I’ve been home for 3 weeks and in addition to beach volleyball, riding my beach cruiser, a Dodger game, nights at the movies, and countless meals to catch up and celebrate with friends, thankfully I’ve also been blessed with time to reflect on the last 11 months and a crazy experience they call the World Race.
Let’s go back to the beginning…
Did I want to go? No
Did the idea of quitting my job scare me? Yes
Was I worried about losing myself? Heck yes!
And of course, the questions that couldn’t be answered:
Would I come back unrecognizable to my friends and family?
Would I be losing all I knew?
But that’s what God was asking.
That is what He asks of us.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8:35
I had to be willing to lose my life in order to save it and in my willingness to give my life to God and to the gospel, I discovered a new life.
Am I changed? Well, not really.
Technically I’m still the same Nicole I was 11 months ago.
The same Nicole God created me to be but with internal walls crumbled and gifts discovered and drawn out.
But a sinner I am still.
God asked me to go on the World Race not so I could achieve some permanent mountain top position in my relationship with Him, but so He could continue refining me in my walk with Him.
Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time. Daniel 11:35
In the last 11 months I was humbled in ways I never expected.
Stripped of all forms of worldly identity, forced to swallow my pride daily.
I became very familiar with my sinfulness.
But in the depths of self-disgust is where I discovered a rich understanding of His amazing love and His glorious grace.
It is an amazing feeling to “get it”. Do you know what I mean? You know, some people just “get it”. Well I thank God daily, that when it comes to Him I “get it”. And now that my eyes have been opened wider than ever before, I wonder with excitement how much wider they can and will open. How much more deeply I will understand Him.
Paul David Tripp in his book, Instruments in the Redeemers Hands, describes perfectly how I’m feeling post-race.
I’ve experienced TRUTH in a way that destroyed my old ways of thinking about myself, relationships, circumstances, suffering, and God. The race, dedicating 11 months of my life to full time ministry, gave me a whole new way of making sense out of life – a worldview in which God is central where unseen things are of the highest value and where eternity is what makes sense in the present moment.
Back in the US I’m not assigned to a “ministry” but I’ve learned that our life ministry, our personal ministry, is not just confronting people with principles, theology, or solutions but to confront people with the God who is active and glorious in His grace and truth, and who has a rightful claim to our lives.
We are to share TRUTH that is more than just a set of principles to live by, it is redemption from the power of sin and the progressive eradication of sin from our lives by our Redeemer.
There’s no place I’d rather be,
There’s no place I’d rather be,
There’s no place I’d rather be,
Than here in Your love, here in Your love.
Set a fire down in my soul,
That I can’t contain,
That I can’t control,
I want more of you God,
I want more of you God.
I questioned if words could adequately convey how God has gripped my heart but Will Reagan’s song does a pretty good job. No matter where I am, or where God takes me in this next season of my life, I feel utter contentment and peace with being right here in God’s love and having a fire in my soul for endless amounts of God and His love.
