Month 3 of the World Race looked a little bit different than the other two months that I have spent on the field. Instead of having a set ministry host and ministry, my team was on our own. Well, not really because He was with us. And He was all we had. In the World Race world, it is called ATL Month, Ask The Lord. Every morning we wake up and ask the Lord what He has in store for us for the day. This means doing what He wants us to do, talking to who He wants us to talk to, and go where He wants us to go. It’s daunting. But it is life. This month, more than any other month on the Race gives us the idea of how to truly live an everyday missional life. This is what we will take back to the States. How to get up every day and ask the Lord how He wants us to live for His glory.
I have had many challenges this month. It hasn’t been easy. But boy have I learned some great things! And here they are…
1. Squadmates, supporters, and even yourself will have extremely high expectations of what your ATL month could produce. But those expectations don’t matter, the only thing that matters is that every day you wake up and spend time with the Lord.
This has been extremely hard for me to grasp. I mean how many times in your life do you get to spend a full month just asking God what He wants you to do? You would think that big, huge, and ginormous things would happen. Right? Well, that’s not how God works. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastics 3:11). This month all we could be doing is planting seeds. We might not see the fruit of our labor until we see someone we talked to this month in Heaven. It is cool to think about once the blinders of our expectations are removed. Being perfectly happy with what God does in your life every day is the easiest way to be successful. Success is measured before the work is done, and as long as the goal is in God’s will, it will be met.
2. Your soul is, in fact, a ministry. Your teammates’ souls are also a ministry. Even if you don’t feel like you are making an impact, as long as you are doing what God is calling you to each day you will make an impact.
One of the first days of the month, I woke up and God told me to be still. He told me to be still, I mean really. I am supposed to be sharing the Gospel and telling people about His goodness. And He wants me to be STILL? I hadn’t realized how important it is to make sure that you are full before you pour out to others. If you are empty, then you have nothing to give out. I had poured out so much the month before that I was almost empty. I didn’t know that, but God did. And He wanted to fill me back up. So I was still and the next day I felt so renewed in His love. It was great. Listen to what God is telling you to do. You might be empty and not know it.
During ATL month, my teammate Andy had his birthday. In the days leading up to his birthday and as my other teammates and I planned, God was telling me that my ministry was supposed to be Andy. The day of Andy’s birthday, our Squad Leader, Carson, asked me what I was going to do for the day. I said, “For ministry, I am going to make Andy a cheesecake.” We need to be able to recognize that pouring into specific people can be ministry, even if pouring into them looks like making a cheesecake. You should do it. That is what building community looks like: it’s helping to take care of your brothers and sisters in Christ. They, just like you, are vital to the Kingdom and should be poured into just like the least of God’s people.
3. Being interruptible is something that is important. God will bring you people if you just ask and that will probably happen at the most random times.
On days that I was walking around the towns we were in, I would ask God to bring me people. Sometimes He did and sometimes He didn’t. Typically, He brought them to me when I missed my bus stop and ended up stuck on the bus for another hour. Or in the grocery store. Or in the middle of a conversation. Recognizing that God is giving you an opportunity to minister to people or even just showing them that they are loved is super important on the Race, during ATL, and especially at home.
Josh and I were on a one-on-one, a set time where we could ask each of our teammates how they were doing. We were supposed to be meeting up with the rest of the team for dinner, but they got on the wrong bus, then on another going the opposite direction, then they just got lost. Anyway, what should have been a 15-minute wait on the rest of the team turned into a 90-minute wait. Josh and I had just been talking about how we felt inadequate at evangelizing previously and what do you know? God brought someone to us. A young man approached us asking for money for food. We happily offered to buy him a Subway sandwich and a water. As we walked and waited for the food, Josh tried to minister to him. It was a struggle. He was turned off to the idea that God would provide for him and believed that he was a son of the Devil. As Josh continued to talk to him, all I could do was pray for this guy and for Josh. In the end, we didn’t really make a breakthrough with the guy. But the entire time this was going on, one of the Subway workers was intently listening. This situation of Josh trying to minister to this guy might have just been a seed planted in the mind of this guy or it could have been a seed for the Subway worker. We might not know. Being interruptible in every moment is important work because God usually isn’t going to give you a set time of “this is when you are to minister to people”. Every moment is important and we have to be ready.
4. Discipline is important. You can wake up each morning and not spend time in the Word because you “can just do it later.” But He woke you up; He deserves your time and you need His direction.
Our ATL schedule typically looked a something like this: wake up, morning meeting at 9, pray for direction, and then do that. Seems super easy. But most of the time, God doesn’t tell you exactly what to do. Sometimes He does, but not every day. So what do you do on the days that He doesn’t tell you what to do? Well, I typically just went to a coffee shop (Which is where I am writing this blog from).
The majority of my month was spent in coffee shops all over Bulgaria. One of my main goals was to grow in intimacy with the Lord this month. And that is what I did at coffee shops. I cannot tell you the hours that I spent just sitting, reading, and worshipping the Lord at random coffee shops. It was the mundane, everyday life where I truly grew in intimacy with the Lord.
The vision of the World Race is to empower the Church to build kingdom wherever we go through intimacy, community, and mission. That is our goal throughout the entire World Race, but it is also our goal once we return home. Growing in intimacy means to grow in your relationship with Jesus, in your identity in Christ, in inner healing, in prayer, and in studying the Word and doing it.
Discipline in prayer, reading, and worshipping is important in growing in intimacy. It can be in your room, office, or a random coffee shop in Bulgaria. I challenge you to grow in intimacy with the Lord and grow deeper in your relationship with Him. Growing in intimacy will also grow your confidence in hearing His direction for your life.
5. You will be tempted to compare your ATL month to other months on the Race. Don’t. That’s not what it is most like. Compare it to your everyday life back home. That is what it will be most like.
This was the hardest thing ever. Months 1 and 2 were packed full of ministry and community. I expected to have the same feeling of doing something every day and seeing the impact of what I was putting in. Yet, this month I didn’t. It’s important to remember that sometimes the work you are doing is just preparing the field; preparing the field for planting or for harvesting. This month didn’t feel like a “normal” World Race month because it wasn’t supposed to. ATL is supposed to mimic how life will be like once you return home from the Race. It is supposed to be about seeing just how Jesus can work in the ordinary. And how He loves to work in the mundane. And realizing once you get home, how He can work in the everyday.
6. Who you are becoming is sometimes more important than what you are doing.
This kind of ties in with all the other things that I have already talked about. This month more than other months, I have learned about personal growth. I read this quote one day on Instagram and it perfectly describes what God was teaching me this month. He wants me. The true version of me. I have learned about all of the walls I have put up to protect myself, which have altered who God has made me to be. I think that so many of us are hiding behind walls because of things that have happened to us. These events have lead us to believe that we HAVE to hide ourselves. All of these things are just causing us to shrink back, to hide, from stepping into who we are truly meant to be.
What if, for one day, we actually believe God loves the heck out of who He made us to be and we stop hiding. What would happen? Would we start loving ourselves just as much as He loves us? How would we treat others around us that our walls previously protected us from? The Bible says to love your neighbor AS yourself. Not less than yourself. And certainly not greater than yourself. So, do you know what that means? It means you better love yourself well if you hope to love others the way Jesus loves them. Fix yourself first. You can’t pour love out of an empty cup. Turn to the Lord to fill your cup. And then go give it away.
As always, I invite you to make my journey, your journey. Here are three simple ways:
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Also, if you are feeling called to support the World Race in a financial way, a couple of my teammates are still in need of help. Click on their names below if you would like to know more about them!
