A little over a year ago, before I signed up for the race, I began an actual relationship with the Lord. Not the relationship that I was handed by my parents or the relationship that I thought Church attendance and general good behavior gave me. I met Him and began to run after Him with everything that I had, but I was treating sanctification like a workout goal. It was as if my relationship with God was a grind that I needed to embrace because I loved God, rather than the most joyful friendship. I signed up for the race with that mindset. To me, the race was just a long and difficult task that would push me closer to God and strengthen my metaphorical Christian muscles. Soon after I learned that He didn’t want my effort, He just wanted my love. (My previous blog Simple Love explains this revelation and change of heart). Although my mindset to my pursuit of God had changed, I was still signed up for the World race and needed to prepare myself for something long and difficult. Don’t get me wrong, I was still so excited, but my reasons had shifted greatly and I now needed to begin learning what it looks like to rely on the Lord.
I showed up to Atlanta bright-eyed and excited like a Kindergartener on their first day of class, and much like a Kindergartener going to school, my idea of what I was stepping in to was miles from reality. I pictured the race as some elevated cultural and spiritual experience where you grow exponentially every day and the awe and beauty of different parts of the World are enough to keep you from ever getting complacent or homesick. Although I was far off, I have grace on my past-self. Having never even been on a short-term mission trip, I had no idea what to expect, and I’d still prefer my ignorant optimism over the alternative.
After the first few days, or maybe even weeks, the initial excitement was gone and I was left in a place that I had never been before- Far from home, no way out, and more than eight months until I was back in the life of comforts that I had always known. Being in unknown territory, each day was a new opportunity for me to figure out how someone ACTUALLY relies on the Lord when all of the crutches that I always had handy were taken away. A lot of days have been hard, and as I sit here with less than you 40 days left, I still experience hard days, but I’ve learned such a valuable lesson. Perhaps the greatest lesson the race has taught me so far is what faith actually is. Faith is not something that “good” Christians muster up when a situation is desperate or the hope that there are better days to come. Faith is the beliefs that we hold deep in our hearts and mind, far below our common thoughts, and even farther below our actions. Everyone has faith in something. It is impossible to function without faith. What we choose to put our faith in is what makes the difference. Faith in ANYTHING besides God and Scripture is misguided faith. I began to realize how painfully easy it is to operate everyday out of faith not placed in God. I often had faith rooted in my own understanding of my situations, widely accepted worldly views, or even religious traditions and the check-list of Christianity. Thankfully I’ve been shown that some of the things that I have depended on to sustain me in the past are not sufficient long term. How could they be? Only the Lord was ever meant to sustain me. I’ve been humbled by the fact that consistent morning devos, Christian music, or a church leadership position in my past can’t sustain me. For me, it had been easy at different times to convince myself that these things (or several others) were sustaining me, when in actuality they were just my bit of Christianity for the day or a piece in my identity that covered the guilt I would feel about living my life for myself, rather than in dependence on God. Its easy to lean on these religious things or “Christian” actions because dependence in something that I can do requires no faith. If I think that my Bible reading in the morning will equal dependence on the Lord, then I am both misguided and lacking faith. Faith is trust in what you cannot see (Hebrews 11:1), NOT a trust in something I have done, or something I can see. The difference comes when reading the Bible pushes me to trust on the Lord and to see His goodness. I should finish a morning bible study feeling equipped to now walk in full trust of the Lord throughout my day, not feeling like I have done what is required of me and now my faith is secured. The Bible is a great tool, but faith is a heart posture that leads to actions that allows anyone to actually walk with God. All of the people mentioned in the Bible obviously did not have the Bible (or the entire Bible), but rather understood that dependence in God is the ONLY way.
The encouraging part about walking with faith is that God is so faithful to come through when you trust Him. That’s all He asks us to do. To believe in Him and love Him. He does the rest. He supplies our needs. He creates a path. He works all things together for good. He provides joy. He provides strength. He provides peace. He provides our daily bread. Faith In Him removes expectation of how we assume our day should go and replaces it with a heavenly perspective on spreading His kingdom and meeting the needs of others. Faith gets US out of the way and allows space for God to move in the way He so desperately wants to. No matter what a day may entail for you or I, the Kingdom of God needs to be spread, and people need to be loved. These two things are always a part of God’s plan for our day, and He gives us everything we need to complete this mission. All we have to do is depend and He is so willing and ready to do the rest.
