To all the Racers who might be teetering on the idea of going home or daydreaming about the comfortable life you left behind in America,
I write this for you.
I write this because I’ve been there.
I’ve ached for home.
I’ve closed my eyes and pictured myself waking up in my queen size bed.
I’ve imagined how much easier life would be if I just went home.
I’ve counted the cost and decided it’s just “what I want to do”.
I’ve been ready to give up on my Race.
Month 1 and 2 were quite the struggle. I didn’t want to buy into anything the World Race had to offer.
Vulnerability
Community
Fundraising
Ministry
New cultures
Leadership
Team time
I was done. I didn’t want to push myself. I didn’t want to “press in”. I just wanted to do my own thing… talk when I wanted to talk, share what I wanted to share, and have everyone be okay with that.
But that’s not what I signed up for. That’s not what God called me into.
He knew what the World Race was like. He knew it was for me. He knew my heart needed to be wrecked. He knew I could handle it. He knew who would surround me.
He knew it was 11 months.
It sure is a miracle that I cannot see into the future. If I had seen all the hardships that I would be enduring, I would have politely declined.
There were plenty of team times I wanted to leave.
There were many moments I grew extremely annoyed of community.
There were times I laid on my bed knowing home was 100 times better than this.
And there were many thoughts that ended with “God cannot be real if He has me here in this mess”.
—
I packed up all my belongings. I sat on my collapsed REI tent in hopes that the pain would go away. In hopes that God would finally tell me “it’s time to go home”.
My squad leaders, Vanessa and Stacy, took me into the light. They held my hands. They prayed and tried to make sense of all this pain. But they knew God wasn’t calling me home. They could see I was just binding myself behind bars. I was choosing the easy way out.
Are you choosing the easy way out? Are you not giving God the option to speak into the decision to stay or not to stay? He will speak. He will clear up any confusion.
There is beauty. There is beauty in the pain.
From that moment with my leaders, I knew I had to begin to see the unbelievably bright side. Thankfulness had to overwhelm my fleshly desires. I needed to depend on the Lord for all things. He needed to be the reason I stayed.
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There comes a time in almost every Racer’s mind that home in America has got to be better than this. Well maybe that’s true… surface level true.
There are more comforts.
Have you ever looked at the definition of “comfort”?
1. a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint
2. the easing or alleviation of a person’s feelings of grief or distress
3. a warm quilt
When have you ever been refined and molded into being more like Jesus when you were free from pain? If you want to stay the same through the ages, then throw on that warm quilt of comfort and stay home. Don’t finish the World Race. Give up. Throw in the towel.
But if you want to experience a life with God where you feel FULLY ALIVE, then I urge you to STAY. Press in. Buy in. Let the Lord do a great work in these 11 months.
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Today is my third day at “home” in America after finishing my Race. I notice a complete difference in my attitude, personality, and servanthood because I STAYED.
I did not go home.
I did not check out.
I did not dismiss what God was speaking to me.
He wanted me to stay and I secretly wanted to as well.
You will be glad you didn’t buy that plane ticket home.
It is well worth the wild adventure.
