Hands Wide Open REVIVED
The first time I looked at my new, bare CGA page, I knew I had to repost my first words written on my World Race page. Here’s the revival of the same truths:
Right now, in this moment, in this season, I am rejoicing. Rejoicing that I am about to spend the next semester serving the God I love.
Now 3 years ago I felt God pressing into my heart the word Go. It’s kind of insane how two letters can change the trajectory of your whole life. These past years have been seasons of prayer and questioning and going to God asking what the heck do these two letters mean and where I am supposed to go? I just finished the World Race! There were points where I thought God wanted me to go back on the field and there were points when I thought that I had to go to college. A whole 3 months I spent stalling a decision on where to go and what to do when I returned to the states. But God continues to tell me the only way to “go” is to be a light exactly where you are.
If there’s anything I’ve learned it’s this- Christianity is a lifestyle, not just something you step into on a mission trip or at church. Pursuing the Lord doesn’t always mean going over seas, sometimes it’s much harder for us to follow God when he says love your neighbors and your coworkers and your peers well. Pursuing the Lord means that your life isn’t just yours anymore, it’s his. It’s recognizing that his will for your life is turning into your will for your life. It’s stepping into situations you would normally avoid, jumping into conversations that scare you, walking into a room with no expectations except that the Lord will be present. It means walking into every single situation with hands wide open and ready for God to move.
Actually doing this can be so hard though. We are still in the world, which means we still have to go to school or go to work and figure out how our new life in Christ is going to enter into our world. For me, this meant I still had to submit college applications. But I missed the deadline. All around me, my squamates were locking in roommates, fundraising for team leading, and choosing classes for the fall semester. And I had nothing. In Cambodia, as deadlines were passing and plans were falling through, God never stopped being faithful. He sat with me in the indecisiveness, in the wild ideas, in the questioning and the surrender.
Just a month before the program begins, the Center for Global Action (CGA) has landed in my open hands. Trust, surrender, and the unknown are hard for me, but every lesson and affirmation of who He has only testified to his faithfulness. All of this has led me here, and now I get to continue playing a part in letting the Kingdom overcome the world around me. I get to step out of who I am expected to be as a college student for one more semester and continue walking in the position of “full-time missionary”, a role that God calls all of us to, at home or in India, in college or at another AIM program.
