Some days I just want to be home, and some days I feel like this opportunity is rapidly slipping from my grasp. I cannot even begin to express the gratitude I have for the people who have supported me financially and emotionally, who have prayed for me, who have messaged me or emailed me, or who have simply read my blogs.
When I signed up for the Race, it sounded like the coolest thing ever. It is and it isn’t. Sometimes the situations genuinely suck. Sometimes they are ridiculously awesome. Often it breaks your heart in half to leave the community you’ve lived in, loved, and prayed for all month.
There are things I don’t ever want to forget about the Race. There is the sense of gratitude you feel just for snagging a window seat on a bus so you can feel a breeze. There is learning that every person you pass is worthy of eye contact and a smile because they are image bearers of our great God. There is writing furiously in your journal after a terrible day and feeling somehow comforted by the invisible, ever-present God. There is watching 8 elementary school children understand that Jesus died for their sins and worshipping God. There is watching women weep as they worship God. There is listening to your teammate get up at 4am to chase chickens with a mop. There are so many memories.
Mostly, though, I am grateful for the Race because it has challenged my view of my Savior. I found out about this Race thing through a couple of friends who had done it. I applied and got accepted and somehow convinced a bunch of people to donate their hard-earned money so that I could travel around the world and tell people about the Gospel. But I know a very small fraction of that was actually me. God created me. He designed me. He knew I was built for adventure. He poked and prodded and nudged my heart, and I was wise enough to be obedient to those inklings. He is the one who provided financially, through the hands of friends and family and strangers. He is the one who has been graciously faithful to reveal himself to me when I ask for more of him. And such has been the case lately.
I’ve been convicted of the integrity (or lack there of) with which I present and share the gospel. It has been a couple of months in the making, but as I’ve listened to people talk about their relationship with Jesus and what they’ve read in the Bible, it occurred to me that outside of Jesus’ death and resurrection on my behalf, for my sin, I don’t really know Him. If I’m sharing the best part of myself with strangers, I want to at least be honest when I say that Jesus is the best part of me.
Let me start by saying that my pre-Race picture of Jesus has been completely wrecked, in part because I’ve read more about him in the Bible than I ever have, and in part because I’ve met people to whom Jesus is everything. That changes perspective. If that’s what I came to sell, I need to be a consumer, too.
So I read. I read the gospels. I read a couple of books. One of my favorite quotes from a book called “A Severe Mercy” by Sheldon Vanauken, is about how the personality of Jesus that is evident in the four gospels was essential for conversion.
“The personality of Jesus emerged from the gospels with astonishing consistency. Whenever they were written, they were written in the shadow of a personality so tremendous that Christians who may never have seen him knew him utterly: that strange mixture of unbearable sternness and heartbreaking tenderness. […] Christianity had come to seem to us probable. It all hinged on this Jesus. Was he, in fact, The Lord Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, the Christ? Was he, indeed, incarnate God? Very God of very God? This was the heart of the matter. Did he rise from the dead?”
Here are some truths I can share about Jesus that have come alive during this quest:
1.) He met tangible needs. He healed, fed, and hung out with people. He didn’t ignore spiritual needs, but he also met the physical needs that were presented to him.
2.) Jesus wasn’t a “good guy.” I mean, he was, but not by the standards of his society. He, pardon the expression, raised hell in the Jewish community. If he said the things he said to the Pharisees to the average church-goer today, he’d probably catch just as much flack. Since we’re a “civilized bunch,” we’d probably argue that we, at least, wouldn’t try to kill him… we’d just dislike him. And to that, he’d probably say, “If you have hate in your heart toward your brother, you might as well have murdered him.”
3.) He hung out with some jacked up people. Jesus, in my estimation, would probably be friends with all kinds of people we (I) would consider all types of “bad influences.”
4.) The search to know and understand more of Jesus is somewhat maddening. He is God. He is human. The combination must have been absolutely infuriating. Can you imagine doing day to day life, and comparing your own life (as is the human tendency) to his? Granted, with our modern standards of success and “making something of yourself,” Jesus probably wouldn’t look like much of a guy: A carpenter at his dad’s business who seemingly got kicks out of riling up the old, holy men of the community. I digress. No matter how much you learn about Jesus, there is always an air of mystery that envelopes it. You understand and you believe, but not necessarily fully. Many would say, “This is where faith comes in,” and I don’t disagree entirely, but sometimes reading about/praying to Jesus feels like asking your Dad why the sky is blue over and over again and always getting the response, “‘Cause,” or the occasional, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” *To be fair, the answer “Because I said so” would legitimately apply to that question because he did actually speak the sky into existence.* I’m hoping and praying that a deeper understanding of Jesus continues to come to me with age, as it has up until now. But I’m also hoping for a deeper innocence to accompany my faith, as I am haunted by the words, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Luke 18:17)
5.) Mercy is at the very core of who Jesus is. Even in his scolding of the Pharisees, he offers them an invitation to repentance and faith in him (resulting in eternal life and communion with God forever). There is no understanding this. We can emulate mercy, because we have bits of our Creator inside of us, but it is not our natural inclination, thanks in large part to sin. We will never understand fully how God can demand justice and blood for a sin that was committed at the foundation of the earth, the of remnants of which is written into our very DNA. We were destined to fail God, thanks to our first parents, and God did not ignore this. Instead, he bridged the gap, became flesh and blood, lived immaculately, and willingly died in our place for our sins– because he demanded perfection that we couldn’t give– so that we would forever be united with him. In the human brain, this does. not. compute. We are grateful to experience love and sacrifice on this level, but I don’t believe we’ll ever understand it.
The cool (and moderately frustrating) thing about this whole relationship with Jesus thing is that I am fully known by him, but I may never know him in full. A lot of people subscribe to the idea that when we go to heaven, we’ll get all of the answers we desire. Who is to say, though, that we’ll even feel this innate need to know, then? As it stands, I have until my last breath to continue reading about Jesus and making observations about who he is. I would like to say that the revelations of Jesus’ character I’ve just shared with you have awarded me copious amounts of spiritual clarity. In reality, though, the more I find out about Jesus, the more I want to know. It’s kind of like when you have a crush on a guy and you ask all of your mutual friends for the dirt on him. Every piece of information is valuable. The same goes, only to a higher degree. My eternity rides on the validity of what I choose to believe about this God-man.
And that’s just it. When it comes down to it, love, belief, doubt, hope– each of these is a choice. I choose to love Jesus, believe in his deity, and hope in his death and resurrection because I have heard him proclaimed, I have watched the sick be healed and the demon flee with the mention of his name, and I feel the Holy Spirit at work within me when I am convicted of sin, prompted to pray, or motivated to proclaim his story. It is crazy to understand that he has used my story, broken and jumbled as it is, to bring people to face their own choices in light of his revelation of himself to them. For all of this and so much more, I remain humbled and grateful.
Grace and peace,
Sarah
