I am currently just shy of two weeks away from leaving the squad I have spent the last 4.5 months with and it has proven to be much more challenging than I ever anticipated.
This is the third squad I have had the privilege of being a part of and the Lord has given me a crazy deep love for them. He’s shown me His heart for them and planted them deep into mine.
Last night I found myself sitting in the prayer room of the church we are staying in this week asking myself the question, “Is is worth it?” Is it worth it to pour my heart out and open up my life to group after group – or even individual after individual – when I only get to do life with them for 5 months? I don’t like it. It’s uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. It hurts and sometimes makes my eyes leak. It takes me to a deeper level of investment that makes it that much more painful when I leave them.
As soon as I asked the question, I knew the ‘right’ answer was, “Yes, of course it’s worth it”, but I wasn’t ok with just knowing the right answer. I needed to dig and wrestle and figure out, for me, if it’s worth it enough to be fully committed in doing it again. In five weeks, I get to start this journey all over again.
New racers, new co-leaders, new mentor, new countries, new locals, new culture, new people to trust and to be raw and real with. Honestly, the thought of all that sounds exhausting and I have no interest in doing it half heartedly. So, am I really ready to do that? Is it really worth it?
I ‘knew’ the answer was, “Yes”, but first the answer was, “No.”
If the reason I’m doing what I’m doing is to invest in a life, or have a conversation that leaves me or the other person changed, or to ‘make a difference’ or whatever other good reason I can come up with, then they answer is, “No. It’s not worth it.” It’s not worth the time and emotion I invest. It’s not worth the sacrifice of weddings and births and lives I’m missing out on because they go on without me on the other side of the world.
It’s not worth it because all of those reasons point back to me and my performance and the way I feel about what I’ve done at the end of the day. It’s self-focused and the reality is, it’s not about me. Not at all.
But if the reason I do what I do is that I want – no, need – to be obedient to the Father, to see more of His heart and His character, to be broken over and over again so He can continue to put me back together in a better way, then the answer has to be, “Yes”.
If the reason is to look more like Him every day and in that process affect and reach the lives around me and point them back to Him, then Yes. A million times over, Yes. It’s worth it. It’s worth the exhaustion and the emotion and the tears because it all points back to Him and He is worth EVERYTHING.
I am so grateful for the life I am getting to live. I love it, but it’s hard. There is no way I could live this lifestyle of constant mobility – physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally – solely in or of myself. I constantly have to refocus, reprioritize and reevaluate my motives. That’s the only way I can continue to do what He has clearly called me to in this season.
“Give yourself away, without reservation, and trust me.”
That’s what the Lord told me last night, so that is what I will choose to do.
