“So, what’s the World Race?”[the short answer] “It’s an eleven month long missions trip to eleven countries.”“Wow. So, what did you do?”. . .
Google’s code of conduct is “don’t be evil.” Joe Bunting‘s challenge this month – probably throughout his Race, like many Racers – has been to do good. Perhaps I’m revealing a bit too much, but it’s difficult to impact a place and a people within the span of a month. Many of us go into a village or a church then, I believe, leave it better than we found it; because we’re a hopeful bunch, we work on how much better we can help transform a place. He writes of the first day of his team’s ministry in Eldoret, Kenya:
Steven Pressfield, one of my favorite writers, says the thing you fear doing the most is the thing that is most important to you and to your growth. I say this because I don’t want you to think Lauren, Matt or I are some kind of heroes, super-Christians who preach hour long sermons in between saving orphans. This is hard stuff. It’s even harder starting something all on your own. There is self-doubt, fear of failure, fear of the unknown all at your back trying to drag you down.But it’s worth it. Doing good is hard, but it’s worth it. It’s important to your soul. That’s why Jesus keeps telling his disciples, the Pharisees, everyone, how important it is to help people.
. . . Maybe we just don’t care enough, all of us, me included. Maybe like me earlier, caring costs too much, [it] costs the descent into fear.
It was our team’s day off. I was excited. I planned on going to the coffee shop to Skype, write e-mails, and catch up with myself; but I was then asked to go help another group with their ministry. Again I did not want to. I rolled my eyes and said, “If I have to, I will.” I know my attitude was not the best and did not reflect Jesus. It was not till the late afternoon when we had to go, so I went to the coffee shop. . . After an hour of that I had to go do ministry. At that point all I had done was not what I planned, but everything I needed. . .
Sitting waiting to leave for ministry I was still trying to convince myself to go. I was thinking of every excuse in the book, but knew I had to go. I dragged myself out of the chair and into the car. I started to ask God if I had a right not to serve when and where he wanted me to, just because I thought I deserved a day off. He reminded me about the Sabbath day and the conversation he had with his disciples about healing on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-13).
“It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath,” Matthew 12:12. It was and is not my right to say no when God needed me to serve, even if it was the Sabbath (do not get me wrong, God does delight in rest but we need to still be willing)…
If the World Race has only done one thing for me it has given me an avenue to own the broken pieces of garbage, admit them and, to some extent, embrace them. And in the midst of just being who I am, brokenness and all, the Lord has come in with gentleness and care and begun to form a beautiful masterpiece out of my mess.
The wonderful thing is that the Lord is doing this with every person on my squad. He finally got us to places of brokenness and abandonment and now he is showing us what grace and redemption look like in the middle of a restoration process. And the Lord has very strategically placed specific people on this race into my life to help me heal, to help me find freedom and grace. To learn from and to grow with. To be there when I needed to cry and when I needed to scream. He has given me people who love me for me and understand the garbled mess I really am because they are dealing with their own trash pile, too. And the Lord has graciously allowed us to walk alongside of each other for such a time as this.
Last night one of my sisters, my bosom buddy if you will, peeled off another layer of her own stuff. It was just one of the most beautiful nights of my life.It was messy and not well put together. There was no plan or formula. I didn’t always have words to say. Most of the time I didn’t know what to do. We just needed Jesus. We tried to pray and it seemed volatile but I knew the Lord was in this thing. She sat there and cried. She groaned in a desperate kind of way. She recounted to me the hurt and pain people in her past have caused; the decisions she made out of despair and hopelessness. And I knew she was going to find freedom one way or another.
After awhile another one of the girls came and joined us. Thank God for this mighty woman who walks in love and authority but displays more kingdom freedom than anyone else I know. She came and she just sat with us. And as we sat there she spoke life and truth over my hurting sister in the most real and genuine way I have ever seen. It wasn’t nice scriptures and futile attempts at finding the right words. It was messy, raw and real. It was brokenness at its finest. But Jesus was smack dab in the middle of the whole thing. And he might have thrown out an f-bomb here or there, too. Because when we hurt he hurts. And he is more concerned about meeting us exactly where we are at than putting a band-aid of biblical to-do’s over our wounded hearts. He comes in and uses the messy salve of grace to ease our pain.
