So I wanted to catch you all up on what I’ve been walking through the past couple months, and of course that’s turned into kind of a long blog, hence why it will be coming to you in two parts. It’s about how I’ve been learning what it’s like to really believe in what the Lord says, and to really trust Him to be faithful in those things. It’s about how I’ve learned to believe Him for the promises He gives us, but to ultimately trust in Him and walk forward in faith, even if what He asks me to do doesn’t make sense or even seems like it could take me in the opposite direction of where I want to go with Him.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” proverbs 16:9
As many of you are aware of the past month in Cambodia was an interesting one for me on a personal level. Some of you might not know that, that was because I almost came home… and not because I didn’t have support (though that was in question at one point also) but because I felt as if coming home was something I was being called to do.
Way back in Philippines the Lord started speaking to me a lot about dreams, specifically dreams He was giving me, and even more than that specifically about dreams regarding home. Some of these had to do with the relationships I have there and what’s to come with those, and then a lot of it also had to do with ministries and people I haven’t met yet but that I can’t wait to now. In the midst of all that one of my squad mates and I had decided to read an allegory called “The Dream Giver”. It played a large role with all these thoughts and prayers I had going on about dreams, hopes, and desires and the Lord used it a ton to inspire and speak to me.
On our way out of the Philippines I grabbed a book from one of the bookshelves at the YMC where we had been staying (they had a leave one, take one policy that I took full advantage of and got myself a couple new books to read). The book I had wanted to find was “My Utmost for His Highest,” but I couldn’t find it, so I ended up grabbing “The Alchemist” because the subtitle read “a fable about following your dreams”. With all the dream stuff going on in my mind and heart it seemed like a good fit. It was.
The book follows this guy on his journey to find his treasure and follow his dream. It’s got a lot of cool ideas in it and some good chunks of scriptural references, but its pretty “new agey” so you kind of have to read it with a filter, just like anything else I suppose. But there was definitely a lot in it that continued to inspire me with all these dreams and what not. And then low and behold at the end of the book (sorry I’m about to ruin the ending for you all), after going to all these places in search of his treasure and following his dream, the main character discovers that his treasure has been at home all along, but that he never would have found it had he not gone on the journey.
So as all of this stuff about home kept coming up, I started thinking about home more and more and about all that the Lord had laid on my heart back in the Philippines. And at that time with our final support deadline coming up I found it hard to write a blog about wanting to stay, when my heart was being so pulled towards home. This wasn’t just me being homesick, let’s be honest I’ve been homesick the whole race, it was more than that. This was a time when I wasn’t just missing home, but was being filled with desires for it and everyone there.
But reality was that I was half way across the world on a trip that’s supposed to last 11 months, and we were in the middle of a pretty big time of support raising, having a lot of talks as a squad of “fighting to stay” and praying that no one would have to go home early. Going home early became this almost dreaded thing to me as all the talk about it was “pray against that” and “we don’t want anyone to have to go through that”, “no ones supposed to do that”. I started to think of going home early as a failure of sorts, and thought that if I had to do that, that I would be wrecked and not know what to do. I loved everything that the Lord was speaking to me about home, but at the moment I was “Rachel the world racer who was going to 11 countries in 11 months” and at thoughts of that not being true I began to almost feel an identity crisis. It scared me.
The thoughts of home never relented though, and every time I would spend time just praying and talking to the Lord I kept hearing more and more about these things He was speaking and promising about home. In the midst of all my fears of “what if I have to or am supposed go home early” He reminded me that I am not a “world racer”, I’m just His daughter, following Him no matter where He leads. So I started to consider seriously that He might be literally telling me to go home. That was still a hard thing to really trust and believe because I was still in an environment of people who were fighting for me to stay and who I was encouraging to stay too. So after about 2 weeks of going back and forth with this, doubt kind of won out and I decided it was best to just put a blog out there about support, try to raise the rest and see what the Lord did. I basically decided that the amount of support that He brought in was how He would tell me for sure whether I was supposed to be here or not. So I woke up one morning and made a video that I was going to post that night about all the support I had left to raise.
Then an onslaught of words from the Lord started coming. After I made the video I laid down to rest and to listen to a sermon from a series I had been listening to about Kingdom Identity. In it the pastor kept speaking about trusting in the promises God makes you and walking forward in faith. More than once during the sermon he spoke directly to thoughts and fears I had in regards to home. Later that night we had a bible study with just our team. One of my teammates asked to lead it because she had the topic laid on her heart for us. That topic was freedom. We read through Galatians 5 and some in different chapters of Romans; again and again we read about the freedom that Christ gives us, and how that freedom is personal and can look different for each of us. I knew that the Lord was asking me to step into that freedom, letting go of the identity I’d created for myself in regards to the world race, and to just trust Him with all the things He’d spoken to me about home. I felt as if He were saying, “why are you waiting to see what I have to say about going home, when I’ve already spoken to you… step out in faith” So I decided that I wasn’t going to raise anymore support and that I was going to go home.
…to be continued.
