Why am I going on the World Race? My sister asked me this question a while back. My answer… “I want to travel, I want to be more independent, and I “think” God is calling me to go.” Apparently it was far from convincing. She called me out on this today. She asked me to think about whether or not I really am called to do this trip. For the last 4 hours I have been thinking about her words, and questioning my motives.
I think that some believe that in order for you to serve God, it has to be against your own will, or go outside the norm for you. That is after all how we know God’s voice so often. It opposes our own judgments and desires. Look at Jonah, or Paul, it took divine intervention to bring them around.
Truth is I do not have a direct calling. I do not have a burning bush or stubborn talking donkey. I don’t even have a big fish to swallow me up and drag me against my will to the place where God wants me to be. Neither divine intervention, nor audible voice has affected my life to make me believe that this is my “Calling”.
But let me tell you this, Christ came into my life in a big way when I about 13 years old. I was that Bible thumper, gung ho Christian that annoys people because he is so in love with the Lord. I was 22 years old when I for the first time in my life really stepped away from God. I had decided that my life was going to be “my life”, and though I didn’t run far in comparison to many, I did step away from the path I knew I should have been on. It wasn’t until around may of this year that I came to my senses and straightened my act out (Thank you once again Missy). I fell back in love with the god of my youth. I want to be as insanely passionate as I once was, and this trip is one way for me to do that.
I believe that is was just over a year ago that my youth pastor and dear friend, Missy, told me about this trip called “The World Race”. She told me I should check it out. So, I watched the video on it and was quite torn. At the time I was still doing my own thing. I wanted to go, but would not put words to it because in truth I wanted to do my own things more. Yet I found myself going back to that website and watching that video over and over. The more I think about it, the more I realize that those so called “selfish desires” of mine were actually very similar to what this trip is going to be. I want to travel, to see the world. I have this growing desire for the adventure of meeting new people, and was in the midst of my planning to move to a new place where I knew little to no-one in hopes of doing just that. I long for independence, a chance to see how I do on my own; with out everyone I know hanging around to pick me up when I fall. I really just long for a change.
Though I do not have some audible voice calling me to the ministry right now, I do have a willing heart and desire to go. This trip lines up with all of my own growing desires, and I fully believe that “call” or “no call” God is going to use me to do his work. I can’t help but think of Phillip on the road to Damascus,
Acts 8:29-30; “The spirit told him, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it’ 30 Then Phillip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Phillip asked.”
The angel did not say “Witness to that man.” He did not tell Phillip to do anything but stay near that chariot, and when Phillip saw that there was an opportunity, call or no call he took it upon his own free will to honor God with his life. In spite of that, the man decided to be baptized. Lives were changed because Phillip decided to do more than what the audible voice of the spirit told him.
Now perhaps the spirit provoked that a little bit in Phillip by sending him to the chariot, but Phillip did what he did on his own desire to serve our God. Perhaps that growing desire to travel, become independent and meet new faces is just that, a “provoking of the spirit”. Now is my time to choose to honor God with my life on my own free will. I believe that God wants us to “choose” to live for him. Not just be there when He calls, but to truly lay down our nets and follow him daily. He wants us to be a part of His miracles, and a part of “the” story. He want us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter those in need, and do it all in His name. Most of all, He wants us.
So, am I supposed to be on this trip? In all honesty I don’t know. But I am going.
This Road I Walk
It is for my own desires that I walk this road,
But I give more purpose to it than just my own.
Part in hopes to quench this thirst,
And part to make my savior known.
I will go where I must and do what I can,
As both purposes fulfill a plan.
I pray thee my Lord that you be glorified in this,
And thank you for opportunities and bliss.
It is for my own desires that I walk this road,
But I give more purpose to it than just my own.
