“What is the World Race?”
“How was your trip?”
“What are you doing now?”
To be honest with you, I don’t know how to answer these questions with a simple, one-sentence answer.
I usually say something like, “The World Race was the hardest, most life-altering year of my life.”
There’s nothing simple about it. It’s unexplainable.
What am I doing now? Well, right now I’m at Project Searchlight, which I’ve been referring to as “post-World Race camp.” If you’ve ever ended an impactful season of your life, you know the importance of figuring out how to screw your head back onto your shoulders, and Adventures in Missions provides a space for us to do that together.
So what am I learning at Project Searchlight? It’s a long list of speakers with different topics all pointing in the same direction reminding me that the path I crave comes from the difficult, beautiful path of living with Jesus.
What does Jesus want for your life? He wants you to live. Peace doesn’t come from right answers; it comes from life with Jesus and knowing that he is with you no matter where or what you’re doing.
The second day here I was trying to sing to Jesus during a daily worship session, but I kept thinking negative things about the people around me. I tried my usual way to focus on Jesus, asking Him to help me focus on him alone, but it wasn’t working. Through my frustration, I heard, “Open your eyes.” What? Open my eyes? But Jesus, don’t you know that I get so easily distracted?
I did it anyway, but when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the dark room. I was sitting on an overlook next to Jesus. Rolling mountains and trees spread before me as far as the eye could see. He said to me, “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah,” I breathed.
“I made it,” Jesus said with a loving smile. “This is my church. Look at it. Each of these trees have grown up differently, but look at how they move to my breath together. Some have cracks, some have rotten roots, some have broken limbs, but together they are this!”
I just sat there with him and stared at his beautiful creation. Even though all of the individual people of the church are encountering different things and have had their own unique set of experiences, they together make a beautiful creation.
Is the way I was worshipping before wrong? No. It once was a revelation to me to worship God with eyes closed, but I’ve been trampling around that battleground for so long that the enemy, who’s watching me all the time, knows all my moves. I can’t keep attempting the same sick karate chops (although they worked really well for a while), but I have to start making new moves to move forward.
I have to try something new and uncomfortable. Something ground taking and ground breaking.
Are you doing the same thing over and over again? The enemy knows your moves now and maybe God is asking you to try something new, but you’ve never tried the double backflip black-belt high-kick before, and it sounds scary. Or maybe the trees have grown tall and the grass is high, and you’re not sure what’s out there. But the coolest thing is that Jesus has already conquered this battle ground. He KNOWS what you need to see next and what moves will gain the most ground.
OPEN YOUR EYES! This battleground is yours for the taking. When God asks you to try new things, just do it! Even though it may be out of your comfort zone, it’s within your war zone. God wants to take new ground with you.
