Launch.
Here we are. Just like everything with the World Race, it’s not what I expected.
I didn’t expect to not really cry at the airport, saying goodbye to my family.
I didn’t expect to be the one saying, it’s going to be ok.
I didn’t expect to start crying AFTER I arrived at launch, just at the mere thought of them and what I will miss in their lives this year.
I didn’t know that God would have to re-wreck my heart, and re-break barriers I put in place.
I didn’t know that He would already start pointing out lies I believed about Him and myself.
He is teaching me that He is the ultimate prize. If I don’t leave this race realizing that, and having Him be absolutely above all else in my life, it will have all been for nothing. That realization and sacrifice and death to self begins now.
He is telling me, you cannot have anything from home holding you back. Everything, everything must be surrendered to me. Keep walking the walk. This is YOUR race. Run it well. Pursue ME with everything you have.
No matter how much I love my family, how much I will miss everyone, Jesus is more. Knowing Him is worth the price. Comfort and security, those things cannot have a place in this. My only comfort and security must be found in Him.
I want this year to be a year of abandonment.
When Jesus says in Luke, take nothing with you, He means it. I want to live that life of reckless abandonment, taking nothing with me that could hold me behind.
He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere. Luke 9:3-6
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:57-62
I don’t know what this is going to look like. But it begins now.
