“Changed my Life”

Hey everyone!

What an honor I have to write the last blog of this “world race”! And what a journey it has been! 

I left for this trip on January 1st this year, so my 2021 has been quite the rollercoaster so far! I’ve gone from a city in Turrialba, Costa Rica to the boonies of a peninsula in Rio Grande, Costa Rica. From a large YWAM base in Potrerillos, Panama to a small house on a jungle island in Bocas del Toro, Panama. There have been many challenges, God has been so good through it all, and I know that I have learned a lot as a result. 

In the first two weeks of January, I wrote a blog about remembering your resolution and getting back on track if you’ve fallen off. I want to bring that conversation up again. We sit down at the end of every year thinking about our next “resolution” and how we want to change over the next year. Yet it’s so easy to lose sight of all of that as time goes on and life continues. But it’s still something we all want to do!  Coming up is July 1st. This marks the half way point for 2021. Yeah I know. Half way. That’s insane!

Something I’ve been trying to grow in this year is asking challenging and deep, yet simple questions. The Jewish rabbinical idea of learning is all about experiencial learning. We as westerners typically want facts and answers, then we move on. A rabbi wants wrestling. If you ask a question for an answer, they’ll just answer you with another question. These deeper questions are to help the learner wrestle and struggle with the question themselves. A rabbi would argue that in this struggle, a person truly has to come up with the answer themselves. In this process, they truly learn because they experienced the answer for themselves and discovered the conclusion. Where as in our western culture, we get the “right answer” and that’s all we want. We just ask for the facts and knowledge. We become people that have the answer to everything, yet our lives don’t reflect it. We can talk all day long and tell you the “fact” that 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks”. We can tell you how that’s what Christians lives are supposed to look like, yet it’s just head knowledge. Some of our lives don’t reflect that we “truly know” that verse. No wonder that the church’s “piety” and theology has hurt so many people over the years! 

So I have some simple questions that I want you to truly wrestle with. Don’t just answer them and move on. Actually sit with the Lord and struggle with the answers. Be completely honest with yourself and God. We can go through this list in about 20 seconds, get the “right answers”, and move on with our day. But is that actually beneficial for anything except growing our own self righteousness and pride? I want to challenge that western ideal. 

Questions:

Have I done what I wanted to do? 

Am I currently working on it? 

Is there something that needs to change in my daily schedule to do the things that I wanted to start or improve on 6 months ago? 

How has my life changed in the last 6 months? 

Have I been growing? Learning? Challenged? 

What has the Lord done this year so far?

Now, if you do go through this list and believe that you have succeeded in what you set out to do this year- INCREDIBLE! I absolutely love that for you. I hope that causes you to celebrate with the Lord and propel you into worship for the amazing transformation power of the cross. We can’t truly transform to look more like Him except for His grace. I encourage you to keep doing what you’re doing! Growth is amazing. I also want to challenge you- is there something else that you can grow in over these next 6 months? Can you go deeper? 

Now if you didn’t like all the answers you came to- that’s okay! The purpose of this whole thing is to learn for yourself where you’re at. There’s no failure here, only a revealing of heart. I want us all to truly know and experience God. To have that, we need to be genuine. So if you’ve come to this place, you’re already on a great start! Being real with God is something that’s required for a real transformation with Him. 

In all of this, the next steps should come from God alone. So now, ask the Lord what to do next. What do your next action steps look like? I guarantee that He will help you learn how to grow if you truly want to go deeper with Him. 

My prayer is that these many blog posts over these 6 months have been able to help anyone who reads them be propelled closer to God. Not just knowledge of God, but God Himself. I pray that all I have done and said has only been for His glory alone. I also pray that my life can be an example of His transformative power. I pray that I don’t have to tell you how He has grown and changed me, but that you can see it for yourself. And that all of the glory goes back to Him. 

Thank you for all the support over my two and a half years of overseas and domestic missions. May the mission of love never stop! And thank you for spending the time to read to this point. If you take anything from these blogs, my prayer is that it’s all about His goodness and glory, and it’s always worth it to go deeper, closer, and to obey Him. 

Genuinely love Him with everything. 

Let that love push you to love others. 

To Him be the glory forever and ever.