well that I’m not there yet, and I know it’s going to take me a while to get there. So I pray (and you can help me too) that God keeps showing me and helping me to live a life serving others, putting their needs and desires before my needs and desires, and knowing that my purpose in this life is to live a life worthy of the gospel and not a life serving myself.
