As I sit here 44 days from launch, I think to myself, brokenness can’t come soon enough.
There was a day a few months ago that shifted the trajectory of my life, and I have been wrecked ever since.
What would you do if you were sitting in your office one day and God told you that you need to abandon everything and go be a missionary overseas? Well, for me, this became a reality about 2 months ago and that is exactly what He told me I needed to do. I remember sitting in the Atlanta Financial Center that day and hearing God tell me “Ryan, you need to be broken in order for you to experience my fullness.”
The one thing I needed when I first signed up for the race, and ultimately the reason I chose to sign up, was to experience complete brokenness and dependence on the Lord. Of all the reasons you could come up with in your head as to why somebody in their right mind would leave an awesome job with a very nice income to travel around the world and live out of a backpack, brokenness would probably be last on the list. With that said, I want to take some time to be completely open and honest with the areas I need to be broken in so that I can experience God’s fullness.
Let’s start with myself.
This one takes a hard look in the mirror, but to be completely honest, I need to be broken of myself. Day by day goes by where I try and put off this image that I have it all together. There is this false self that shows everyone from the outside that I am doing just fine, but if people peeled back the layers and really saw what was going on in the inside, I believe everyone would find what I have, and that is what is wrong and incomplete, is in fact me. Over the next year, I want to strip away this false self, and begin to discover my true self. I am praying that God would show me these areas where I am in fact incomplete so he can be made more complete in me.
The next area I need to be broken in is sin.
This is a tough one because it is something I have struggled with my entire life. Sin has left many scars in my life, but I stand here today knowing that I am not a slave of my past and I am a new creation. I know that unpacking all the baggage that sin has left in my life is going to be painful and a journey like this will only illuminate those areas of struggle, but I am choosing to run straight into this pain because I know there is freedom on the other side.
The final area I need to be broken in, and probably the most important, is American Culture.
I’ll just call it what it is- we live the most comfortable lives of anybody in the world. We do everything in our power to avoid brokenness and our culture tells us that the more wealth, security, and comfort we build up, the happier we will be. I have come to realize in my own life that this couldn’t be further from the truth. I find that the more things I have in my life that bring me comfort- financial security, a country club membership, a nice income etc- the unhappier I seem to be.
For the last 6 years, I have made a living helping people build this financial security that I am talking about. I work with people every day who have millions of dollars stocked away in mutual funds and IRA’s. With our view of “happy” these should be the happiest people in the world right? Why isn’t this the case?
I think one of the answers is that our pride strips us of this happiness. Every time I have been on a short term mission trip I am made aware of what proud people we are in the United States. A year ago to the day, I was in El Salvador and heard a pastor ask some questions that really make you think. What does the way you live say about your life? How often do you wake up and thank God throughout the day for His endless love, for bringing you to life, for His amazing grace and for everything he has done for you? When you live a life of gratitude you live and act differently. The people there do not have much materially but are the most joyful and gracious people you will ever be around. We live in the richest area of the world and yet we still struggle in this area and are very prideful. There has got to be something to that and I am ready to find out. I long for a humble heart and a grateful attitude. Given tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate challenge.
Ultimately, I know the path that leads to a life of complete surrender must travel through abandonment and brokenness first. I am here today ready to abandon everything for the sake of knowing Jesus more and making him more known. I am letting go of my control, my lifestyle, my rights, my comfort, and my pride. Everything is yours Father. My life in your hands.
