When we think of Israel we often place Jerusalem and Bethlehem on equal footing and most people, if they were ever fortunate enough to visit, would want to make stops at both locations. However at the time of Jesus’ birth that would have floored the Israelites. Bethlehem!? Nothing good ever comes out of Bethlehem. We see that astonishment reflected all the way through the ministry of Jesus as people are either mocking his Galilean fishers of men or standing with mouths agape thinking isn’t this Joseph the carpenter’s son?
God delights in blowing our minds from time to time. He likes to shake things up and use the foolish things of our world to confound the wise. He picks fishermen when we would pick the highly educated or Bethlehem when Jerusalem is so much more regal. His value system is upside down as well. We value independence, strength and power. God values a team player with humility, a strong character and the wisdom to rely on him for power. And, in the long run, his way always works better than ours.
Lately I have been doing a lot of reflecting as I read through the blogs of some of my potential team mates and consider their stories, struggles and triumphs. They truly are an amazing group of people and many of them already have a lot of experience in the things that we will be doing on the race. Clearly these people are asset to the team but it makes me feel a bit like a Galilean fisher of men.
Sure, God has taken me through my own struggles and I’ve learned a great deal but perhaps someone else would be better suited for this position than I am. For one thing I am not a seasoned traveler. I’m feeling overwhelmed trying to figure out flights to training camp and I only have to fly to Georgia. I can quite literally count the number of times I have been beyond Kamloops on one hand and still have fingers left over. I have been out of the country only once; out of province 3 times. I’ve never even seen the provincial capital or been beyond the Vancouver airport. I was born and raised in Quesnel.
People from Quesnel don’t do things like this. Pick up a copy of the Quesnel Cariboo Observer our achievements are modest at best. Think about it folks, who hasn’t been in the paper at some point in time? Were you shaking up the world and influencing global change? The thing is when you come from a place like Quesnel or Bethlehem the people are modest. Everyone laughs at the thought that someone from their town could make an impact on the world. It just doesn’t happen.
But we’re selling ourselves short when we do that. Each week in our church we pass around a little woven basket and everyone tosses their loose change into it. I’ve seen it go by every Sunday since I started going to Lakeview Church at 5-6 years old. And every single week our pastor or the person taking the offering reminds us that our loose change adds up and makes an enormous impact on the world around us. It’s a humble offering, just pocket change, but it is making impact globally.
The World Race is a little crazy I must admit. The participants are rookies. We’re between the ages of 21 and 35 with limited life experience. Reality hasn’t quite set in for us yet; we’ve still got stars in our eyes and flushed cheeks. We are the dreamers; the truth is we’re probably getting ourselves into more than we’re bargaining for. But OH what a dream!
Dreams, even crazy ones about changing the world with the love of Christ, are not impossible. However it has come to my attention that dreams don’t become realities without action. We, the Jan 2011 World Race squad have taken action. We are God’s pocket change and we are eager and willing to be spent however he sees fit.
Is this a little crazy? Yup, totally. Foolish? I’m taking a year away from school to do this so, yeah, possibly. Will God honour this crazy commitment? I firmly believe that he will because when it comes right down to it God likes faith and Jesus was born in Bethlehem…
