AT the beginning of the race, we all chased the same idea, change. The next nine months of life together would embrace our deepest memories and forgotten pasts we never thought would surface. We were giddy with anticipation and hung on the blissful emotions of community, traveling, and adventure. The funny thing is that those three things haven’t changed throughout the race, but the people I see and talk to now are. Each of them seem slightly weathered and have this spirit of agreement that only comes from living through something together. The seasons the Lord has brought each of us through have not left us the same. As month nine has started to roll out, I have thought on these things. But nothing better sums up what I think the World Race or better yet, life really is than a moment the squad had last weekend.
WE discovered the news of a beach trip about a month before we were able to go. So when the time came to load up and head to Durban, emotions were high. I couldn’t wait for the ocean. I couldn’t wait to smell its sea-air and run into the water, totally unhinged from everything around me. I feel the ocean has always had some sort of power to initiate freedom. At the end of a weekend full of GREAT FOOD, cheap TV channels, the Marvel End Game, sandcastles, and moonlit talks, the entire squad headed for the beach. We stopped at this spot that was studded with smoothed stone high enough to climb and see the ocean.
A little farther out, a plateau of rock had been shaved by the waves that seemed to crash over them every half-second. With any get away, especially on the race, scenes like these are magical. After about ten minutes of walking, the squad halted for what the day was purposed for. Seven girls from the squad were getting baptized. Right off the surf, we semicircled each one that headed out and waited. I wasn’t waiting for them to go under the water, but each girl recruited people to speak before they were dunked. The cool thing is that the waves were so loud no one could hear so the intimacy of the moment was locked away by their crashing. So the onlookers had to stand in the sand as each girl was affirmed by their chosen few. I saw the picture of the Gospel so clearly.
THERE in the crashing of the waves, they got knocked down more than a few times. It wasn’t the ideal setting for “baptising” people, but that’s what struck me. I don’t think our moments of saving are at perfect temperature. I think they come in the crashing, in the breaking of our lives. They each walked onto the race differently as they would be leaving the beach that day. I can’t help but rejoice in the opportunity to stand on the banks of change and rejoice with them. This is what it means to walk in His light.
1 John 1:5 says this “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
WE are called into His marvelous light. Light I have felt and stood in. Light that cannot stand the darkness and drives it out. Light which binds all those who are drawn to it. It is the wonderful distinction of painful growth and thankfully, we are not left alone to traverse it.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.” V.7
FOR God not only extends His grace to cover this unholy vessel, but embraces in fellowship through it. His light doesn’t stand singularly as way to live, but by Jesus, the way to live. It asks of fellowship and confession. It leaves no blanketed scars, memories, passions, or thoughts. God is faithful to allow you the joy of His affection and the strength to walk out of your darkness. The girls on the beach that day had done these things. Children of light are not bound under spell but are championed in relationship. The light the Lord has for us will never leave us to our own. It will, adversely, reclaim our hearts and position them again to walk.
“I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
I am writing you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” CH.2 V. 12-14
I pray as I walk in the light, I am willing to let go of the dark.
Love you all,
Will
