I’m really having trouble writing a blog about my training camp experience for the World Race. As a relatively seasoned blogger, I felt like it would be an easy task – things happened, I write about them in a way that compels you to read it, using a clever title and creative metaphors about spaceships and tuna melts and paisley suspenders.
But it’s not coming easily, and I’m not having fun writing like I’m used to, and I’m frustrated about my inability to express to you what exactly happened. I’ve never experienced some of the conversations, some of the emotions, some of the feelings of peace and confidence and conviction that ran through my veins this past week, and trying to match up words with them for the first time is like being a chef attempting to pair up unfamiliar foreign entrees with their respective appetizer – I’ve never seen any of these things before, so maybe that chicken item is supposed to go with the potato dish, or possibly with the olive salad-looking concoction. I don’t have the benefit of experience to tell me what the proper combinations are, so I’m making it up as I go and hoping it makes sense to my customers.
This might be the time for me to swallow some of my snooty writer’s pride and just list for you the things that happened to me, because maybe the picture of their occurrence in your mind’s eye will communicate better to you the weight of their significance better than any five-dollar adjective could.
This past week, I saw an ankle that should have been broken walked on after half an hour. I witnessed eleven young men surrounded by forty young women and focus not on their outward beauty and potential dateableness, but rather their captivating spirit of power and their uniqueness and value in the kingdom of God. I heard a brand new family of fifty members shout out in declaration that the enemy would not prevail over our mission or the places and people that were going to serve. I felt the call of leadership pursue me through my fear, through my shirking of responsibility, through my attempts to hide in claims of not really being qualified to lead. I felt the love of Christ for me in spite of the clutching symptoms of inadequacy and unworthiness that clawed at my spirit.
These things and more happened, and through the fire I have emerged, with a new family, as something pretty close to ready for whatever the world has to throw at me. I think that the reason we need to respond to callings that are hard and seem to poorly match our strengths is so that we cannot help but say “I cannot do this,” because when we admit that we cannot, we accept that Christ can.
Just a little story: on Friday, each team was given the day to listen to what it was the Lord was calling them to accomplish on that day, and then go out and do it. I was intimidated because not only do I really dislike talking to strangers and “forcing” myself into situations where I don’t feel welcome, personal evangelism has never been something I’ve practiced a ton. I had always taken “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words” to mean “You don’t have to actually talk about Jesus if you’re just nice to people.”
I expressed this fear to my team and asked for their grace, and Elizabeth said something to me that may be somewhat cliché in the Christian world but was completely unfamiliar to me: “God does not call the equipped,” she told me. “He equips the called.” And in that moment, I knew that my suppositions that I wasn’t good enough for service in the Kingdom of God were false, lies told by the enemy to promote complacency and a “someone else will do it” attitude. I bring myself; God gives the supplies.
So here I am, on the other side of a commission to serve, and I know that my ministry doesn’t begin in September when I embark on an international flight to the Ukraine. It begins now. Ask me about it; join me in it.
I’ll post a blog with some prayer requests soon. Thank you to everyone reading, and May God Bless You Richly!
Peter
