When God first started stirring me to go on the World Race I thought it was an inclination to go out there.
I can’t exactly put my finger on it but there was something glorious about being
“Out there” somewhere.
It isn’t a geographical location but rather a place in my heart. The place of perfection you can only see in your mind’s eye where you wake up refreshed and energetic and you jump into action saving and restoring life. You are the hero of your own story.
It is that place that is living on the forefront of adventure. You can’t imagine what the next day will look like but you aren’t worried about it because today is a breath of life and exhaustion at the same time. I suppose you could call it God’s implanted aspiration.
I believe it to be one of the essential ingredients to getting out of bed in the morning to compelling you move around the world. It might inspire you to sell all you have and give it all to the poor or it could incline you to build a business empire and govern it justly and wisely in the image of God.
It is a beautiful thing…
But, like all beautiful things, our aspirations have a way of being turned against us at times.
Our desire for strength turns to a desire for power to get our way.
Our hunger for truth turns to a need to be right.
Our desire to do things well turns to a perfectionistic obsession.
Our decisiveness turns to controlling situations.
Our aspirations have a way of turning against us… the very good things we want to do become the things that define us as who we are. We resist this of course but there is always this wanting to be there and never happy with being here. The things we want to do and become turn into the reminders of what we are not.
I want to do more but the day just doesn’t have enough time.
I want to be something but I don’t have the courage or direction it takes to get me there.
I get what I want only to need the next thing.
Ironically, the desire to be there is self-defeating because all we can ever be is here.
Every time we get to there we find ourselves unsatisfactionally here and we have to think of some other goal to attain.
The human heart is truly insatiable. And at the pit of every heart in every person there’s a little voice saying
“I am not…
Tomorrow I will be…
Someday I’ll do….
Eventually I will…
One day I think I could…
What if we!?…. Nah, that will never be me…”
This is why we find ourselves planning out our perfect futures and successful lives. This is why in every movie there is a hero. We see the same movies with different plot lines over and over because we believe that one day we will be that hero and we want to watch someone do it!
But not today… today we are… not…
I would like to say that the voice is more profound than it is but it’s actually quite simple… It doesn’t need to be complex to discourage you. It can take that joy of your aspirations and leave you holding on to defeat. It refocuses all that you don’t believe yourself to be and enhances our sense of “not-ness.” Everyone has their own journey and it does not require that you wait until you’re there.
It requires that you fully be while you are here. It does not mean that you be a traditional missionary or make $100,000 per year. You don’t have to be the better than anyone else, skinnier, healthier or even more “spiritual”. Your house does not have to be cleaner or your truck bigger. You just have to come just as you are.
I believe that every man woman and child wrestles with the state of being out of sync with God in one way or another. Sometimes you might hear it referred to as being “far from God”. This can last a lifetime or can come and go as quick as a heated discussion. We have all heard prayers inviting God to be with us… To which I ask the question…
“Where has He been?”
Is He not Emanuel, God with us? Is He out there helping missionaries in a far away land but not with mothers and fathers getting their kids out the door for school or walking beside us as we work? Is he really here in our midst weather we recognize him or not?
Read me carefully when I say that God is not out there somewhere more in some abstract thought or distant jungle than He is here in our midst. He is just as much here as we allow Him to be.
If you support us financially that doesn’t mean that your spiritual act of worship is simply giving money to the “workers”. YOU and I are God’s worker as we support His work in every facet of our lives.
I say all this not to discredit our own journey in going where God is leading Katie and I.
I certainly do not say it to discourage you from giving to us financially. We are ecstatically grateful that some have given to us very generously and we still have a LONG way to go.
I say all of this because wherever you are you are needed here.
You are needed as God’s mouthpiece.
You are needed as God’s manifestation of His endless patience.
You are God’s missionaries whenever you have his aspirations.
There is a greater World Race that we are all a part of every day. It requires you to be 100% present wherever you are. In a world where we will never completely arrive, God is calling us to be exactly where we are for however long he has us there.
like driving a car that has not been finished or tasting the coffee that has not had time to brew.
Every seemingly insignificant moment is a restoration.
Every conflict that is too hot to touch is a brewing.
The being and the going are inseparable.
Katie and I will never be effective there
if we don’t love and serve with a passion while we are here.
You will never find satisfaction in wherever you want to be
until you find peace in wherever you are.
God loves breathing into dirt and making life.
He loves using regular circumstances to make something glorious.
He specializes making nothing into something.
He is surely present the grandiose
but he is most powerful in the whisper in every one of his children’s ears.
Incline your ear to hear His voice. Be alive and active here.
Because that is where Emmanuel is.
